What is “bad” art? What is “good” art?
The most likely response is something along the lines of, “Well, who’s to say?!”, and after
devoting countless hours over the past two and a half years (give or take) I would like to report that it is in fact, Us. Society.
We, the current stakeholders of modern human civilization, get to dictate these things.
Though, I have had to develop the discussion and argument to accommodate for enflaming people’s opinions while urging them, through productive conversations, to think far more critically than they are typically willing to engage with the subject(s). Now, the more agreed upon – less inflammatory – position is as follows: There is “better” art and there is “worse” art. We, society, can most definitely agree on this ground. Comparatively speaking, Little Johnny’s macaroni necklace (a hypothetical boy with hypothetical art & craft) is not even in the same realm as Picasso’s “Guernica”. Is Little Johnny’s art “bad”? Will it not be put up on the fridge? Side by side with “Guernica” or Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, Little Johnny’s art is simply of a different caliber and held to a different standard. Theatre, Acting, and scripts are no different.
Many decide to go down the path of Acting. The number of reasons within these choices –as colorful as the world seen through the eyes of the Mantis Shrimp – of which the outright majority would seem to fall under the classification of that, oh so, very dangerous puppeteer: “Vanity”.
College and University are, and should be, the last great frontiers; of which young minds, who are yearning to be primed for the world once they graduate, may challenge their beautiful selves as to how it is that they would like it to be and engage with upon their completion of this – the furthering of their education. An individual’s race, gender, ethnicity, cultural background, and overall individualized life experience meets with others and the beauty of collaborative art with the aim of the Truth is perfectly exemplified in the art of the Actor in the theatre. Theatre - in its entirety, but for the moment speaking - at the University-level is the pinnacle of “Challenging Art”; and it is at this climactic, yet somehow, rosebud of a moment that Dionysus would love to be in the lecture halls and acting spaces among these students: the starry eyed and hot footed. This, too, is where I strive to reside.

As Friedrich Nietzsche’s beloved ‘overman’, Zarathustra, proclaimed:
“I am a railing by the torrent; let those who can, grasp me! Your crutch, however, I am not.”
-Thus Spoke Zarathustra (speech: “On the Pale Criminal”)

A tremendous tragedy resides – far more painful than that of Oedipus and lightyears beyond Juliet with description of devastation - in the education of the Actor. Acting, a gift most philosophical from that same, wine loving, deity; is not terminated with a degree marked with “Philosophical Doctorate”. If it were possible to attain a degree in Acting beyond an MFA then I would make that my, educational, end goal - immediately. And thus, I desire, while I also require, my MFA training to push myself and the artform as far as is possible.
It is now time for us to push the conversation further – refining our arguments as well as our craft. The introduction and, or, reclassification of the words in our lexicon of language is in order. A fresh understanding of what it means to tell a story, and a meaningful one at that, accompanied with why we tell the stories we tell is on the menu. I hope you’re hungry, because it’s just about to come out of the oven.