Good observation from Isaac on the differences in "regional" acting styles and how that makes casting out-of-town seem increasingly less logical. Check in on that discussion here.
I've never really put my finger on the differences. Any thoughts as to what they may be? I know there are people who read this blog that, privately, are Seattle evangelists. What's the "acting style" in Seattle? Or Chicago? Or Philly?
I might also ask... does this apply to playwrights? I'd expect so.
100 Saints You Should Know, which came to Playwrights Horizon's last year from Chicago, reminded me in no small way of Waving Goodbye, a play I saw coming out of Chicago way back in 2002. The mother-daughter interplay, the white person ennui, the way gay-themes were shoehorned into the proceedings, the way the teen girl meets and odd teen boy and they bond. It seemed like they could have been written by, if not the same person, cousins.
I think certainly there are regional differences in how plays go over. My stuff doesn't really go over in england, and I suspect not in chicago either but I'm hoping i'm wrong. There are a lot of great writers whose work doesn't get done in NYC just because the NYC audience is too jaded for it.
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