May 23, 24, 30 &31 at 8pm
Admission is Free!
1st floor of the Old Post Office (inside the DASH Center)
1102 A. Street, Tacoma
Warning: Contains some adult language.
"A
Life in the Theatre" was chosen as our first script because it tells the
story of why theater is important to its practitioners: the artists who chose
to make their living treading the boards. David Mamet wrote "A Life in the
Theatre" (LiT) in 1975. First produced in New York City in 1977, the play
centers around the lives of two actors at different points in their careers. As the
story of the relationship of two actors onstage and off, the play serves as an
explanation of why artists choose the titular life in the theatre.
This short run is the final graduate project of Christina Hughes. Here is what she has to say about why this play is important to her, and to Working Class Theater NW:
"With
this play, we can show why we are passionate about theater, what it means to
work in the theater, and why people choose theater as a profession. By
positioning theater artists as members of the working class that we seek to
engage, we are using similarity as a foundation for building trust. Mamet
promotes the idea that actors work hard and are not abstract and above the
working class but an integral part of it. While the script is not a direct
reflection of any actor’s experiences, it helps address the question of what drives
actors to act and in turn what drives WCTNW to open a theater. Themes of the
show, which include the interdependency of artists with each other and the
audience, mirror WCTNW’s dependency on the surrounding community and explain
our goals of community building, education and outreach. Telling this story is
a way to situate ourselves within a working class context as trustworthy
narrators of community concerns.
It
is idealistic to open a theater in a depressed economy, especially in an area
that has an uneasy history with new theater companies. But I am not a theater
person if I do no theater. There is a point where it is more constructive to
open a new theater under challenging circumstances, than to complain endlessly
about my inability to relate to existing theater. If my needs as an artist and
audience are not being served, it is my responsibility to change that. I want
to participate in modern, challenging, underperformed works of theatrical
excellence. Working Class Theater NW is my opportunity to meet that goal."
