Expert: John T. Aney - 2/10/2009

Question
Hello John, and thanks for reading my question. I would also like to apologize in advance if I get any terminology (I'll try to avoid using it, but just in case) mixed up. I have little formal acting training - just experience in a handful of straight plays.

I'm 16. I am pursuing excellence in both regular and musical theater as an artistic pursuit rather than a career (this is not a question asking how to become a star). I've been acting since I was about ten, I think. Ever since then, I've done between two and five shows every year at my high school and local community theater.

Both venues I typically perform at prefer comedy to drama/tragedy, as they've found it tends to draw more people, especially for the children's/youth shows. So pretty much every show I've done has been one of those happy-go-lucky, good vibes shows.

This fall, I was asked by a very talented (in my opinion, but maybe I'm biased) young director at my school to be in his production of "Nightfall With Edgar Allen Poe" (by Eric Coble) as Poe. I accepted and learned that the play was much more dramatic than I was used to. If you aren't familiar with the show, it's about Poe's inner struggle to prove himself sane through stagings of "The Raven", "The Fall of The House of Usher", "The Pit And The Pendulum" and "The Telltale Heart".

It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the experience. I felt challenged, and, at the end of the show, the applause seemed much more rewarding - much more meaningful than any comedy I had done.

Why is it that theaters (at least in my experience, which admittedly is little) don't do serious shows more often?

Answer
Mike,

Thanks for your question.  You can't imagine how nice it is to get a question that ISN'T about "How to I Become a Star!"

To answer your question, I think a lot depends on what theatres and what cities you are speaking of.  It is true that in most of the US, theatres tend to focus on comedies.  As you mentioned, they bring in the most audience members.  People like to laugh - when life is hard, people like to laugh more.  In troubling economic and political times, people consider going to live theatre, if they go at all, to be a luxury, so theatres are having even more trouble making budgets.  Remember that most theatres operate on a shoestring budget - they make only enough to pay for their productions, usually.  Comedies do tend to "pack 'em in," and so dollar for dollar its more financially sound to do comedies.

Interestingly, though - mysteries are also very popular.  So maybe people prefer the extremes - laughter and hilarity or life and death.  Somewhere in between, though, and people tend to avoid the show.

As I said, though, a lot depends on where you are.  Every large city has at least one, often many more, small theatres that are committed to doing work of a serious nature IN ADDITION to comedies.  Oftentimes, the comedies pay the bills for the serious work.  Small theatres don't tend to do musicals much, as they are very expensive to produce.  In addition, large cities usually have 1 or 2 large theatres that have a variety of different types of shows in their seasons.

Primarily I'm talking about professional or semi-professional theatres here - not community theatres.  Community theatres are always looking at doing things as cheaply as possible (which is why they don't pay their actors), and comedies are cheaper to produce in terms of return on investment than "straight" plays.

What does this mean for you?  Well, I would present you with a challenge:  While it is often true that a "serious show" seems more rewarding and challenging, people tend to forget that life is easy - comedy is hard.  People tend to dismiss comedies and comedic roles as being very easy to perform - they are only as easy as the actor chooses to make them.  While you may not have many opportunities to play a role that is serious, remember that every role represents a real person.  Throw yourself into the challenge of working very hard at comic roles, creating a character, making sure every aspect of your performance is well thought out and executed, double your effort to connect with your fellow actors.  Doing so will not only make you a MUCH BETTER actor, for both comedy and straight shows, but also requires discipline that can be very rewarding.

If you have further questions, or need further encouragement, please feel free to email me at johnaney@gmail.com

Best regards,

jta