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Post by lynette on Jun 16, 2016 11:07:05 GMT
all those texts that say 'beat'....frankly I never understood that. Either a point to breathe or to strike something? I dunno but in a lot of modern texts. I think maybe the actors should sort out this kind of thing. Whereas Pinter's pauses are monumental. Or a pain ......
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Post by mallardo on Jun 16, 2016 11:11:24 GMT
I would think that the common view is that a text (or more than one) is one element in the creation of a piece of theatre. To me, any talk of a text as "the play" is assigning to it a primacy which it should not have because it makes it sound as if the text is the real thing and the production is a manifestation of it. I would say that it is the piece of theatre that is being created, not that the text is being interpreted. There may be a pre-existing text or the text may be written or revised in the course of creating the production but the text should not dictate anything. However, it will still exist afterwards, to be read and perhaps used in future theatre productions.
But the text is not just another element - it IS the "real thing" and any production IS a manifestation of it. If we're talking about a living author willing to collaborate with a director, actors, etc. then, of course, revisions occur but, at the end of the day, the author must have final say. It is his/her play and no one else's. To say that the text should not dictate anything is going way too far.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Jun 16, 2016 11:24:56 GMT
We disagree!
It's not quite on the topic, but I'm reminded of Max Stafford Clark, in the late 80s, telling how Arnold Wesker had then reached the point where his new work could only get a public performance by Arnold Wesker himself performing his own One Woman Plays.
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Post by horton on Jun 16, 2016 14:06:20 GMT
This thread has become very intellectual! I'm so proud how it turned out.
btw I really object to the Cottesloe being re-named (I don't know if that's unpopular, actually)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 14:21:03 GMT
If renaming the Cottesloe turns out to be the popular opinion, then I'll stand up and represent the "happy for it to be called the Dorfman actually" unpopular opinion. Lloyd Dorfman has given a helluva lot to the National, he's had a direct financial impact on my ability (and everyone else's!) to attend shows easily, and at the end of the day it's the plays that truly matter, not the name of the box you sit in while you watch.
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Post by Jon on Jun 16, 2016 14:25:30 GMT
This thread has become very intellectual! I'm so proud how it turned out. btw I really object to the Cottesloe being re-named (I don't know if that's unpopular, actually) I'm fine with the Dorfman given how much Lloyd Dorfman have done for the National with the Travelex scheme and given £7m of his own money to NT Futures and TBH Cottesloe isn't exactly a sacrilege like renaming the Olivier
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 14:39:11 GMT
This thread has become very intellectual! I'm so proud how it turned out. btw I really object to the Cottesloe being re-named (I don't know if that's unpopular, actually) I'm fine with the Dorfman given how much Lloyd Dorfman have done for the National with the Travelex scheme and given £7m of his own money to NT Futures and TBH Cottesloe isn't exactly a sacrilege like renaming the Olivier I know what horton means... To some of us, it will always be the Cottesloe, just as the Harold Pinter will always be the Comedy and the Noel Coward will always be the Albery etc etc... It's hard to get names out of an older brain! Try calling your kids by a different name; you'll understand what I mean.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 14:51:14 GMT
Thing is, it's not the Cottesloe. The overall structure is incredibly similar, but it doesn't feel the same, and I'm still really annoyed that they took away "restricted view" row T, because that was one of the best bargains in town. The Cottesloe had its issues, but I really loved it, and I don't feel anything really about the Dorfman. (Yes, I can claim there's a difference between the Cottesloe and the Dorfman and proclaim to love the former better while simultaneously saying it's cool that they renamed it actually. The renaming is the bit I *don't* have the problem with. )
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 15:15:01 GMT
The fact that it's in the existing shell which is the National, is in the same space, and looks no different at all makes it the Cottesloe to me... But you are allowed to disagree. (You often do! )
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Post by Jon on Jun 16, 2016 15:31:37 GMT
I never feel that bothered when a theatre's name is changed. To me, The Harold Pinter is a fitting tribute to him since many of his plays debuted or played there.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Jun 16, 2016 16:07:36 GMT
I never feel that bothered when a theatre's name is changed. To me, The Harold Pinter is a fitting tribute to him since many of his plays debuted or played there. So can you understand how some people will feel when the name is next changed, say to the Sonia Friedman Theatre in fifteen years' time?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jun 16, 2016 16:13:28 GMT
A little clarification of my comment on authorial staging suggestions. When playwrights write sonething it's then down to others to interpret it, if a playwright demands a singular interpretation then they do their work a disservice. Beckett, for example, whose estate hates even a breath out of place. The dull retread of the same staging as well, showing that directors also fall prey to this sort of thing, such as Jerome Robbins famously demanding his dances be always done in musicals he staged.
On 'beat', I've always described it as the time it takes for one heartbeat.
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Post by horton on Jun 16, 2016 16:16:55 GMT
Completely agree about the re-naming: they will always be the Strand, Albery and Comedy to me. (even though I know the Albery was the New Theatre before).
I appreciate the £7m donation and all, but not sure it has to be recognized with a re-naming- it makes it seem vainglorious even if he didn't ask for it.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Jun 16, 2016 16:23:01 GMT
Cardiff's oldest working theatre is the New Theatre ...
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Post by Jon on Jun 16, 2016 16:27:08 GMT
A little clarification of my comment on authorial staging suggestions. When playwrights write sonething it's then down to others to interpret it, if a playwright demands a singular interpretation then they do their work a disservice. Beckett, for example, whose estate hates even a breath out of place. The dull retread of the same staging as well, showing that directors also fall prey to this sort of thing, such as Jerome Robbins famously demanding his dances be always done in musicals he staged. On 'beat', I've always described it as the time it takes for one heartbeat. I think some shows like West Side Story and A Chorus Line are at risk of becoming museum pieces if they're not allowed to evolve,
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Post by Honoured Guest on Jun 16, 2016 16:30:04 GMT
I think some shows like West Side Story and A Chorus Line are at risk of becoming museum pieces ( Beat) if they're not allowed to evolve,
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Post by horton on Jun 16, 2016 17:00:04 GMT
That lighting design...
And the choreography looked so tame by modern standards.
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Post by Jon on Jun 16, 2016 17:13:32 GMT
That's what killed ACL at the Palladium, I think. Had they been allowed to "reconceive it" like Sheffield, making use of the amazing cast rather than have that trio of original cast members who can't get another job so hang around and pretend to protect but actually strangle it make sure the original is preserved, I think it would have been far more exciting and run longer. I think putting into the Palladium is what killed it as well but apparently there are restrictions what theatre it can go into because it needs a wide stage but I agree that reimagining a production can do it wonders, look at Cabaret for example which Sam Mendes managed to break the mould from the 1972 production.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 17:43:03 GMT
I saw a "reimagined" production of A Chorus Line at Sheffield Crucible once... ugh!
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Xanderl
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Post by Xanderl on Jun 16, 2016 19:37:44 GMT
Young people shouldn't get ultra cheap or free theatre tickets
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Post by Jon on Jun 16, 2016 19:43:33 GMT
Young people shouldn't get ultra cheap or free theatre tickets I do think access scheme are useful for getting young people into the theatre and I think having affordable tickets means they can risk seeing a new play or classic rather than opt for a long runner. I know when I did Entry Pass, I saw a lot of plays which I might not have done at full price. I do think day seats and lottery tickets shouldn't be seen as a right but a nice perk by producers who really don't have to offer it if they didn't want to.
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Post by Nicholas on Jun 17, 2016 2:35:35 GMT
Young people shouldn't get ultra cheap or free theatre tickets
Completely agree, but I love the idea of free tickets for some people: I think, instead, underprivileged people of all ages – certain schools or districts or jobseekers – should get any free tickets if theatres can offer them, absolutely not freeloading millennial bastards like myself. Giving the freebies to someone like me (young enough for most yoof schemes, hardly rich but fine, financially, already a regular theatregoer) only shuns the underfunded who might genuinely need such subsidies. I don’t know who they’d go to, or how to suggest it without sounding utterly patronising and blindsiding the more pressing financial problems of the country, but I don’t need free tickets, much as I want them; far rather I pay and someone with genuine financial constraints gets the freebie than tedious middle class me.
There should still be plenty of young people discounts, don’t get me wrong, they’re essential for getting new theatregoers through the door and keeping new theatregoers regular, but things like the Donmar Shakespeare trilogy scheme are just getting silly. I’d love to know how many of the under-25s going to that have never seen a Shakespeare before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Julius Caesar or Henry IV before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Phyllida Lloyd’s Julius Caesar or Henry IV before.
Giving free tickets to people genuinely too poor to see the theatre they love, or the theatre they may love given half a chance - that's how to broaden what a theatregoer is, that's how to genuinely diversify audiences, that's what subsidies should work towards.
Actually, that’s an opinion that’s probably not unpopular – most ‘encourage new theatregoer’ schemes aren’t that, they’re ‘subsidise regular theatregoer’ schemes, and most people instigating those schemes have no idea what they’re banging on about.
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Post by Nicholas on Jun 17, 2016 2:48:22 GMT
Cabaret (given the right production) is a fantastic stage show - and the film is simply awful. It rips the heart out of the show and stomps on it. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Etc. The film is a masterpiece. It perfectly evokes not just the Weimar era paranoia, but perverts the art of the Weimar era to make the boldest statement about how casually evil rises. The cabaret itself is iconically horrible, the songs dingy metaphors that use the abstraction and abnormality of bursting into song to truly icky, unsettling effect, only magnifying the naturalistic horrors of Nazism which Fosse so mundanely shows outside. The outside scenes are spectacularly done; take the songs out and call it I Am A Camera and it’s a beautifully subtle, elegant, and sad little movie with spectacular performances. Liza – OK, perhaps Sally shouldn’t sing as well as Liza, but I saw the film again recently after having read Isherwood for the first time, and the sad, self-deluding, broken-but-outwardly-confident Sally he writes in the book simply IS Liza in the film – too much is made of her great singing, too little made of the fact that she’s a great straight actor and the book of the musical/script of the movie is a great role she smashes. Joel Grey sometimes appears in my nightmares.
Meanwhile, if some perverse twist of fate made me a history teacher, the way I’d teach children about the rise of Nazism is Tomorrow Belongs To Me – and yes, a good production would do that too, but Fosse does it with gusto. How better to show how evil can become the norm than the loveable angelic child singing a loveable angelic song of hope and peace and goodwill towards the future that evolves into, well, that camera pan down to the Swastika, that group-singalong group-think, that poor man struggling to abstain, that violence with which it’s sung at the end? It's chilling, but normal. It's a scene I genuinely like on a musical and aesthetic level, I watch it and suffer picnic envy, I idly hum that song unforgivably often, and it's unapologetically on the Nazi's side, and in watching it filmed as Fosse filmed it, not just as Kander and Ebb wrote it, Fosse implicates me in liking the song, even singing along, and for that one moment, implicating me in, well... By the time I know the meaning of the scene, I'm on its side, and that's how a master moviemaker uses his camera. I feel Fosse's camerawork matched to Kander and Ebb's masterpiece says more about the subject than, say, CP Taylor's Good. Fosse deserved to beat Coppola for the Oscar.
I saw a documentary about movie musicals which said "After Cabaret's success, all musicals were set in Weimar Germany, even those that weren't". I wonder how much Fosse dislike is Fosse-imitation dislike.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 17, 2016 8:04:34 GMT
Cabaret (given the right production) is a fantastic stage show - and the film is simply awful. It rips the heart out of the show and stomps on it. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Etc. The film is a masterpiece. It perfectly evokes not just the Weimar era paranoia, but perverts the art of the Weimar era to make the boldest statement about how casually evil rises. The cabaret itself is iconically horrible, the songs dingy metaphors that use the abstraction and abnormality of bursting into song to truly icky, unsettling effect, only magnifying the naturalistic horrors of Nazism which Fosse so mundanely shows outside. The outside scenes are spectacularly done; take the songs out and call it I Am A Camera and it’s a beautifully subtle, elegant, and sad little movie with spectacular performances. Liza – OK, perhaps Sally shouldn’t sing as well as Liza, but I saw the film again recently after having read Isherwood for the first time, and the sad, self-deluding, broken-but-outwardly-confident Sally he writes in the book simply IS Liza in the film – too much is made of her great singing, too little made of the fact that she’s a great straight actor and the book of the musical/script of the movie is a great role she smashes. Joel Grey sometimes appears in my nightmares.
Meanwhile, if some perverse twist of fate made me a history teacher, the way I’d teach children about the rise of Nazism is Tomorrow Belongs To Me – and yes, a good production would do that too, but Fosse does it with gusto. How better to show how evil can become the norm than the loveable angelic child singing a loveable angelic song of hope and peace and goodwill towards the future that evolves into, well, that camera pan down to the Swastika, that group-singalong group-think, that poor man struggling to abstain, that violence with which it’s sung at the end? It's chilling, but normal. It's a scene I genuinely like on a musical and aesthetic level, I watch it and suffer picnic envy, I idly hum that song unforgivably often, and it's unapologetically on the Nazi's side, and in watching it filmed as Fosse filmed it, not just as Kander and Ebb wrote it, Fosse implicates me in liking the song, even singing along, and for that one moment, implicating me in, well... By the time I know the meaning of the scene, I'm on its side, and that's how a master moviemaker uses his camera. I feel Fosse's camerawork matched to Kander and Ebb's masterpiece says more about the subject than, say, CP Taylor's Good. Fosse deserved to beat Coppola for the Oscar.
I saw a documentary about movie musicals which said "After Cabaret's success, all musicals were set in Weimar Germany, even those that weren't". I wonder how much Fosse dislike is Fosse-imitation dislike.
I can appreciate your passion for the film version and your analysis of why you admire it so much - but for me, I greatly mourn the loss of the Schneider/Schultz relationship that, in the stage version, is the very heart of the piece. Sally's story is central but the human tragedy of the older couple's lives is something that has always, always touched me. I can understand why the film made the changes but it has never affected me emotionally as I watch it. And so that is why I will always prefer a great stage version to the film. (And not all stage versions have got it right - sadly)
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Post by Hana PlaysAndParasols on Jun 17, 2016 17:23:42 GMT
Young people shouldn't get ultra cheap or free theatre tickets What are you talking about? Do you only want to see elderly rich people in theatre? Especially NT's Entry Pass and Haymarket's Masterclass are absolutely incredible. I was on the other hand baffled that Menier Chocolate Factory had a discount for seniors and not for students. I’d love to know how many of the under-25s going to that have never seen a Shakespeare before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Julius Caesar or Henry IV before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Phyllida Lloyd’s Julius Caesar or Henry IV before. I am not sure if I'll be able to catch this as I am turning 26 in November. But it totally caught my attention and I can inform you that I have never seen Henry IV (seen Julius Caesar in a different country about 6 years ago), never seen a Donmar production and don't know Phyllida Lloyd. So I don't know what you're implying here..?
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Post by Nicholas on Jun 17, 2016 17:43:37 GMT
I’d love to know how many of the under-25s going to that have never seen a Shakespeare before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Julius Caesar or Henry IV before. I’d love to know how many hadn’t seen Phyllida Lloyd’s Julius Caesar or Henry IV before. I am not sure if I'll be able to catch this as I am turning 26 in November. But it totally caught my attention and I can inform you that I have never seen Henry IV (seen Julius Caesar in a different country about 6 years ago), never seen a Donmar production and don't know Phyllida Lloyd. So I don't know what you're implying here..?
I think the inherent fault in a scheme like this is that it doesn’t get new theatregoers in, it only gets the same theatregoers going. My friends who don’t think they can afford theatre, my friends who can afford cheap theatre but still think theatre’s for the elites, my friends away from London who’d have to pay an extortionate train fare anyway – they don’t get to see these despite the free tickets, and in some cases can't afford to go due to travel anyway. If the Donmar was truly committed to broadening audiences, this pop-up theatre would go on tour, would discount based on finance not age, and would send adverts out to the non-theatre circles so they were aware of these productions and their freebies. Instead, the same regular young faces will go see this – perhaps the free tickets will allow a greater number of financially constrained young faces, but as I say, I’m under 25 and can afford a lot of theatre, where plenty of over 25s I know can’t, and my inner milquetoast socialist, my inner Ken Loach, thinks it’s unfair that I get a free ticket based on my age and they have to pay despite their income.
I was exaggerating a little when I was banging on about having seen these before, but only a little. I saw Julius Caesar for £7.50 (day seat) and Henry IV for £10 (Barclays), both on non-age-related schemes, and I think the people who’ll mostly be excited about that are people like me, lucky enough to have seen the earlier shows, and people like you, members of Theatreboard who love their theatre. Of the free-ticket users, a minority will have seen the other Lloyd productions already, a fair number will have seen these plays in some form already, and the majority will see Shakespeare on a regular basis. This doesn’t do anything to entice new theatregoers, only keep enticing the existing regulars.
Got to say, though, book the free tickets now before you’re 26, if you go after your birthday play ignorant and pretend you’d forgotten, and just go, because Julius Caesar and Henry IV were riveting, haunting, thrilling productions and you really, really should see them! When you go, though, ask the people around you whether they’d ever been to the theatre before or regularly went, and the answer will be a depressingly frequent “All the time!”
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Post by Hana PlaysAndParasols on Jun 17, 2016 19:27:22 GMT
I am not sure if I'll be able to catch this as I am turning 26 in November. But it totally caught my attention and I can inform you that I have never seen Henry IV (seen Julius Caesar in a different country about 6 years ago), never seen a Donmar production and don't know Phyllida Lloyd. So I don't know what you're implying here..?
I think the inherent fault in a scheme like this is that it doesn’t get new theatregoers in, it only gets the same theatregoers going. My friends who don’t think they can afford theatre, my friends who can afford cheap theatre but still think theatre’s for the elites, my friends away from London who’d have to pay an extortionate train fare anyway – they don’t get to see these despite the free tickets, and in some cases can't afford to go due to travel anyway. If the Donmar was truly committed to broadening audiences, this pop-up theatre would go on tour, would discount based on finance not age, and would send adverts out to the non-theatre circles so they were aware of these productions and their freebies. Instead, the same regular young faces will go see this – perhaps the free tickets will allow a greater number of financially constrained young faces, but as I say, I’m under 25 and can afford a lot of theatre, where plenty of over 25s I know can’t, and my inner milquetoast socialist, my inner Ken Loach, thinks it’s unfair that I get a free ticket based on my age and they have to pay despite their income.
I was exaggerating a little when I was banging on about having seen these before, but only a little. I saw Julius Caesar for £7.50 (day seat) and Henry IV for £10 (Barclays), both on non-age-related schemes, and I think the people who’ll mostly be excited about that are people like me, lucky enough to have seen the earlier shows, and people like you, members of Theatreboard who love their theatre. Of the free-ticket users, a minority will have seen the other Lloyd productions already, a fair number will have seen these plays in some form already, and the majority will see Shakespeare on a regular basis. This doesn’t do anything to entice new theatregoers, only keep enticing the existing regulars.
Got to say, though, book the free tickets now before you’re 26, if you go after your birthday play ignorant and pretend you’d forgotten, and just go, because Julius Caesar and Henry IV were riveting, haunting, thrilling productions and you really, really should see them! When you go, though, ask the people around you whether they’d ever been to the theatre before or regularly went, and the answer will be a depressingly frequent “All the time!”
You're probably right that people who don't go to theatre at all won't get to know about this (/maybe won't be interested anyway). I don't know in what ways they're promoting it or not so I'm not judging that. The idea of deciding based on the actual wealth of the person sounds fair but also very unrealistic - how would you prove that? You mentioned jobseekers or people from certain districts - not sure how reliable that criterion would be. That could also rule out students or perhaps at least foreign students - and while I realize that is another potentially controversial debate, I don't think closing up is a good idea. So yes while such schemes would be valuable, so are the young people ones I believe. It might not be people who don't go to theatre at all, but maybe some who have seen something more commercial, saved up to see their favourite performer or musical and wouldn't do so to just branch out and try something new; it might open them up to a totally new way of staging plays. I am of course looking at it from a very selfish point of view: these schemes benefit me so I like them, haha. I go to theatre a lot, I have studied it and want to pursue a career in it: but only these schemes, day seats etc. allow me to do so in London as well, where it truly inspires me (in my country theatre is perhaps 5 times cheaper, but also a bit rubbish). So yes you definitely do have a point and this scheme doesn't solve everything, but when I remember the stage when I was only discovering the world of theatre and it was bringing me so much, I think yes please, give that chance to other people as well. Haha thanks for the tip, might need to try it then, if it's really so good :-) EDIT: Looking back at this I realize I must seem exactly like the annoying "all the time" kind of person...but it's not like I had the money and spent it in a pub instead, basically all my money goes to discovering British theatre. I can clearly remember the phase before I studied it when I was starting to go to theatre as a teenager because it only cost about the equivalent of 2 pounds, those are the people I think it is great for.
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Jun 17, 2016 20:53:03 GMT
Young people shouldn't get ultra cheap or free theatre tickets What are you talking about? Do you only want to see elderly rich people in theatre? Especially NT's Entry Pass and Haymarket's Masterclass are absolutely incredible. I was on the other hand baffled that Menier Chocolate Factory had a discount for seniors and not for students. fair comment I agree with the need to get new audiences in, but I think some of the massive discounts (particularly the free tickets for the Donmar) don't achieve this, because: - they go to people who are savvy enough to know about the scheme, ie young existing theatregoers (this is why "A Night Less Ordinary" was scrapped I believe) - some of the discounts are so huge, that the jump to paying real prices when you hit 25 (or whatever) means you just stop going (this is what my younger sister did!) I do agree with "access" schemes for people on limited incomes which of course does include some young people and students!
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Jun 17, 2016 20:53:33 GMT
And for my next unpopular opinion:
London has too many fringe theatres so it doesn't actually matter if some of them shut down.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2016 21:59:26 GMT
And for my next unpopular opinion: London has too many fringe theatres so it doesn't actually matter if some of them shut down. He has a point, and it makes things all the more confusing. Another unpopular opinion of mine: Some more theatres that are actually in the West End should be eligible for the Oliviers. If King's Cross Theatre is considered West End and eligible, so should the Arts and Charring Cross.
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