Studio 360, PRI International

April 11, 2014

An old article from the Seattle Stranger keeps making the rounds on Facebook among theater people: “Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves.” Thing #1: “Enough with the goddamned Shakespeare already.”

Writer Brendan Kiley’s rant isn’t anti-Shakespeare, though. He tells theaters, “The greatest playwright in history has become your enabler and your crutch,” and suggests they “find new, good, weird plays nobody has heard of. Teach your audiences to want surprises, not pacifiers.”

Easier said than done. But even if you find the sentiment heretical, it’s worth asking why one playwright — who’d be turning 450 this month — gets so much real estate in today’s theaters.

It’s also curious to note how few plays are ever performed that were written between Shakespeare’s death and 1879, when Ibsen’s A Doll’s House premiered. (By way of comparison, imagine if classical music had no composers between John Dowland and Edward Elgar.)

Is there some alternative canon of classic plays American theaters ought to be presenting? […continued]

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