The title of the monologue, and subtitle of the essay, is HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA. It's a broad, sweeping title I fully admit and claim—but one of the things it covers well is how the institution of THEATER in AMERICA has FAILED to stand by its artists, and by doing so finds itself rendered increasingly irrelevant. It's also good for talking about how THEATER FAILED to make itself relevant within the social context of my culture, which would be AMERICA.
There are a number of other ways of interpreting the title, which I generally approve of, but let me tell you some titles it is not:
HOW THEATER TOTALLY SUCKS BALLS AND SHOULDN'T BE DONE ANYMORE
(A Seattle-area media outlet did a point/counterpoint piece with two dim bulbs coming to my show believing this was the premise. As you might imagine, it didn't go very well.)
HOW AMERICAN THEATER FAILED; IF ONLY IT WERE EUROPEAN, THEN IT WOULD ROCK
(A journalist's Q&A was very much along these lines.)
HOW REGIONAL THEATER SHOULD FUCK ITSELF AND DIE
(Au contraire—if I really felt that way, I wouldn't be working to save it, and I'd save myself a lot of aggravation.)
And so forth. If I think of more, I'll post them.
7:21 PM
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