In this article in the NY TIMES,  Charles Isherwood suggests that the Park Avenue Armory be turned into a grand scale permanent home for classical theater. This is just plain wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin.

Just because the Royal Shakespeare Company will install a classical theater inside the Park Avenue Armory for a six-week residency in the summer of 2011 doesn’t mean that NYC needs, or should want, a permanent home for “the classics”.  NYC is one of the most vital, dynamic, contemporary cities in the world, the last thing we need is a shrine to the past. We need more spaces that promote contemporary work, not the classics. We need vitality, vigor and novelty. We need to support the new, not the crusty and old.

Plus, the Armory is beautiful the way it is – flexible, kind of rundown, massive and full of potential. Who wants to permanently disfigure it by transforming it into a classical theater forever?

Sorry Isherwood, but your idea is a big fail in my book.