This has been bugging me for a long time. Not so much bugging as it is irritating the hell out of me. As opposed to theatre that is created for the social elite (something we might finally be getting away from after hundreds of years), we are now leaning towards a highly specialized theatre solely for sub-cultures and sub-cultures of sub-cultures. This theatre specializes in Gay Women's Issues. The theatre on the West side of town focuses on The Southern African American Experience. That theatre over there focuses on Latino Political Issues. The theatre across the way focuses on new works from Northern Irish writers. This theatre focuses on the pubic lice on the upper left side of Abraham Lincoln's beard!

What happened to telling a story? What happened to that wonderful, amazing, revolutionary feat of refusing agendas and simply making art!? Instead of pushing away those who do not belong to the social elite, we are now pushing away anyone who doesn't belong to our little sub-culture, or our pop ideas of what is "the norm". The big new trend is to form a theatre for the sole purpose of furthering a singular agenda. All is well and good if you are an audience member who feels a connection to that agenda. But this is also where the problem lies. Again, the only people who go to these specialized theatres are those people who feel a connection to that material. Why? Because the theatre going crowd has gotten hip to this. They know which theatre produces what work. And if they don't feel welcome by the "specialization" then they won't put themselves in the seat. We are creating denominations to theatre and it is DETRIMENTAL to our well-being.

The "new voices" of our theatre have become so focused that it has left out the true nature of the theatre which is to tell a GOOD STORY. My word, if at least a quarter of the playwrights out there had a political, social, racial, or sexual agenda and actually wrapped an enjoyable dramatic structure around it, I would crap my pants (there are a handful who do, bless their souls). And if theatres out there would start recognizing the good stories instead of the pop-issues, maybe they wouldn't be folding at a rate of ten per month (that's a freakin' lot people). No more issue theatre--unless you're going to tell a good story--please! No more Iraq plays unless you have something unique and interesting to say AND you make it engaging to watch.

Believe me, I share the guilt. I should have been arrested for this more than once. But in retrospect, my guilt can share blame with the fact that we as playwrights can't get produced unless we are "issue" playwrights. We're almost forced to write it! And maybe we should be writing it? Maybe that is our job as artists? There are thematic elements in most of my plays that I believe strongly in, sure. And maybe my themes will become the flavor of the month some day? But I don't want them being produced for that reason alone. I want them produced because, again, they tell a good story.

I think there's something more important here. Something under the covers. I have been privy to a good number of producing companies who, when they refer to a playwright, use words like: black, gay, white, latino, muslim, wiccan, disabled, etc. etc. etc. followed by the word playwright. We are no longer playwrights who happen to be from the Phillipines. We are Phillipino playwrights. We are no longer playwrights who happen to be in a wheelchair. We are paraplegic playwrights. Our experiences make each of us unique, sure. But the focus of artists should be to come together, not to separate by pointless titles that we can't help.

So stop. Please. Produce good plays. Who cares who writes them?

I recently saw a children's theater production with crazy overt pro-adoption themes -- does that count?

But I hear ya, brotha. I get intimidated when I read new theatre reviews and the political opinion pages and I can't tell the difference.

Amen

Ross Howard

(White, male, hetrosexual playwright (and a handsome one at that) who can spin a good yarn . . . and structure? I invented structure!)

Jayme, you have to understand that the reason that all these specialized theatres came up is because the rest of us gay, non-white, female people haven't had much of a voice in the world of theater just look back. So we've had to create our own theatre world which deals with issues we can relate to versus being forced to be relate with the straight, white experience. Because the mainstream theatre world and audience still refuse to acknowledge our own minority experience. It's created a situation where there are so many subcultures that want to be able to bring to light issues that are pertinent to them that we now have a split of mainstream theatre and niche theatre.

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