I came to write after several mini careers. I did live theatre, managed a cosmetics store and was a local television personality.
In the theatre the audience want to be surprised - but by things that they expect.
To move from a discussion of the early relationship between theatre and television to an examination of the current situation of live performance is to confront the irony that whereas television initially sought to replicate and, implicitly, to replace live theatre, live performance itself has developed since that time toward the replication of the discourse of mediatization.
Live theatre provides a rush you can't get in film or television. But it is the TV and film work that offers the leisure to go off and do a play.
You can't remember what movie you saw two weeks ago, but you can remember what Broadway show you saw two weeks ago and where you ate dinner - everything about it. There's something about live theatre that hits you in the heart.
Records are only one-dimensional. Even film is only one-dimensional. That's why music and live theatre is so important, because it's not the same thing. A recording is just a record of part of the experience, but it's not the whole experience.
I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film.
I'm a very private person, so I didn't like this idea of tweeting about me. And then I realized, 'Oh, this is actually a brilliant device in terms of interacting with the fans'. It's a lovely way to just get back, to thank the fans for watching the show. And to live tweet is kind of like getting the rewards of doing live theatre.
The health of a nation, a society, can be determined by the art it demands. We have insisted of television and our movies that they not have anything to do with anything, that they be our never-never land; and if we demand this same function of our live theatre, what will be left of the visual-auditory arts - save the dance (in which nobody talks) and music (to which nobody listens)?
I strive for perfection, but of course it can never be perfect. I'm never satisfied at the end of a performance. But the great thing about live theatre is that every night you get another chance to get it right.
