Slog - Comments on WET Maybe Kinda Sorta Cancels The Destruction of Hedda Gabler http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/03/wet_maybe_kinda_sorta_cancels_the_destru The Washington Ensemble Theatre is maybe-kinda-sorta going to cancel (or postpone or rethink) The Destruction of Hedda Gabler, an original blowout deconstruction of the Ibsen classic and the last show of WET's 2007 season. The reason, according to Katjana Vadeboncoeur (WET's communications director), has to do with Marya Sea Kaminski's star role in the Seattle Rep's My Name Is Rachel Corrie. "Hedda was meant to showcase her," Vadeboncoeur said. "It's her and Jen Zeyl's baby." (Zeyl, Stranger Genius award winner, is designing Rachel Corrie.) Corrie's performance schedule conflicts heavily with Hedda's rehearsal schedule, making Kaminski's participation nearly—or entirely—impossible. There is... Copyright 2008 Sat, 03 Mar 2007 19:44:35 -0800 Sun, 04 Mar 2007 12:21:13 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by COMTE It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. Annex Theatre has had some experience in this area, and while we've certainly sent our fair share of artists out into the larger world of professional theatre, the organization that is the company itself has remained, and accepted new members over time, both as others have left, as well as when the organization itself has grown, shrunk or just generally evolved to cope with new circumstances.

IMO, both of these represent a healthy, vibrant structure, one that our Managing Director, Stephen McCandless has likened to a "graduate school". Artists join the company, get an opportunity to hone their craft in an atmosphere that fosters creativity and risk-taking, and allows them to develop the skills they need to transition to progressively higher levels within their respective disciplines.

In the past 20 years, we've been pretty successful in this regard, and while the odds are never spectacular that such success will even occur, every time it has, we've been both pleased to see another of our own "go off to the big city" as it were, but also confident that their departure will not necessarily result in a diminishment of our own creative energy.

]]> COMTE http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/03/wet_maybe_kinda_sorta_cancels_the_destru#c655807 http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/03/wet_maybe_kinda_sorta_cancels_the_destru#c655807 Arts Sun, 04 Mar 2007 12:21:13 -0800