Introduction: During these challenging times, I will be sharing a range of ideas, dreams, essays and mostly-true tales stemming from the six decades (so far) of this wonderful career in the theater. I hope you enjoy.
– Joe Keefe

Why We Love Theater

Theater isn’t for slouches. It makes you work. Audience members are active participants in the creation of each play, musical, revue and showcase. The subconscious, human interaction that occurs between a cast and the audience is actual, palpable and absolutely necessary to each individual work of performance. A lovely song, that tender romantic moment, the suspense of a web of lies: these moments become important and real through the choices of actors and audience. 

Even before the opening curtain, actors and their characters can “feel” the audience, subconsciously sensing reactions and actions, and audience members emotionally connect to the motives, hopes and faults of the characters in each moment. This interaction is the living exchange that makes performances entirely unique, as distinct as snowflakes. Another word for it is: imagination. 

There’s no pause or reset button in a play. There’s no rewind switch in a musical. Dramatic moments rise and soar, comic moments clash, songs swell and echo and evaporate into the darkness. The audience rides these waves of action right along with the characters, connecting to the peaks and valleys that form the rising action of the story. These connections demand a lot of work from both sides – but this is what makes theater what it is: the most human of art forms. Characters make choices – good, bad and otherwise – and there are consequences for those choices. Just like life. 

The craftwork of live theater encompasses hundreds, thousands of components that build a new world with each show. Sets, costumes, lighting, sound – these elements are crafted to bring you to the deck of an ocean-going ship, a trek across medieval England, the callbacks for a Broadway musical. Direction is provided so that action is clear and motives come forth. And yet, with all these elements at work, live theater allows each audience to make its own decisions, to root for individual characters, too root for the protagonist (or not) and to take in the sights one wants to see. You decide the direction of the show you’re watching. 

If you’ve ever wondered why live theater is so different from movies, TV or digital performances, this is why: in theater, YOU make the choice where your attention goes. You make the personal connection to that character; you decide what to see and how to see it. This action of self-determination in dramatic context is why theater has existed for many millennia. It is why we love what we love: we are allowed, compelled to care. And this is why we’re working hard right now, during these challenging times, to make sure that our Metropolis will be more than ready to welcome you back. There is no substitute for basic, necessary, joyful, powerful human interaction. This most human of all art is our mission, our purpose and it’s why we can’t wait to see you again soon. 

Joe Keefe