While God and good art are in the details, I’m actually going to be vague here because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, although I wouldn’t mind if this posting got people to think.

Over the past several months I’ve seen some evenings of short plays that were pretty lacking on all fronts – writing, directing, and acting. I went to support dear friends (whose talent in these shows was quite evident) but at the end of the evening I was questioning why the producers were doing this type of showcase.

Was it in the name of giving writers, actors and directors some experience? I suppose I should’ve polled the participants at the time to ask THEM if they thought it was worth their time and effort. Did the producers feel proud of the work? Did they hope things were going to turn out better? Where they disappointed? Or did they set the bar low and were perfectly happy with the shows?

This isn’t college or even grad school – where frankly, the artistic level at my venues of higher learning was higher than in these productions. If you’re going to charge an audience money, and perform at one of our equity waiver houses, please don’t waive the artistry. Even if you think you’re doing writers and actors a favor by offering them a couple of weekends for their short plays, if the audience gets burned by shallow, obvious plays and hammy acting, they won’t come back.

I said to someone recently regarding my film I’m putting together that, “I’m not just slapping particle board together.”

Less particle board, please.