An Expansive reading of the Networked Stage

When Zay Amsbury puts forth the idea of The Networked Stage he is discussing a conceptual approach to thinking about theatre that takes as its baseline the interconnectedness of our contemporary technological world. Networks exist everywhere. They are the basis of a social existence. They are the essence of a non social existence. Networks are a conceptual tool that explain biological life and most everything else on our planet and in our experiences.

Theatre can only exist as a network. And it is a fragile one. No single person can be wholly responsible for a production. The playwright writes and then must leave their words in the hands of a director and actors, trusting them to do their work. Dramaturgs, designers, stage managers, board operators are all tied in together in a web of relations that go into creating an evening of theatre. An audience must watch and so the people involved in marketing and subscriptions are just as necessary to the process. And it is a fragile network, a gentile web that can break from the slightest piece being out of alignment.

A sudden sound cue that occurs out of place can throw an actor off their timing and snowball through a scene, act and finally a whole evening. The work we do is so fragile and so delicate and the slightest misalignment can knock the entire project off course. At the same time, this is some of the magic that can occur behind the scenes. A huge machine operated by numerous people at different times that all comes together in a single event. Many autonomous agents creating a thing bordering on the miraculous. Every night.

The network is not just the artists who create, but everyone, at every level in the process. Like Scrooge believes the visions could be a product of a bad piece of meat, so too is the creative process determined often by a chance bird flying past your window. And in the same manner, the networked production exists as all these chance encounters stabilize into a unified vision. A coherent whole borne out of the chaotic mass of human potential.

I remember reading once that an airplane is off course ninety-nine percent of the time, yet through constant small adjustments it ends up landing on course. The networked production, in the same manner, must always struggle to regain its balance and stay on course, though at any given time it may be radically off-course. Your physician, if you are lucky enough to work in theatre and have health care, is as much a part of the network as the book of Gaudi's architecture that sits on your shelf. In a larger sense, how you live is as important as what you do. Sometimes its easy and sometimes you need a kick in the head. But whatever it is that you do is a vital and necessary part of the network.