Help me to appreciate Plays and Acting and Writing
August 26, 2019 5:35 AM Subscribe
Suggestions for a Play novice. Not real interested in Blockbusters, but some smaller, more accessible productions; w/ good acting and writing.
Or listen? If you're in a large city, you're library probably has hundreds of plays in recorded form.
posted by ubiquity at 5:49 AM on August 26, 2019
posted by ubiquity at 5:49 AM on August 26, 2019
Exeunt Magazine NYC is a good place to look for reviews and recommendations of a whole range of theatre, including more fringey stuff. I'd suggest not only reading with a view to seeing stuff right now, but also reading all sorts of the articles over time (not only for things that you're actually going to see), to get a familiarity with names of writers, directors and venues that produce work that sounds interesting to you. The writing on Exeunt is also good enough it'll give you some context for different types of work, get a sense of where your taste lies within the bigger picture.
posted by penguin pie at 6:15 AM on August 26, 2019
posted by penguin pie at 6:15 AM on August 26, 2019
* pulls up chair and sits down *
I was a drama club kid in high school, studied theater in college, and worked as a stage manager and a literary manager in New York for ten years. I'm also embarked on a similar self-taught "I want to get more familiar with this thing" project, only in my case it's film. Here's what i suggest.
* In October, check out New York's Fringe Festival. This is an annual theater mega-event, with scores of performers from around the world bringing their productions to New York City for a festival. Not everything is going to be to your taste; in recent years the Fringe has been attracting a lot of Ironic Satirical Musicals, like Avenue Q or Book of Mormon, based on the fact that the NYC Fringe was the launching pad for the Tony-winning musical Urinetown, so it may seem like smaller stuff is few and far between. Also sometimes the Fringe will have super-experimental stuff that will make you go "huh?" But sometimes the super-experimental stuff will just work; like one show I saw which was a mind-meld of Shakespeare's MacBeth and the book Fast Food Nation. (I am not kidding, and I cannot for the life of me explain how they did it, I just know from seeing it that they pulled it off.) If you're looking for some guidance through the selection, the Fringe web site will post thumbmail descriptions of each of its shows on its site closer to the date, and Time out New York and The New York Times both review a couple Fringe shows each year.
* Browse the listings on the site Theatermania. They have a pretty comprehensive listing of off-off-Broadway shows, in addition to the Broadway and off-Broadway stuff. That's where you're going to find the "fringey stuff" outside of Fringe. The quality may be sporadic, but it's a very good "in" for theater. That's also where you're going to find a lot of the "brand new play by up-and-coming playwright" kinds of shows, and it may also be where you find the newest productions of existing works.
* For the record: one of the reasons I"m pushing Fringe and the off-off-Broadway stuff is because actually seeing theater is a good way to become familiar. And in New York, seeing theater regularly on Broadway becomes really, really expensive; whereas off-off-Broadway, you're probably talking only about $20 a ticket.
* Finally: read plays as well. Every play you can get your hands on. Works by Shakespeare, classics like Death of a Salesman, solo performance-art stuff like Spaulding Gray's Swimming To Cambodia, everything. This will give you a familiarity with the classics, but also introduce you to stuff you didn't know about; when I was a kid in podunk Eastern Connecticut, I was toying with working in theater but wasn't all that into the musicals that my drama club kept doing. But I read every play I could get my hands on - and that included things like Equus and Waiting for Godot. Those works were very, very different than Oklahoma, I tell you what, and they blew my twelve-year-old mind - but also planted the seed of an idea that "maybe theater is a bigger world than I thought." That made it more likely for me to see the more unusual stuff when I had the chance, and it also charted the course of my theater career (I wouldn't have done Broadway unless it was for a show I really liked, and the kind of shows I liked usually don't make it there); and I am the richer for it. (Actually seeing Broadway productions of Equus and Waiting for Godot are high points of my adult life.)
Hit me up with more detailed questions if you like. I'm retired from theater now but still know people looped into the scene, particularly the Indie scene.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:47 AM on August 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
I was a drama club kid in high school, studied theater in college, and worked as a stage manager and a literary manager in New York for ten years. I'm also embarked on a similar self-taught "I want to get more familiar with this thing" project, only in my case it's film. Here's what i suggest.
* In October, check out New York's Fringe Festival. This is an annual theater mega-event, with scores of performers from around the world bringing their productions to New York City for a festival. Not everything is going to be to your taste; in recent years the Fringe has been attracting a lot of Ironic Satirical Musicals, like Avenue Q or Book of Mormon, based on the fact that the NYC Fringe was the launching pad for the Tony-winning musical Urinetown, so it may seem like smaller stuff is few and far between. Also sometimes the Fringe will have super-experimental stuff that will make you go "huh?" But sometimes the super-experimental stuff will just work; like one show I saw which was a mind-meld of Shakespeare's MacBeth and the book Fast Food Nation. (I am not kidding, and I cannot for the life of me explain how they did it, I just know from seeing it that they pulled it off.) If you're looking for some guidance through the selection, the Fringe web site will post thumbmail descriptions of each of its shows on its site closer to the date, and Time out New York and The New York Times both review a couple Fringe shows each year.
* Browse the listings on the site Theatermania. They have a pretty comprehensive listing of off-off-Broadway shows, in addition to the Broadway and off-Broadway stuff. That's where you're going to find the "fringey stuff" outside of Fringe. The quality may be sporadic, but it's a very good "in" for theater. That's also where you're going to find a lot of the "brand new play by up-and-coming playwright" kinds of shows, and it may also be where you find the newest productions of existing works.
* For the record: one of the reasons I"m pushing Fringe and the off-off-Broadway stuff is because actually seeing theater is a good way to become familiar. And in New York, seeing theater regularly on Broadway becomes really, really expensive; whereas off-off-Broadway, you're probably talking only about $20 a ticket.
* Finally: read plays as well. Every play you can get your hands on. Works by Shakespeare, classics like Death of a Salesman, solo performance-art stuff like Spaulding Gray's Swimming To Cambodia, everything. This will give you a familiarity with the classics, but also introduce you to stuff you didn't know about; when I was a kid in podunk Eastern Connecticut, I was toying with working in theater but wasn't all that into the musicals that my drama club kept doing. But I read every play I could get my hands on - and that included things like Equus and Waiting for Godot. Those works were very, very different than Oklahoma, I tell you what, and they blew my twelve-year-old mind - but also planted the seed of an idea that "maybe theater is a bigger world than I thought." That made it more likely for me to see the more unusual stuff when I had the chance, and it also charted the course of my theater career (I wouldn't have done Broadway unless it was for a show I really liked, and the kind of shows I liked usually don't make it there); and I am the richer for it. (Actually seeing Broadway productions of Equus and Waiting for Godot are high points of my adult life.)
Hit me up with more detailed questions if you like. I'm retired from theater now but still know people looped into the scene, particularly the Indie scene.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:47 AM on August 26, 2019 [3 favorites]
I know you said you want to watch live performances, and I think EmpressCallipygos's answer is great for that. But since you're in NYC, the NYC Library for the Performing Arts has a huge archive of Broadway and off-Broadway plays that were filmed and are available to watch. You need to make an appointment in advance and may need to prove that you have a professional or research-related need to view them.
posted by Mchelly at 1:10 PM on August 26, 2019
posted by Mchelly at 1:10 PM on August 26, 2019
Consider going to performances with audience discussions afterwards; in some cases, the director or dramaturge will talk about their work on the play, or you might get to ask questions of the cast.
Also, some theaters post their program notes online. San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater has a whole collection called Words on Plays that gives you a lot of background and stuff to think about for a wide variety of plays they've produced over the years.
Finally, if you have a chance to see a play more than once, do it! It's great to see the same play with the same cast more than once; it's also great to see the same play with a different cast and set. (I've had the great good fortune to see three or four different productions of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. It was really cool to see what was different and what was similar.)
posted by kristi at 12:51 PM on August 31, 2019
Also, some theaters post their program notes online. San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater has a whole collection called Words on Plays that gives you a lot of background and stuff to think about for a wide variety of plays they've produced over the years.
Finally, if you have a chance to see a play more than once, do it! It's great to see the same play with the same cast more than once; it's also great to see the same play with a different cast and set. (I've had the great good fortune to see three or four different productions of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. It was really cool to see what was different and what was similar.)
posted by kristi at 12:51 PM on August 31, 2019
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posted by Dwardles at 5:40 AM on August 26, 2019