A Fresh Start?

What would you do if you had to restart from scratch?

If there were no commonly accepted practices?

If there were no silos, no ruts, no precedents?

If there was only an open stream ahead of you? 

It's easy to get caught up in how things are. It's easy to worry about how to plug in to existing institutions, how to properly resource the field. A lot of effort is being spent on ways to connect existing organizations and build an infrastructure from what is currently in existence.  It's an intriguing concept. One that, most days, I want to fully support. 

But then I'm reminded that it's not an option for everyone.  And when that option doesn't exist, people find new ways of looking at how they want to work. We find new ways of building things and making work.  Connecting existing institutions and replicating infrastructure could be a fantastic new opportunity. But it's predicated on the idea that most of what currently exists should be saved. 

Most of what we see in terms of theatres are either built from ideas with roots in the industrial revolution, or in direct response to them. Both are tied together, and too often, theatres tend to look more like factories, shipping similar productions around the country as an auto-manufacturer would ship parts and cars.  If the factory-esque institutions of today looks nothing like what we see in an ideal future, why work to plug them in everywhere?

If you had the opportunity for a fresh start, or were able to unlearn what you "know" about making theatre, what would you want to create?  I think that's a major question, one that's yet to be fully explored. I wonder what could be lost by skipping it?

Photo  courtesy of davedehetre