Word: theater
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...these reasons and more, the theater community is at its core open to all. The appearance of it being—in Wong’s words—“exclusive and relatively confined” is perhaps a result of specific students putting in extraordinary time and effort to appear in not one, but multiple shows each semester. Moreover, these supposedly too familiar faces of Harvard’s theater begin as newcomers and continue to endure rejections and disappointments every year. Such students should be commended for passionately pursuing their craft, not used as targets...
...truly care about making our campus’s theater as diverse as possible, we must consider that the possibilities of theatrical opportunities are in fact equal and open and that some students are simply not taking advantage of all available prospects. Perhaps some actors, directors, and technicians turn out only when a particular cultural group is putting on a show. At other times, students who are new to theater may be discouraged too easily by a difficult first audition...
...Furthermore, Wong’s suggestion that Harvard’s theater is confined to “precedent” and lacks “risk-taking” is absurd. The upcoming season alone displays an incredibly creative range of productions—with many diverse casting opportunities—from an original multimedia, movement-based production about love and atomic physics to a new interpretation of an ancient Greek feminist comedy. And, while I disagree with Wong’s idealization of gender-blind and race-blind casting as a kind of theatrical cure...
...These criticisms of unimaginativeness stem from a definition of socially conscious theater that is didactic, narrow, and unfulfilling. Some may see theater as “education disguised as entertainment,” but this ignores the wonderful complexity available in the medium. David Mamet, the esteemed dramatist and essayist, put it best when he said, “The good drama survives because it appeals… to the problems both universal and eternal, as they are insoluble...
...other words, great theater does not lecture, does not moralize, and does not give easy answers. It does not resolve stories into neat endings or useful platitudes. Impressive drama prods and provokes, and asks audience members to think profoundly. Relevant theater does not have to be in the style of documentary, torn from contemporary headlines. An audience may find an ancient tale or abstract parable just as resonant. Only through a relentless pursuit of truth, whether uncomfortable or uplifting, can theater inspire the kind of thought and dialogue that makes it meaningfully relevant...