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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The power of being prolific



A provocative tweet by the amazing Taylor Mac on October 12th:  

"I'm learning that new elite r prolific writers/tweeters/bloggers who dominate the conversation via onslaught of material."

I think there's something to this, and I think I might be implicated. Is there a bias towards (on the web anyway) writers who produce a great deal of material? Twitter and Facebook and Blog Posts? For example, if I were to write one essay here per month, and labored over it for days, would that mean I had fewer visitors, less interest, and therefore a smaller overall platform? If you don't feed the beast, does it move on to eat something that's still bleeding a bit more profusely?

And does that, you know...matter? It doesn't seem like the most successful artists feel the need to have much of a web presence. In fact, there are very few playwrights (from my unscientific perspective) out there that seem to even have their own websites. And it's 2011.

How significantly are the conversations about theater online impacting the art of theater that is being done, anyway? Or is it, really, a form of entertainment and connection, a broad conversation about life in the trenches, more than a critical conversation about the work?




1 comment:

isaac butler said...

Given how prolific Mac himself is, isn't he implicated by this comment?