|
The different approaches artistic directors take in choosing a season's plays tell us something about ourselves by Patrick Rengger |
|
The stage but echoes back the public voice. The struggle of theatre directors to please themselves and to please their public - and to do so while staying afloat - is as old as theatre itself. Tony Kushner's award-winning Angels in America may have drawn capacity houses in theatre-obsessed Edmonton, and both crowds and controversy in Calgary, but in Alberta's smaller cities it could mean box office death. Attitudes to and audiences for theatre in this province are as varied and diverse as Albertans themselves. In Red Deer, you find serious, new Alberta plays; in Lethbridge, musical entertainment; and in Medicine Hat, intellectually challenging works drawn from an international repertoire. Theatres across Alberta reflect the differing needs and expectations of their communities and yet also struggle to make theatre not mere diversion but experience. |
|
Continued in the Winter 1998 issue of AlbertaViews |