LA Weekly - A Theater Lover's Lament:
Watching theater across L.A. is like spending the Fourth of July behind the Hollywood sign — you gaze out over the city and see sporadic bursts of light that have grown less frequent over the years. I once thought the problem with local theater was L.A.’s soaring real estate costs and the consequent pressure the market places on experimental storefront companies to be less edgy and more profitable. Or that it was the famously tawdry motive of doing theater to promote more lucrative careers in Hollywood. However, friends in New York say the same about theater there. A New York Times editor tells me that after a year of seeing three to four plays a week in the world’s center of professional theater, she’s moved by a mere three or four productions per season. Maybe all critics are jaded curmudgeons. But if so, why are theater audiences aging and attendance shrinking?
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