SM Debate

[Gaetan Charlebois]

Great discussion and here is what I've decided.

As the theatre is a collaborative art with only a few names making it into
the papers, I will do what the encyclopedia was meant to do and continue to
record unrecorded acheivement as well. The nominating process of the
encyclopedia is what, I think, sets it apart from other works of this
nature.

I will rely on artists within the community to nominate themselves and each
other (as has happened in the case of over 40 artists since the
encylcopedia went up a little over a month ago). SMs, whether we want to
call them artists or not, are part of the theatre which IS an art and which
could not be an art without them. It struck me, last night, as I remembered
a documentary about the Magic Flute backdrops for the Metropolitain Opera
in New York. They showed the set painters interpretting the designs of
Chagal. How can we say that these men and women were not artists. But are
they reviewed? Nope. Chagal was, but not the men and women who took his
drawings and deigns and made them as huge as the Met's stage. The same must
be said of SMs. Because they are, now, invisible, doesn't mean they should
continue to be so.

Let's face it, there are a lot of actors/directors/playwrights whose
acheivements are celebrated (even in the encyclopedia) whose accomplishment
is not that they are artists but that they are very good PR people and,
finally, workies and have survived. But finally, whether you're Robert
Lepage, Michel Tremblay or Jayne Q. Public, you have contributed to the
overall work which is the production. End of story.

Thanks all. It's been lively and valuable.

Gaetan Charlebois (Encyclopedia of Canadian Theatre on the WWW,
http://www.canadiantheatre.com)