| re: 'WTF is Next' for Williamstown Festival? | |
| Posted by: portenopete 03:03 pm EDT 09/06/24 | |
| In reply to: re: 'WTF is Next' for Williamstown Festival? - Billhaven 12:18 pm EDT 09/06/24 | |
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| The NT and Stratford have completely different models. Stratford (and its sister festival Shaw) do daily rep with one show in the afternoon, another in the evening and a three-hour changeover in between. On three or four stages each. Usually totalling 10-14 productions depending on financial health. Because their audiences are almost completely from outside their areas, they offer the opportunity to see as many as a dozen different productions in a week. I don't believe that WTF has to do anything as big and costly as what Stratford and Shaw do. With creative designers who understand the limitations that they're working with, I think WTF could stage four small-cast shows with flexible designs. The NT has largely abandoned rep and seems to be running one show in each theatre for 2-3 months. So the most one sees at the NT in a week is probably three (one in each space). I can't speak to LCT's original mandate. I can't share your casual philosophy that WTF "had a long run" and that their disappearance would be some kind of just desserts. Presumably most of the people who participated in the arrangement with Williams College over the decades had a positive take on their experience. Most people who worked in any summer theatre would have stories of egregious hours and demands and would have emerged on the other side of it with some equanimity. That's not to suggest dangerous working conditions should be tolerated, but I don't take a theatre folding its doors lightly. I should say that I'm not a lifelong supporter of WTF. I think I have been three times in my life. But I know many who have revered it over the years. |
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