The DTC threw a party last night to announce its 2008-2009 season, the first from new artistic director Kevin Moriarty. The lineup was of course the main event – next season leads off with The Who’s Tommy and you can read more in Lawson Taitte’s DMN piece.  

But I was equally interested in some of the DTCs goals and plans to support their work:

Moriarty says the DTC wants to engage its audience in conversation. The end product is not the performance on stage, he argues, but the conversation it creates afterward. The DTC will host community conversations after its performances next season – not “Talk Backs” in the traditional sense – an actor answering questions about how he memorizes all those lines –, but attempts to get people talking about what resonated for them in the performances they just saw.  

This is important to us at Art&Seek, KERA’s new arts initiative. In fact, sparking those sorts of conversations is what we’ll be about at the new ArtandSeek.org Website that will launch in late May. We want to create a community where everyone can find, discuss, create and react to the arts in North Texas.  

I’m also looking forward to learning more about the DTC’s plan to form its own company of actors.  Theater friends complain about the lack of steady work and support for actors in our region: it’s tough to find full-time employment in theater and equally hard to find a day job flexible enough to accomodate occasional round-the-clock rehearsal/performance schedules. While the DTC’s 9-person company certainly won’t solve all these problems, it seems a step in the right direction, provided it includes locals.  Curious to hear what others think on this…