demonizing anything on a screen as automatically inferior to Our Pure and Noble Art Which Must Be Experienced Live (for $400, in a city you don't live in, also there's a dress code and behavioral norms you should already know without being told) is classist racist bullshit tbh https://twitter.com/DavidCote/status/1249377663606759427

it also very conveniently sweeps under the rug how many great Shakespeare movies there are out there which have been a gateway for people who wouldn't have paid to go see Shakespeare live because they didn't think they would enjoy it to realize that maybe they actually would

is there something powerful and transcendent about the shared experience of live theatre

of course yes

i wouldn't bother writing plays if i didn't believe that

but the idea that it's the ONLY way to PROPERLY enjoy a play assumes you must live in New York and be rich as fuck

I worked for four years at a ballet company and the idea that there are things you are expected to know about How To Consume This Art Correctly before you even walk through the door is, actually, in many cases, intentionally elitist

I saw and heard so much lamenting about how The Youths Today don't even respect the arts enough to dress up when they go to the ballet or the opera and like . . . IMAGINE choosing that as your hill to die on

like, sure, if you grew up in an affluent area and your school had a budget for symphony field trips that came with pre-performance workshops where they taught you to applaud at the end of the PIECE and not the end of each MOVEMENT you would know this stuff BUT NOT EVERYONE DOES!

i VIVIDLY remember being in junior high when the Branagh/Thompson "Much Ado" movie came out and I assumed it must have been an adaptation because I actually understood it and my mom was like "no those are literally his words" and that's how I learned I enjoyed Shakespeare

I feel like "theatre has no value when viewed through a screen" is the new "i don't even HAVE a television"

what you're really saying is that you'd rather have fewer people get a perfect experience than allow more people to have SOME KIND OF an experience, even imperfectly

because we're taught to see Shakespeare as WORK, it's the "eat your vegetables" of the theatre world, and no one tells you that it can actually be FUN??? but renting a movie is a way lower bar of entry than buying a theatre ticket so it has a wider reach. https://twitter.com/KateVinee/status/1249540307865092096?s=20