Why Blog?

In an ideal world, theatre becomes a shared experience for its community. It is a moment in time that either resonates sharply with its audience, or fades quickly into memory. This ideal is rarely cherished in a world of mass marketing, of Jersey Boys and endlessly similar re-stagings of texts. It is easy to see why theatre is dying. As the concern of theatre owners becomes, "What will make money?" it becomes easier to cut corners and to forget why we make theatre in the first place.

I can't speak for the theatre community as an entirety, but I can tell you why Blackbird makes theatre. We believe that theatre gives us an open forum to present the world as it is to an audience, for better or for worse. And not to decide for our audience what is right and what is wrong, but rather to simply tell the story and let the audience decide for themselves. It allows us to showcase an issue, an idea, or a story that inspires thought, reflection and hopefully, change.

And specifically, from our mission: Blackbird Theatre Company is a group of artists whose mission is to theatrically express emotion with intellect, beauty with reason, and the way things are with the way things could be. Our aim is to critique contemporary culture by showcasing Utopian and Dystopian forms. We challenge our audiences and ourselves to find the balance between.

So why blog? It is a question I have pondered for quite some time. A theatre blog gives us another way to extend our voice into our community and to examine the questions that will be presented in our season.

Our first season has focused primarily on contemporary America. We started with Nicky Silver's The Altruists, a dark comedy of protesting in the 21st century, which asked us not what we believe in, but rather how we stand up for our beliefs.

James A. Herne's Margaret Fleming, a shocking tale of adultery from the 1890's, asked us to think about the female and male roles in the family and how (if at all) they have changed. It also begged the question - why was this so unbelievable to audiences 100 years ago and why does it seem so common today?

The upcoming world premiere of company member Daniel Jackson's play, Into the Pool or, the Cheshire Cat Mourns the Death of the American Dream, asks us to consider the stories we tell to our children. It also deals specifically with how we move forward with confidence in a world that seems to be barreling towards catastrophe. I'll write more about this show in the upcoming weeks, as our rehearsal process begins.

So why do we blog? To ask questions and to (hopefully) one day have some answers.