Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and film. But it's not.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think film and television are really a director's medium, whereas theatre is the actor's medium.
Theater can be elusive and poetic, but it doesn't thrive when it doesn't reach an audience.
I have always been interested in theater, as an actor and as someone who looks upon theater - at the risk of sounding pretentious - as an icon by which we measure society... My life has been in the theater to an extent. It's only an extension to write, direct, produce, whatever.
Television in the last few years has been where all the great writers are going. TV now is what indie film used to be.
They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true.
The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.
Theater is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theater.
Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career.
It's a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn't be treated that way. Maybe it's narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that's really helped me.
I think it's sad that movies and television have caused the theatre to fade as a popular art form. I hope to get young people into the theatre and expose them to Shakespeare.