To the editors:
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First let me make clear that my link with this group is a strong one–though I am not an Ensemble member, I am currently performing with them in Despoiled Shore/Medeamaterial/Landscape With Argonauts and have known several of the Ensemble members for a number of years. I am both happy and proud to admit this association. They are a vital, tenacious, caring group of people determined not simply “to do good plays,” but to challenge themselves and their audience.
What begins to make me worry about Mr. Bliss as a playwright (“young,” no less, like the members of CAE) is his complete lack of empathy for such a decision. Mr. Bliss, you can write masterpieces to your heart’s content, but to what avail if no one will ever hear them? Just as playwrights need somewhere to present their work, actors cannot even begin to act unless provided such a place. What’s more, we must be provided the opportunity–something for which we must work very hard and sometimes wait very long. And a very painful part of the process is realizing that the best actor does not always get the part, even at such lofty places as the Goodman or the Guthrie. If you lack even this understanding of your fellow “young” artists’ situation, I worry greatly about your ability to write plays for the people who will perform them, let alone for the people who will see them.
