After seeing the premiere performance of How Theater Failed America in New York, I had said that Mike Daisey’s monologue should be used as the foundation for our discussion seeking new models for regional theatre. But almost simultaneous to this, and in tandem with the monologue’s opening in Seattle, Mike published his essay on regional theatre. This probably would have had little import except that he subtitled his essay the same as his performance. His essay is a harsh rant,…

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The Mike Daisey essay matches well with the longer line of similar rants against regional theatre system Scott Walters has been publishing over at Theatre Ideas. This is Rat Sass, so understand I often use the term rant not as a derogative but as an accolade. I said that I thought How Theatre Failed America should be the foundation of the discussion about building a new model for theatre. I was talking about Mike’s performance not his rant of an…

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If you browse through our history at International Culture Lab you will understand why we are excited that Scott at Theatre Ideas has decided to put the rubber to the road in building an alternative national theatre model. For the last month or so he has been describing in some detail what is wrong with regional theatre in the United States but he is now ready to jump to the next phase. It is fairly easy to describe what one…

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