OMG Hamilton is up like a full hour before I expected it to be so @crashmargulies_ & I are watching it; they’ve never seen it before, and have only listened to it once!!!!!!!

(We are already at King George’s first appearance, I was so distracted by WATCHING I can’t type lol)

That was GREAT and now @crashmargulies_ is enabling/joining me to start in on my evergreen rant about how FUCKING INACCESSIBLE THEATER (and ESPECIALLY Broadway!!!!) is and how the majority of Broadway shows should be professionally filmed & released!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(If you come into my mentions going, “but rights issues—“ you better know what fight you’re getting into and be fucking PREPARED)

Don’t come at me about contracts, or filming rights, or union issues, or “lack of interest,” or whatever. The REAL reason professionally filmed Broadway shows aren’t more readily available comes down to cold hard cash, and this:

Broadway is elite because the people with the money behind it WANT IT TO CONTINUE BEING ELITE

as someone who is the target market for the Broadway Elite™ (white, 30, upper-middle class Jewish family from New York, grew up with & worked in theater), this is fucking BULLSHIT

People who live in Bumfuck, Wyoming deserve theater. People who need closed captioning deserve theater. People who can’t afford several hundred dollar tickets deserve theater.

People of color who don’t want to deal with racist bullshit like this DESERVE THEATER: https://broadwaynews.com/2019/11/12/opinion-theater-has-a-problem-with-people-of-color/

Last I checked, the market research was PRETTY DAMN CLEAR that seeing a filmed performance of a show does not discourage those with the means from seeing it live.

OBVIOUSLY it’s not the same. No one’s EXPECTING it to be the same!!

You know what’s better than not getting to see a show ever, no matter how much you want to, because it’s nowhere near you/you can’t afford to/you need accessibility accommodations that are unavailable?

GETTING TO SEE IT IN *SOME FORM* THAT YOU CAN ACCESS & AFFORD

And of course, because intersectionality, people of color & people with disabilities are disproportionately likely to ALSO fall into the category of “people for whom affording theater tickets is a pipe dream”

Anyway defund the police & put some of that money into making the arts more accessible to everyone, thanks for coming to my ted talk