The Third Theater Trend
Lincoln Center Theater has jumped on the bandwagon and recently announced its newest initiative, LCT3 - a space for productions of works by emerging playwrights. There’s an interesting post on the McCarter’s blog about the recent trend at larger non-profit institutions of setting up a separate stage for productions of plays by untried new playwrights. It’s all well and good - and I actually think it’s a great thing. I hope we soon see works by Jason Grote, Krista Knight and Quiara Hudes at LCT3. (Too many organizations with the number 3 in their title - 13P, P73, etc. What’s that about?) I guess, this begs the question: Why not produce these new plays at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center (w/re: to the Roundabout) or at the Newhouse? Knee-jerk response (I’m guessing): The economics don’t make much sense - it’s harder to get audiences to see a new play by an unknown (when do the economics in non-profit theater make sense, though?) - and critics (primarily Charles Isherwood and Ben Brantley) are less likely to villify a new work by an emerging playwright when that writer’s play is not produced at a theater like, say, the Newhouse or the Steinberg Center. (I’ve heard this latter argument before.) Is that really it, though? Are citics really less likely to trash a show when it’s being produced by a small non-profit in a basement in a downtown walk-up. (Not really… I’ve read some pretty nasty reviews of shows produced on a shoe-string budget.) And then I see how, in the same season that Isherwood gave that horribly dismissive (and unduly harsh) review of Mr. Marmaladeat the Steinberg Center, he gave a similarly dismissive (and again unduly harsh) review of Bach at Leipzig at New York Theatre Workshop - in a less established, more downtown (much more downtown) venue. So what gives? Is it really about real estate? If a show is produced in a 60-seat basement theater, is it less likely to get crucified by the Times? Would the Roundabout’s Speech & Debatehave received reviews that were as good if it had been produced at the Steinberg Center?
Regardless, I think this is a great trend. The bottom line is that, because of these new initiatives, there will be additional theater spaces that are specifically dedicated to productions of new plays by emerging playwrights (I know. People dislike that term - “emerging” - immensely and I apologize for using it. Here at Page 73, we’ve replaced it with “early-career”. Whatever that means.). A stage for productions of work by new playwrights? Honestly, I can’t think of anything better.