Theater/Geek 08/24/2012 7:18pm

This post originally appeared on my infrequently updated Tumblr. To the two or three people I hear from every year, who suggest that the Minnesota Fringe Festival would be better if it were juried—that is, there should be someone deciding which shows get in, and which don’t: With all due respect, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, please shut the fuck up. The Fringe already has a jury. It’s called the audience. And they decide, by buying tickets and talking about and reviewing shows that they have seen, what succeeds at the Fringe. This is how theater is supposed to work. I’m sorry you saw one or two shows you didn’t like. I know how it feels to see something awful, and think about the show that could have gone on in its place. But you know what? Not every show is for everyone. That show you hated may have been someone else’s favorite. This was, of course, the theme of the entirely excellent Joe Dowling’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet on the Moon, featuring Kate Mulgrew as Lady Capulet, but I have a more personal experience: my show. This year I co-wrote a show about the career of William Shatner. It may surprise you to learn that the MacArthur Genius Grant people were not beating down my door with a giant check when this was announced. The director and cast did a fantastic job with the script, and I was very proud of the show. The Pioneer Press gave us a “worth considering.” If this is the jury, we maybe get in, but the show is a light, accessible comedy that doesn’t really push any boundaries so we’re probably at the bottom of the list. The Star-Tribune eviscerated the show, and basically told us to drop dead. If this is the jury, not only do we not get in, and I’m discouraged from doing any kind of shows in the future, or indeed thinking of myself as an artist. Audiences gave us 4 1/2 stars and made us the fourth most attended show at the festival. Guess which verdict is most important in terms of telling me what audiences want to see, and what kind of work I did in connecting with them? The Fringe system is based around the idea that the audience is smart enough to decide for themselves what art they want to encourage. That artists are smart enough to produce good shows. In all the years I’ve been Fringing, I’ve seen a handful of lousy shows, and an overwhelming number of shows that were so strangely fantastic and could have only happened there. “Too many bad shows, not enough good ones” has never, ever, ever been a issue. You are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Juries do not create better shows or better audiences. They create a system where artists are trying to please juries. I thank you for your time.