Watching the YouTube founders on The Today Show this morning, my mind wandered to the fact that theatre, with its ancient and personal form of storytelling, may turn out to have a certain business advantage in this era of endlessly duplicable electronic entertainment. As the media conglomerates grapple with the erosion of sales and the proliferation of video-sharing sites and freely traded mp3 and mp4 files, the fact is that theatre is only fully seen and appreciated in person means its relatively secure. Sure, there are people who are sneaking video cameras into performances (and we should all wrinkle our candy wrappers loudly near their microphone — or better still, notify an usher — should we be seated next to them), but what they yield is a pale copy of the real experience, as well as an obviously illegal product. Won’t it turn out to be ironic if the very thing that keeps theatre from being more cost-effective (i.e. the ability to reproduce endlessly at minimal cost), is the unique factor that preserves its vitality and economic value for years to come?
Posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 10:16 am
by
Howard Sherman
Filed under:
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