Ever hungry for theatrical news, I’m a big fan of websites that help me to find my way to features and reviews from around the country, and I like to keep tabs on London as well. Consequently, my day usually starts with visits to two key sites: American Theater Web and ArtsJournal. The former is a comprehensive index of theatre stories from the U.S. and U.K., while the latter is a compendium of arts and cultural stories written in English, broken into many categories, including theatre, where typically two to four stories might be posted in a day.
American Theater Web can take some work to wade through, since its editor Andy Propst favors inclusiveness, but there are rewards in spotting articles from cities that might otherwise escape one’s eye. Douglas McLennan and his editors at ArtsJournal give you only their selected highlights. When I happened to scan the AJ highlights this afternoon, I noticed some trends, and I don’t know whether they’re indicative of the bias of the editors, of the current crop of theatre journalists, or perhaps reflective of where theatre is headed.
As of late afternoon on September 13th, of the 21 stories indexed, covering dates from September 5 through 13, eight of the stories were from England — and seven of those from The Guardian. Of the stories from the U.S., I would say that eight were focused on the business of theatre – with four of them keying off of the very same show: the upcoming Broadway production of Young Frankenstein. In fact, by my estimate, only three of the U.S. stories really concerned themselves with the creative aspect of theatre. That worries me.
As I say, many factors could result in this seemingly limited focus, which leans more toward art than commerce in the U.S. articles cited, and I’m not writing in order to slam the editors at Arts Journal. But it does worry me that so little caught their eye that truly deals with the ideas of theatre and the creative impulse behind the making of it, and I worry that arts coverage is becoming business coverage about the arts. There’s certainly a place for such reportage – but I hope its not supplanting stories that will incite people to want to attend. After all, if no one is inspired to go to the theatre, then we know what the business stories will be.
Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 9:51 am
by
Howard Sherman
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