Wednesday
Jan132010
Theatre (sans theatre) Part Two
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 11:52PM
By Col Cseke
While I don't disagree with much of Jamie's concerns regarding Digital Theatre, let me point out a fairly significant point not mentioned in the post below, and that is that this Digital Theatre phenomenon will expose us to theatre we would otherwise never see. Theatre from different cities, countries, continents.
Example one; In the wake of the huge success of simulcasting high-def Opera performances from the Met in New York in high-def Cineplex Odeon is set to do the same with live theatre. They're going to screen live performances from England's National Theatre, the first screening just a few weeks away.
http://www.cineplex.com/Events/NTLive.aspx
Example two; Last year Stratford did the same with Christopher Plummer's starring in Ceasar and Cleopatra, here's the trailer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgii1mm3q0o
And example three; Edmonton's Northern Light Theatre has put up their annual Halloween production of Urban Tales as a live webcast in addition to selling tickets to the live act.
http://northernlighttheatre.com/season/play2.html
What's great about this is I live in Calgary, I wasn't in Edmonton on Halloween, I did get to Stratford last summer, and I bet I won't be in London England this coming year either, but now I can get exposed to live performances there, either sitting at home or sitting in a movie theatre. I think that's great. Not as a substitution to live theatre, but as another way of being exposed to more theatre. As an artist it's one more way, in addition to reading plays, trade magazines, online reviews, blogs, etc, for me to get to know and understand theatre. It may also be a way for us to get our claws into some new audience members.
It is now possible that the first play a Calgarian will see will be at the Cineplex in Chinook mall and, aside from whomever sells them their popcorn, will have no Calgarian, or even Canadian, involved in the production. Tragic? Awesome? Merely less-than-ideal? I'm not sure, but as with anything new we can either just hope for it to go away (which maybe it will but probably not)or we can look for the opportunities within this new form and have fun exploring it. And if while we're at it we can maybe get some new audience members, say the high school kids that if they weren't being forced to see our production of Shape of a Girl wouldn't see a play before their 18th birthday for example, that's great too.
While I don't disagree with much of Jamie's concerns regarding Digital Theatre, let me point out a fairly significant point not mentioned in the post below, and that is that this Digital Theatre phenomenon will expose us to theatre we would otherwise never see. Theatre from different cities, countries, continents.
Example one; In the wake of the huge success of simulcasting high-def Opera performances from the Met in New York in high-def Cineplex Odeon is set to do the same with live theatre. They're going to screen live performances from England's National Theatre, the first screening just a few weeks away.
http://www.cineplex.com/Events/NTLive.aspx
Example two; Last year Stratford did the same with Christopher Plummer's starring in Ceasar and Cleopatra, here's the trailer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgii1mm3q0o
And example three; Edmonton's Northern Light Theatre has put up their annual Halloween production of Urban Tales as a live webcast in addition to selling tickets to the live act.
http://northernlighttheatre.com/season/play2.html
What's great about this is I live in Calgary, I wasn't in Edmonton on Halloween, I did get to Stratford last summer, and I bet I won't be in London England this coming year either, but now I can get exposed to live performances there, either sitting at home or sitting in a movie theatre. I think that's great. Not as a substitution to live theatre, but as another way of being exposed to more theatre. As an artist it's one more way, in addition to reading plays, trade magazines, online reviews, blogs, etc, for me to get to know and understand theatre. It may also be a way for us to get our claws into some new audience members.
It is now possible that the first play a Calgarian will see will be at the Cineplex in Chinook mall and, aside from whomever sells them their popcorn, will have no Calgarian, or even Canadian, involved in the production. Tragic? Awesome? Merely less-than-ideal? I'm not sure, but as with anything new we can either just hope for it to go away (which maybe it will but probably not)or we can look for the opportunities within this new form and have fun exploring it. And if while we're at it we can maybe get some new audience members, say the high school kids that if they weren't being forced to see our production of Shape of a Girl wouldn't see a play before their 18th birthday for example, that's great too.
Reader Comments (2)
[...] marketed to theatre practitioners only. In fact, the Stratford theatre/film mentioned in Col’s post is targeted to the general movie-going, Cineplex-loving population. Or let’s look even [...]
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