banter

Welcome to my blog, Banter.

I’ll start, you chime in—I really want to hear from you!

Kate Bennis Kate Bennis

Sharing the Stage

There’s an old joke about community theater. Imagine a group of young, scrubbed, overall-clad youngsters in a barn. One projects loudly, “We’ve got a barn! Let’s put on a show!” The others ad lib with big smiles, “Sure thing!” “I can build the sets with this old scrap wood!” “We can use this sheet for a backdrop!” “I can sew these old rags into costumes!” Then, all at once, the whole group stops talking, orients towards a kid standing on a hay bale, settles into varied comfortable but affected positions, and gazes expectantly. The kid on the hay bale launches into a monologue and/or song. This stereotypical trope from amateur theater is easy to satirize (Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman does this with love). And I am not recommending that anyone do this on stage, exactly…but the truth is that the audience …Read on.

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