What theatre can learn from spaghetti sauce

“Theatre does not exist on a hierarchy. Theatre exists, just like tomato sauce, on a horizontal plane. There is no good theatre, or bad theatre. There is no perfect theatre, or imperfect theatre. There are only different kinds of theatre that suit different kinds of people.”

This is 18 minutes of your day you’ll be glad you spent watching video.

6 thoughts on “What theatre can learn from spaghetti sauce

  1. Praxis, open up a dialogue about the Summerworks chick-playwright video? I’ve got stuff I want to say.

  2. Sure. It just seemed like there’s was already plenty of dialogue going on about it in that space.

  3. Obviously Malcolm has studied this Howard guy’s research, but does he add a single thought of his own to this theory? I think Gladwell is a hack, and the irony of pitching a “universal theory” on there being no “universal theory” is about as smart as my ass. Honestly, are you going to do anything different after watching this? This should be a PBS history show, it has nothing to do with Gladwell.

  4. That’s a good point Ben. It’s true, this isn’t so much about Gladwell’s ideas as it is about Gladwell telling a story about someone else’s ideas.

    But it interests me for two reasons:

    First, he tells the story well.

    Second, it’s valuable to know your marketing history.

    Is he imparting revolutionary contemporary marketing knowledge? Probably not.

    But sometimes isn’t it useful to go over the stuff you already know – just to be sure you actually know it?

    Marketing fundamentals would probably be useful for many theatre practitioners. Even if only as a point of departure.

  5. i agree ian. well said. thanks for posting this. it’s a great reminder that I as a theatre creative must continue to make the theatre I want to see and put it out there for the masses to choose to see it- whether lots of poeple come or only a few, it doesn’t really matter and if they like it or not doesn’t really matter either because there will always be a group of people (no matter how small) who choose to see it and who will benefit from it. it’s cliche, but i don’t care… you can’t please all the people all the time, but you can please some of the people some of the time… it’s really good for me to revisit what i’m doing, why, what for, what do i get out of it, how do i get bums in seats, what do i want the audience to experience and leave with? the answers to these questions are different depending on what i am working on at any given moment. thanks for the spark of inspiration:) much appreciated.

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