Friday, May 20, 2005
Inside BayArea piece on Brent Barrett
Check out the second half of this column for a story on Brent Barrett and our Gala.
It was fascinating to me that he has felt that SF much prefers home-grown talent to out-of-towners! And perhaps it's even supported by AMT San Jose's experiences since they shifted to bringing in more tours and doing fewer locally-grown shows. In fact this coming season AMT has upped the number of local shows in an attempt to "win back" subscribers.
Do you feel that way?
I really don't, but I do draw this distinction:
Back in the old days, AMT would do a local show and then always bring in talent from LA or NY for the principals. But not Brent Barrett-caliber talent. Not folks who had starred on Broadway...mostly just working actors who AMT seemed to think were better because of their zip code. (And sometimes fading TV stars that wanted to try something different, but weren't really cut out for musical theatre.) Well, I knew lots of local actors who were as good or better, so yeah, I suppose I was a little resistant.
But when theatres bring in real theatre stars...I'm all for it.
And if I could go, I know I'd be excited to see Brent!
It was fascinating to me that he has felt that SF much prefers home-grown talent to out-of-towners! And perhaps it's even supported by AMT San Jose's experiences since they shifted to bringing in more tours and doing fewer locally-grown shows. In fact this coming season AMT has upped the number of local shows in an attempt to "win back" subscribers.
Do you feel that way?
I really don't, but I do draw this distinction:
Back in the old days, AMT would do a local show and then always bring in talent from LA or NY for the principals. But not Brent Barrett-caliber talent. Not folks who had starred on Broadway...mostly just working actors who AMT seemed to think were better because of their zip code. (And sometimes fading TV stars that wanted to try something different, but weren't really cut out for musical theatre.) Well, I knew lots of local actors who were as good or better, so yeah, I suppose I was a little resistant.
But when theatres bring in real theatre stars...I'm all for it.
And if I could go, I know I'd be excited to see Brent!
// posted by ElisaC @ 8:44 AM 
