Abercrombie Talks Theatre

In this chapter, let’s talk about theatre’s future, shall we? This is an exercise in the absurd, since I have no idea at all what theatre will look like in the future, and it’s folly to believe anything I say will actually occur. It’s really just an intellectual exercise and has the stench of an after-dinner party parlor game for academics. Notwithstanding, I’m going to do it anyway, because for me it’s a time-killer, something to pass the dreary winter days. It’s also therapy, because I do think about these matters from time to time, and I’d like my ideas to live somewhere else than in my head. It relieves some intellectual tension going on up there. I’m also going to delve a little more into some of my concerns about Scott Walters’ concepts in his new book Building A Sustainable Theatre . This is the book that prompted me to begin this series in the first place. I was intending to write a series like this anyway, but reading Scott’s book gave this series more of a focal point once we...

At first, I thought this next post in the series was going to be about the future of theatre as I see it. But it occurred to me that writing about the future is somewhat pointless if one does not have as a reference point the present state of theatre. So with that, here is a short but sweet post about the present theatrical situation as I see it. As a prelude, let me say that I will be writing in broad generalizations and considering apparent trends. Some of what I will mention will be extrapolated conclusions from the 2022 SPPA. Other observations will come from news stories I have read. Little of it will come from direct experience, as my personal experience comes from my work in my local theatre community, which surprisingly continues to survive and even thrive (the last awards ceremony this past June sold out a 600-seat theatre). Real data is truly scarce in the theatre world, and so I will make do with what my limited resources allow me to perceive. To begin with, I think there is...