“I sense audience fatigue with the idea of solo work, but I balance that with the unique rewards of solo performance,” said James C. Nicola, artistic director of one of the companies, the New York Theater Workshop. “When they work, there is an energy in the room of authentic experience being conveyed that is not like anything else.”
The NY TIMES discusses the pros and cons of solo shows.
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It’s interesting that “budgetary concerns” keep major theaters from producing work that they seem to tacitly acknowledge is more to their taste, more appealing to audiences, and more likely to break theatrical ground, choosing instead to produce work that no one is particularly interested in. This seems like both a bad business model and artistically irresponsible, and could easily be mitigated by sloughing off some of the old guard–the “usual suspects” in NYTW’s particular vernacular–and giving chances to younger, less seasoned talents–writers, directors, and actors. Pay them less and give them the exposure. This may seem unfair, and would certainly be protested by the unions, but think about the fact that almost every theater professional working downtown or under the age of 35 or so routinely works for almost or completely free on projects whose exposure is severely limited by the press space taken up by the “majors.” People deserve to be fairly compensated for their creative work, but as long as that’s not happening, why not take advantage of it by launching new careers and interesting work? Of course, that would require that the artistic directors of companies are willing to take a chance and cease settling for the kind of shows to which season subscribers give away their tickets to visiting relatives.
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