Just got around to reading the May 29th ‘review’ by M. Scott Skinner’s of “Iraq in 3/3 Time With A Coda”, which I had the good fortune to see at Live Theatre Workshop.
My husband and I just moved here from the North Shore of Boston, and one of the things that attracts us to Tucson is its wonderful theater community and the many theaters and the many new plays, innovative companies, writers groups, responsive audience, and more that exist here. We both hope to become a part of it.
One of the many things we’ve learned about theater and about new plays in particular is advice from the Chicago Dramatists group (which has done a phenomenal job of creating a dynamic theater culture in Chicago), and they feel that the Chicago theatrical renaissance owes much to the reviewers who went to all the plays, who supported the theaters and playwrights and actors through thick and thin, and gave public structure to the efforts of that artistic community. They built audience, and sensibility, and sensitivity, and confidence in what was once backwater Chicago. They did it.
This review is really not much of a help in building the community here in Tucson. It’s snarky, and about the critic and how clever and funny one can be, and not useful or constructive in any way. There was much to say about Iraq in 3/e Time With A Coda, and much good, and there are things that could be better, too, lessons that could be learned, but this review doesn’t try in any way to nurture the playwright, the actors, the theaters that make themselves available for new work, or the audience. It’s a turnoff.
It’s fine not to like a play. It’s fine not to like a production. But it is vicious to put together a review like this. And it does little good except to give a critic the chance to perform some sort of public execution.
I like playwright, I liked the risk he took to put the play on, to direct it himself, I like new plays, I like these actors who took up this challenge, I like people who take risks, I like people who go to plays who share their thoughts and reactions in the hope of making Tucson a greater center of theater.
I really don’t appreciate people who lurk outside the lights and look for signs of weakness to prove ---what? I guess I don’t know what the point is.
Thank you to the playwright, the actors, and Live Theatre Workshop for putting up new plays. I hope to see more.
Leslie Powell
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My husband and I just moved here from the North Shore of Boston, and one of the things that attracts us to Tucson is its wonderful theater community and the many theaters and the many new plays, innovative companies, writers groups, responsive audience, and more that exist here. We both hope to become a part of it.
One of the many things we’ve learned about theater and about new plays in particular is advice from the Chicago Dramatists group (which has done a phenomenal job of creating a dynamic theater culture in Chicago), and they feel that the Chicago theatrical renaissance owes much to the reviewers who went to all the plays, who supported the theaters and playwrights and actors through thick and thin, and gave public structure to the efforts of that artistic community. They built audience, and sensibility, and sensitivity, and confidence in what was once backwater Chicago. They did it.
This review is really not much of a help in building the community here in Tucson. It’s snarky, and about the critic and how clever and funny one can be, and not useful or constructive in any way. There was much to say about Iraq in 3/e Time With A Coda, and much good, and there are things that could be better, too, lessons that could be learned, but this review doesn’t try in any way to nurture the playwright, the actors, the theaters that make themselves available for new work, or the audience. It’s a turnoff.
It’s fine not to like a play. It’s fine not to like a production. But it is vicious to put together a review like this. And it does little good except to give a critic the chance to perform some sort of public execution.
I like playwright, I liked the risk he took to put the play on, to direct it himself, I like new plays, I like these actors who took up this challenge, I like people who take risks, I like people who go to plays who share their thoughts and reactions in the hope of making Tucson a greater center of theater.
I really don’t appreciate people who lurk outside the lights and look for signs of weakness to prove ---what? I guess I don’t know what the point is.
Thank you to the playwright, the actors, and Live Theatre Workshop for putting up new plays. I hope to see more.
Leslie Powell