The Value of Theatre: M. Peterson

Theatre exists, as some guy named Hamlet once said, to "hold the mirror up to life."  To show us, in an objective fashion, who and what we are in both a positive and inspirational glow, and sometimes harshly in a more negative but realistic light.  It is perhaps the shadows cast by these metaphorical lights which Plato referred to as dancing on the wall in his famous cave allegory.  The Shadows are not the reality, but their very presence proves that a deeper level does in fact exist.  Similarly, theatre is not life, but it serves as a reflection of life, to show us what is that we may not yet be aware of, or what might be which we have not yet even imagined.

M. Peterson
Artists' Repertory Theatre, Fresno, CA