glass houses
This is rich.
The St. Pete Times theater performing arts critic rips the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center for putting on popular shows instead of being edgy and taking some “artistic risks.”
[Forever Plaid] is being produced for the sixth time in 15 years at the Jaeb Theater. Why is it being brought back when there is so much great theater that hasn’t been done here?
He’s itching for some Stephen Sondheim, which is perfectly fine. But then he suggests you are a bunch of brainless dweebs:
… Sondheim can be challenging, and it is not a sure-fire hit at the box office, … but instead, the Jaeb has played to the lowest common denominator…
It’s as if TBPAC is trying to appeal to those who never go to the theater.
Yeah, that’s you - the “lowest common denominator.”
David Jenkins does a great job in responding to Fleming, and suggests that the local newspaper not only doesn’t help with encouraging edgy, artistic performances
And don’t even get me started on the irony that the newspapers generally bend over backwards to write story after story on Spamalot! or The Lion King, but we fight tooth and nail to get any mention at all for a show like the Beijing Modern Dance Company or the Turtle Island String Quartet or a South American adult-oriented puppet troupe coming in to do Romeo and Juliet in Spanish with marionettes.
, but that they should maybe take a look at their own journalism industry for a great example of pandering to build an audience:
… hard news old school shows just didn’t pull the numbers, but hide a camera in a house where a guy is going to go try to pick up an underage girl and they’re through the roof. People are voting with their remote, and the market follows…
David’s a classy guy. I would have put an image of a TBT* cover in the piece, perhaps with an observation that “It’s as if The St. Pete Times is trying to appeal to those who never read a newspaper.”
Freakin’ hilarious.
Great Job, David! Best of luck with your upcoming production of Tim Robbins’ Embedded, coming soon to the Tampa Bay Performing Art Center.
Disclosure: Sticks of Fire is a proud sponsor of Jobsite Theater.
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July 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
It is a tough thing to be too cool for the room, but it doesn’t help one’s case to champion the middle-brow as an alternative to music-hall nonsense. Innovative art is a tough sell in the provinces and will not, over the long haul, survive without heavy subsidy. Regional theater does what it can under difficult circumstances. Well spotted.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The papers have over-head and a limited amount of space to write in; hence they cut out the interesting and the local authenticity to go for the popular. But when the popular is your selection, you are not editing, you are not delivering new.
Like Amazon’s software to track our buys and recommend products based on our activity. It does a good job of telling what we are interested in, but not in what we might be. It does not introduce us to anything new.
But with the internet we have unlimited bandwidth and limited overhead. We have a medium that can expose us to just about anything. We do still need the editorial function, someone to screen the information for quality and accuracy. Blogs do that well, and I try to do it for the whole community at TampaOptions.com tracking business and cultural events.
Projects like mine, Tommy here at Sticks, Stpetersblog and others are the seekers and the screeners of the avalanche of information on the web, and have the bandwidth and passion to do that job. We have no agenda; we have a superior platform from which to communicate. We do the job of research and editing, the papers follow us.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
“It’s as if TBPAC is trying to appeal to those who never go to the theater.”
This is correct in that TBPAC is making a feeble attempt to appeal to the 90% of the Tampa Bay market that can’t even spell art, now if TBPAC hosted a sports championship……..
July 18th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I hope no one takes that above comment about the Sports Championship as condensing, because it’s the absolute truth.
Where do you see things cut first in local education for the lsst decade-plus? The arts. It starts at that level, the appreciation for theater and stage production and other artistic flairs.
What’s the only thing that seems to NEVER be cut? Sports. Why? To keep the masses in check. If Football was ever canceled at either the High School or College level, there would be riots.
Sports are the opiate for the masses and art doesn’t matter if the money can be handed out to business interests instead.
TBPAC needs to stay solvent somehow… And the Times? What a paradox from a newspaper that’s sullied itself with further attempts at sensationalism instead of substance.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
TBPAC is number one in ticket sales for any North American Performance Hall under 5000 seats. That’s a fact.
They have done a great deal to prove that Broadway and Opera can have a popular audience in Tampa Bay. They are a successful driving force in the arts community we should be proud of.
We have many other venues and artists to be proud of as well. but that does not mean we need to belittle TBPAC. They appeal to a different art segment and they have an incredible marketing machine that is effective.
Yes, we need to promote our other art and theatre resources. And TBPAC is a great example that we have a huge arts market in Tampa Bay, that sports is not the end all we are told it is.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
The main reason sports are never cut from HS or college activities… they make money!
July 18th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
colleges aren’t for profit, Angela. I’m sorry to break ti to you. Football doesn’t “make money” for the universities. It pays itself back. How many hundreds of millions have been spent on arena and training facilities? And then a cheap ticket to the game… You see a profit from this?
It’s the prestige that makes it popular. Not the profit. The potential for glory, all while education itself fails with idiots focusing on the glory and not on the institution itself.