Theater For The Future

Well we had *some* press coverage: such as this Performink article.. I think this year’s goal was mostly about making the case and aligning the theater community behind the idea of coming together, celebrating in a creative way, and finding ways of taking what we do and spreading them beyond our normal borders. The capture of images, video, and energy that surrounded the event will I think help us make the case for next year. If this year was about letting the theater community know that World Theatre Day exists and what a celebration of it could look like, 2010 is about letting rest of America know about it and being able to convince them that being a part of it is thrilling. I’m not gonna lie: I pushed the online video representations of theater concept hard, and I’m going to keep doing it, because I think videos like the one we see above are points of entry for all of America to come back to theater. It’s something they don’t get elsewhere.

And I think it’s already rolling. Through the League, TCG took notice about America’s contributions and the resurgence of international interest in World Theatre Day this year, and they are taking torch and running with it, so to speak. I think we are beginning to realize together that this kind of gathering could be a much more leveragable way to raise public awareness and gain public buy-in to theater.

To be honest, we had no idea that it was going to go so well. We hoped for the hundreds of people that we had (did we break 1000? It was hard to get a count on my end) but honestly didn’t know if we could expect 50. Now we know what is possible when everyone comes together for a global gathering like that.

Did you see this? Travis Bedard’s company in Austin did a live stream of their show. Awesome.

I think this kind of “yes, and” thinking that made this party happen – It wouldn’t have happened if the League and the Chopin hadn’t both said “Sure. Let’s do it.” without a shred of doubt – is catching. To me, it’s the antidote to the fear of money problems. It reminds us that we have friends and collaborators that we can rely on to help us think creatively about the hurdles we need to get over.