Art can come from anywhere.
It doesn’t need a gallery to be great. It doesn’t need a Broadway run. It doesn’t need to come out of some well-connected kid in New York. It doesn’t need a pedigree or a publisher. It does not need Hollywood or borrowed IP.
All of that is marketing.
It doesn’t need awards. Often, I find, what makes something art is that it defies or reinvents categories. Only a tiny handful of commercial theaters are eligible for the Tonys, but I guarantee, you’ll find brilliant productions, spectacular actors, and beautiful scripts elsewhere.
And I get it. While I chant these principles to myself, I chase the same publications and theaters and development opportunities and awards as everyone else. I do this with the full knowledge that so much of what I make won’t fit.
So, to the theatre teachers out there, I challenge you to see yourselves as theatre artists, and for this not to be merely a marketing label. And to my fellow writers, keep making the things you believe in.
Briandaniel Oglesby 