Directing New Work

This blog is more or less simply an opportunity to muse a bit and hopefully find out how other people feel. I am finding myself increasingly disinterested in directing older works that have been done before even the classics. I've directed Shakespeare (with mixed success) and Checkhov (sp?) and I've even gone down the Greek and Roman route on the odd occasion. I am developing a real liking for bringing new work to the stage, it started by me directing my own work but I am now getting more and more interested in working with other writers to bring their work to the stage. I guess that is making me a Dramaturge but as I have problems with dramaturgy that's an issue for me. I less and less find any interest in bringing existing work to the stage, I am finding that I have less and less to learn from directing older plays and more and more to learn from new plays and working with writers and new actors. By this I don't necessarily mean inexperienced but new to me. There are other advantages to this. The speed with which Dominie has been putting up amateur rights is amazing and new writers are generally willing to be part of a co-op so I'm saving money. Actors seem to be quite keen in some cases to help create characters on stage for the first time. Disadvantages seem to be that new work is hard to sell. The public seem to prefer to go to the tried and true or at least stuff that's had a run overseas. (Do we still suffer from the cultural cringe?) Any comments or observations.