As many groups have already published, it is often difficult for a theatre group to directly respond to immediate political actions. In dealing with licensing and contracting artists, most troupes have to establish a season a year or more in advance. We, at Artists from Suburbia have had our upcoming Suburban Summer Theatre Surge laid out for months. There are ways that we can look at our programming and see what it says about our current situation and there are ways we can draw connections. Because of our mission statement, our season was already intended to be one which stretched and tested our own inclusivity while challenging our audiences’ senses of empathy. Across the nation, artists are responding to the current political climate. Talks and articles about the artist as a citizen are popping up left and right. It has become imperative for artwork to help us move forward, to help us move onward and, it seems, that those individuals who are not ready to do so, are being left behind in the dust. On November 9, I read a trusted favorite play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as part of a project. Originally, I was looking forward to reading something that would take my mind off of the election results and would distract and amuse me. I have never been so struck by the oppressive relationship between Hermia and her father, Egeus as I was that evening. Oberon’s possessive remarks about Titania had never shaken me so much. This comedy that had always made me smile seemed to be suddenly tainted by a world that many of us were not aware of. Every play is different now. Obviously, certain works have begun to strike chords with us all. George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale are resurfacing to the top of the bestseller charts. J.K. Rowling is having a field day drawing connections to her own stories. Hardly a day can pass before it seems like someone is sharing a video from Charlie Chaplin’s The Dictator, or television shows like House of Cards or the border-wall-centric episodes of Arrested Development on social media. We are ready for artwork and stories which tell us how to respond to the world we are living in. Below, I have compiled a list of the top ten plays that, in my opinion, should be widely read and presented in the coming years. - Artistic Director, Andrew Child Top 10 Most Important Plays to Read and Perform Right Now
8 Comments
Allison
2/13/2017 11:37:38 am
I read Death of a Salesman in school for an English class. Really good play with good scenes in it. I like the story of it too.
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Paul
2/13/2017 11:54:46 am
I haven't read any of these. Nor have I heard of them except for the first and last nes. What about Chicago? Into the Woods? Carousel? Classics that we all know and love and still manage to teach us a moral and help us understand other perspectives better. How is there no Rodgers and Hammerstein on this list!!!!! South Pacific was groundbreaking when it reminded us that "You've Got to be Carefully Taught". What about The Sound of Music? Or the King and I. Or a lesser known Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, Camelot. All of them teach us something too. All plays teach us lessons, that's what they are for.
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Katyra B
2/13/2017 09:57:15 pm
Just ordered some of these on Amazon. they sound good, I wanna get reading.
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anonymous
2/18/2017 02:00:39 pm
too political. people need to laugh now. more than ever.
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Anonymous 2
3/14/2017 08:07:08 pm
But there is value in both! Escapism is all well and good, and a good service for all forms of art to provide. But to suggest that art shouldn't or can't also make statements, promote change, or promote ideas in general is wrong! That's the beauty of satire...have a laugh but at the expense of the very thing that might be the source of our current misery
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Josh Pinilla
3/5/2017 10:33:54 pm
My thing is that it doesn't make a difference if you read any of these now or even if you DO them because the only people who will come see them are the people who do not really need to hear them at all. It sucks, but that's the way it is. Sorry.
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Renee Carlson
4/17/2017 05:25:41 pm
Any of the well-loved classic plays/musicals which we are familiar with today, were written for their time in history and the climate of their season's current events. For everything there is a time and a season, right?
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no
4/21/2017 02:17:54 pm
no.
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