Takin' it to the Streets Part 1

This post will be the first in a series of (hopefully informative/interesting) pieces explaining our mission statement in more detail.  Sure, the mission statement sounds snazzy, and our tweets are Tweet-tastic.  But for those of you who crave information that goes beyond the 140-character sound byte, this Bud's for you.  Except it's not a Bud.  It's more like a hand-crafted beer that you get at one of those trendy bars.

But enough about alcohol, let's talk about street theatre.

As you may have gathered from our mission statement (or even from our clever, clever name), The Landless Gentry is going to be doing the bulk of our work in public spaces.  But why?  Don't we want our own space?  Don't we want to sell tickets in advance?  Don't we want season subscribers?  Won't we miss the thrill of having the curtain go up at 8:00?  In order: we'll explain here, someday, maybe, sure, and the last time I sat in a theatre with an actual curtain, it was a pantomime in England, and I was 7 years old.

We're a Commedia troupe (for more, see the "What is Commedia dell'Arte" tab).  Commedia started as street performance, so we're going to try and honor that as best we can.  But we don't just want to do that because it's "historically accurate".  Street performance is the soul of Commedia.  These guys used to roll into town on their cart, set up in the square and perform for everyone who was there, which often meant the entire village.  If they did well, they'd get to eat and stay at the inn for the night, and they'd have the chance to perform again for the same privileges the next day.  If they didn't do well, they were chased out of town with torches and pitchforks.  While I'm sure some theatre critics would welcome back the angry mobs of yore, I think I speak for actors everywhere when I say that I'm glad that things have changed.

So while we won't face the threat of stabbing/burning (knock on wood), we're going to keep true to the spirit of that performance by staying in public spaces.  Our audiences will be composed of the people that decide to stop and watch and, assuming we play our cards right, those dedicated fans who decide to come see our performance for the day.  Here's the important thing: we won't charge for these shows.  You don't have to pay a dime to see us work.  We'll be passing the hat and the end of the performance, because we'd like you to pay us if you enjoyed the show.  If you didn't, then we'll just have to keep starving until we get funny.

Now, we've only talked about our reasons for doing street performance as they relate to us as actors and the Commedia as a tradition.  Tune in next time for a discussion about why this is good for our audience.