Why This is Important

We asked each of our creative team members to write a short essay on why this project matters to them. This is the third of five. -Ed.

I’m a marketing & PR guy. It’s not a statement that draws the most positive of responses, but there it is. I got an undergraduate degree in advertising, avoided the agency path, kicked about and fell into theatre. I became show people late in life.

But, I was always about marketing and PR. Artists, I have found, have an inherent distrust of my world. I recall one producer that actually went green when I said a good logo had to “work on an almost subliminal level.” This is seen as some dark magic.

So I wasn’t surprised when I sensed some resistance the first time I introduced the phrase “talking points” at a NewsWright United producers’ meeting. It’s an understandable reaction. These are creative people engaged in the act of creation, and have little desire to be told what it is they are doing. And “talking points” smacks so much of politicians, is maybe too close to “talking heads” (and not the good kind fronted by David Byrne).

But, they were patient and trusting enough to let me ramble and attempt to demystify. I do this more often than you might think, defending some practice of my profession that seems somehow unsavory to the integrity of artists.

It is important that these talking points aren’t meant as a recipe for deception or a menu for spin. They are an attempt to build a commonplace among the diverse voices that make up NewsWrights. There is nothing prescriptive about them. They aren’t a set of directions, but rather the outline of a map, so even though we may each describe it in a different way, we are all talking about the same place.

And there is a spirit of transparency in the talking points, which should be reflected in our use of them. So our talking points are not the internal document talking points so often become, but hopefully another potential point of departure for discussion among ourselves and with our audience.

In form, they answer the question we have to ask ourselves in so many different ways throughout this process: why is this important?

NewsWrights United was formed to produce Living Newspapers, an endeavor we feel is vitally important to the continued health of our democracy and future of American theatre.

Important to the art form:
Theatre is an art form of here and now. We’re exploring and refining the form of the Living Newspaper as a viable theatrical form for topical plays that are accessible and avoid didacticism. Theatre needs this infusion of immediacy and locality to remain relevant.

Important to the community:
While of national significance, the stories of the Living Newspaper are all essentially local. The producers, artists and students are from this community, and are working to advance an emerging model of theatre production that relies on strategic partnerships.

Important to the students:
Participating students get the opportunity to work with professional playwrights and journalists through a script development process, alongside professional actors, both Equity and non-union, and with professional production support.

Important to the discourse:
In an increasingly fragmented and disconnected media environment, the Living Newspaper combines a new media sensibility with the emotional intimacy of theatre to speak with a nuanced, personal voice. We embrace a high-transparency approach that mirrors and validates the role of the citizen journalist.

As media outlets move toward more hyper-local coverage, theatre, with its essential localism and grounding in time/place, is perfectly positioned to join the journalism conversation in a substantive way.

NewsWrights United produces the Living Newspaper in response to the increasing contentious and chaotic nature of the news media, answering the self-validation provided my cloistered interest groups with the shared experience of live performance.

Important to RIGHT NOW:
Civilization vs. chaos; the health of democracy in the information age; reflective vs. reflexive news media consumption; accountability vacuum; individual-empowering technology co-opted by institutional and corporate interests; credibility gap; a time of astonishingly rapid evolution in technology and media, developing well beyond its ability to consider the implications; the need for heart to go with all this head; antidote to screaming head culture.


Jim Jewell
Managing Producer
NewsWrights United