McNulty to Help Redefine the New Theatre Normal

In response to Charles McNulty’s LA TIMES Pasadena Playhouse: A Time to Rethink Fundamentals

I run a theatre and I completely agree with Charles McNulty in his Times piece. Except for those few who are already in the choir, theatre has mostly become irrelevant.

Many of us in the theatre community have been aware of this for some time and are trying to re-envision what the theatre of tomorrow needs to look like. How do we give the people what they really want and need? So that’s the good news; the conversations and reflection have begun.

Mr. McNulty is in a rare position to help this process by starting to cover the hundreds of small LA theatres in the Times and thus, helping audiences get over that vision of theatre consisting simply of stale drawing room comedies. I’m not just talking about reviews. The Times has historically reviewed small theatre, but not much recently as most of the critics have been let go. And even before the cuts, the Times gave it’s major space to the big theatres; SCR, CTG, Geffen, even the Pasadena Playhouse. McNulty needs to find the coolest of theatre events happening and let Times readers know about them.

In my biased opinion, the best events are rarely at the large venues. McNulty is right that the challenge is in getting people to sample what they don’t know to be good for them. But if he joined in that conversation with the theatre community he could help people find theatres that would truly interest them. It would help LA theatres, the citizens of LA, and the Times, which has also been hurt by competing technologies. So come take a closer look at LA’s intimate theatres, Charles. There are plenty of empty seats to choose from.