#Free Theatre

[sleepy12ftpanda]

Goddamn it, James Lapine and Steven Sondheim were ahead of their time

Please watch this at least once in your life. Especially if you're an artist. It never fails to pull me out of despair when I need it the most.

[genuinelyshallow]

Israeli soldiers opened fire on starved Palestinians as they tried to get to a truck distributing aids

[iamsweetchaos]

i had an epiphany while listening to God Games

[violetwolfraven]

Wait wait wait remember that post about how Team Starkid/the Lang brothers are going to be comparable to Shakespeare 500 years from now and it was mostly played for laughs like yeah lol you’ll need a paragraph of footnotes to explain the zefron poster but like

I don’t think that’s actually far off from how Starkid’s place in theatre history might play out and here’s why. Just hear me out

Why is Shakespeare so popular today when he definitely wasn’t the only playwright from that era? When he’s not even the only playwright from that era from England that we have surviving works from?

Two main reasons:

1) Shakespeare’s work is (relatively) universally relatable. The characters do things that are so fundamentally human. They make jokes at their friends’ expense. They complain about being awkward in front of their crush. They have daddy issues. The plot lines of the plays aren’t too complicated. The dick jokes land whether you’re watching in 1611 or 2024, and they probably still will in 2637. Shakespeare’s works are timeless because he didn’t try to outsmart his audience. He wrote about things everyone could relate to rather than trying too hard to peacock his intellect in front of the nobility. This is not true of every playwright.

2) Shakespeare was really popular right around the time England started colonizing everything in sight. Copies of his work got shipped all around the world, translated into dozens of languages, performed probably thousands of times. Setting aside the moral implications of this, the important thing to note is that Shakespeare was about the most easily accessible English playwright during a time of rapid, intense globalization.

Meanwhile, Starkid:

1) Invests hard in meaningful, relatable character arcs instead of spectacle and expensive sets or costumes. Also, lowbrow, immature humor and dick jokes that make A Very Potter Sequel funny and enjoyable regardless of if you’ve ever seen any other Harry Potter media in your life.

2) Posts professional recordings of their musicals to YouTube FOR FREE, making their shows about the easiest, best quality musical theatre you can get pretty much anywhere in the world, regardless of if your area has an active theatre scene. Proshots from other companies are rare and usually not free. Bootlegs are all well and good, but even if the video quality is alright (and that’s a big if) the audio is usually garbage. Starkid has been posting the best quality free recordings they can afford since 2009, shortly after the birth of social media, another time of rapid, intense globalization.

In short, I’m not saying that theatre historians in 500 years won’t remember any our current Broadway faves, but I am saying that in my opinion, Team Starkid is probably going to be more accessible for the general public. If you’re a 26th century English teacher trying to teach your class about narrative structure in 21st century theatre, what are you going to show your students? A bootleg of Hadestown with blurry video and garbage audio? Or the professional recording of Twisted, parts of which they will probably even enjoy, because even long after no one remembers Disney’s Aladdin anymore, your class of 26th century 16-year-olds are still going to laugh at “No One Remembers Achmed.”

[hellinhawkins]

i provide every byler moment, saved, in order of seasons

[saltpepperbeard]

Gentlebeard + ✨Finger Waggles✨

[today-in-the-bunker]

Today, Jack bakes chocolate chip muffins and makes Cas, Dean and Sam watch Into the Woods (the pro-shot, not the movie).

[secretly-a-catamount]

I’m sorry, but if you think that Raoul wouldn’t switch places with Christine to be bait for the Phantom if he could, you’re just objectively wrong (it’s okay, I still love you).

[iriis2]

"I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip"

- William Shakespeare

[musical-shit-show]

fuck man i just love theatre and broadway and musicals and plays and community theatre and regional theatre and new york city and touring productions and auditions and rehearsals and tech week and opening nights and closing nights i love it all UGH.

[corvidfeathers]

hey theater friends, I need you to pay attention to this. a friend of a friend of mine, Ahmed Tobasi from the Freedom Theatre, a community-based theatre and cultural centre in Jenin Refugee Camp in occupied Palestine was arrested by the IDF on December 13th, along with his brother and several other theater members. Tobasi was released today, but other members are still being held by the IDF. The theater is asking the international theater community to speak up about this, and let Israel know that our eyes are on this. They say, "we continue to ask people to demand the immediate release of Mustafa Sheta and Jamal Abu Joas, as with the over 100+ people taken by the Israeli Army in the last two days."

You can read the Freedom Theatre's direct updates here. And on their twitter, here.

From their document:

For decades, Palestinian artists have been arbitrarily detained by Israel, sometimes for years, who also target and destroy cultural buildings, a war crime under international law. In the last few weeks in Gaza, an unprecedented number of writers, poets, theatremakers and journalists have been killed, including DR. Refaat Alareer, who was deliberately targeted and murdered.

[sircolinmorgan]

Colin Morgan in All My Sons (2019)

[genuinelyshallow]

'The flour massacre'

Is what we now call the massacre that occurred when Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians as they were trying to get to food on an aid truck

The tweet: " The most expensive bag of flour in history, priced at 150 souls"

[n0ahs-ark]

idc im feeling whimsical... idc

[urnothere12]

Mötley Crüe

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[sophaeros]

the voidz @ orpheum theatre - los angeles, usa, 2024 (x)