Passions

`A short time ago Laura Axelrod asked her readership about their areas of interest, their true passions.

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Name your area of expertise/interest:
Everything
How did you become interested in it?
Born more curious than a cat.
How did you learn how to do it?
I haven't.
Who has been your biggest influence?
Everyone
What would you teach people about it?
Don't Do it

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Sad isn't it?

I wish these answers were a little less true.
Perhaps in a more perfect world they would be the tongue in cheek segue into how I spent the last ten years studying with XXXX and am now a certified YYYY, setting up shop in ZZZZ.

Unfortunately, the second lesson of my collegiate theatre life (the first lesson being how to mop a stage) was that I needed to stop being a theater generalist and find a Thing. A niche. A specialty.

Thank you Dan Raymond. You were 100% correct.

I didn't listen.

My love is for Theatre.

Not Chekov, or Beckett, or Mamet, or Meisner, or Sondheim.
I just love good stories told well.

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My only true passion in the theatre is manipulating the audience.
I hold that Art may be audience-less and still be Art, but theatre isn't theatre without someone on the receiving end.

Creating a specific experience in order to create a specific response in a group of people and succeeding? Feels better than anything I can think of.

Any production I have any sort of control of must remain audience focused.

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What is your Prime Directive?
What is your first priority when you set out creating a production?

Technorati Tags: theatre, passions, meme, UNH, audience

Hi... Hello There, and Welcome

Just what 2007 needed, one more theatre blogger.

Exactly.

The more members sitting in the august hall of the (inter)national Theatre Senate the better picture that we all have of what's actually going on in the theatre world. To get a finer grained focus on the State of the Art we need more folks outside of the Theatre Capital of the United States checking in. I am not the best candidate for that job, but as a Theatrosphere lurker for a little over a year, there are too few candidates, so I'll toss my voice into the vat.

So good morning.

My name is Travis Bedard. I am a 32 year old small theatre human currently living and working in Austin, Texas. Like your average small theatre human I have a day job (assistant at an engineering firm). Like your average small theatre human I do not get paid for the ridiculous hours I put into a production.

I am not a world class actor. I am not a top flight director. I am not a playwright. I am not a real designer of sets, lights, costumes, or graphics. But I am more than capable of getting you by with any of them. Which makes me a pretty valuable asset for a small theatre company short of money and folks. But I'm not going to draw anyone to your show.

So if I'm your average small theatre human why read here?

Because I am the average small theatre human. I'm not one break from the big time. My 'career' is what it is. This space will be my examination of what I want my life in theatre to be.

Why do I do this?

Why should I be doing this?

What do I want theatre in Austin to be?

What do I want theatre that I make to be?

This will be my own manifesto for myself, and a space to respond to the memes of the day in the Theatrospere. Please make yourself at home.

Technorati Tags: theater, introduction, austin, texas