From the Artistic Director: The Idea of a Poets’ Theatre March 2019

From the Artistic Director:

The Idea of a Poets’ Theatre

March 2019

Next Up:

Purcell & Friends: THE TEMPEST A collaboration with The Poets' Theatre March 22, 2019 8pm | Cathedral Church of Saint Paul 138 Tremont Street, Boston Tickets: $60 | $40 | $25 student/ senior

What is the Poets’ Theatre? We get asked this question often. I have two principal answers about our understanding of what we are and why we exist under that name – but both answers reflect a central idea: we are a theatre that uniquely combines the world of poetry and the world of the theatre. To this we naturally add the world of music, which partakes of both. Those three worlds by and large keep to their own specialized spheres. We like to unite them – in our name and in our practice. Thus, we are all about performance -- the fully theatricalized presentation, live, in a theatre, of beautifully crafted language and with them, the majesty of great music.

Our own Poets’ Theatre members, Laurence Senelick and Ben Evett are central to the upcoming concert version of The Tempest. Laurence -- himself a prolific writer, director, and performer, has prepared a “concert reduction” of the complex libretto of this baroque entertainment. Ben Evett, our award-winning principal actor, narrates the evening. Ian Watson conducts (as he did for King Arthur).

This “Poets’ Theatre” business can take many forms. Our reference ideal is an original full-length play in verse, or an opera with a poetic libretto, carefully rehearsed and performed live with the full complement of theatre arts: sets, costumes, staging, lighting, music and movement. Such productions are expensive, and theref