Scott Walters wrote this earlier today:
To Mike Daisey, I say this: you are the face of this issue, and you have to accept that responsibility, but I wouldn't do much unless you receive some indication from the field that they've got your back, that they are ready to march with you, that they are willing to step out of the rehearsal halls, or put down their beer, take off their hair shirt, and leave the bar, in order to push for change. Otherwise, all bets are off, and you should just say that you were playing a role in How Theatre Failed America, and now you have another role to learn the lines for.
It is interesting that OUTSIDE the blogosphere I have received a great deal of support from working artists and people from all levels of the American theatre—at this point a little over a thousand emails on the subject, and the vast majority (about 25 to 1) are positive, some heart-stoppingly so.
So I think a more interesting question is that if the online view of the show/ideas/etc is much more negative than the rest of the world's (and I'm not totally certain this is true; maybe it's even a minority online) what does that say about the online discussions we're having? One of the reasons to do HTFA was to reach actors, performers, board members and audiences of all types in their seats, because otherwise they'll never hear anything about how the sausage gets made.
Anyway, I'm accepting my responsibility—I'm busy now, but I'm posting all this so I can't be that fucking busy. I plan to have HTFA distributed in some form or forms for open access this fall at the latest, and I'm in negotiations to find other ways of getting it to cities and towns across America. I'll keep running roundtables, meeting with people, kissing babies...all the things one would associate with responsibility.
Blah blah blah. Now I need to go work on IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING and get ready for tomorrow's opening.
8:07 PM
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