A Playwright’s Traumatic Vision -- In These Times:
I see a lot of young playwrights in America writing apolitical works that don’t engage with social reality. Why do you think that is?
Nonprofit theaters rely on funding from corporations and wealthy individuals. It’s likely that liberal audiences and funders are deeply invested in the current structures that have allowed them to make and preserve their wealth, and it’s unlikely that they are truly interested in seeing work that questions the ideological foundations that support their class status.
Artistic directors, who rely on this funding to keep their theaters afloat, are likely—consciously or not—choosing work that appeals to the ideological prejudices of the audiences that sustain their theaters.
This is not a time of great ideological dissent in the art world. There’s a sense among artists today that the world is the way it is and that’s it.
7:53 PM
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