The artistic community has spoken! Way wanted to consider the voice of Boston's theatre artists, as well as other companies, their production histories and current seasons, as we navigate our course ahead. We posed 3 questions through surveymonkey.com and StageSource's General Announcements e-Hotline over the summer. The answers are posted here as promised. Thanks all who participated!

Question 1: What genres/styles of theatre would you like to work in that are not prevalent in the greater Boston area?

All the plays in NE are by American or British writers.  Where is the rest of the world?  I am sure there are many authors that people would watch.  The only theatre around that produces foreign plays regularly is ART in Cambridge (old Greek plays and Chehov).

Movement-based story-telling.

Stronger and edgier plays-- the work of Sarah Kane.

How can the theatre compete with tv? I sit on my behind and flip thru the tv 'till i find something i like. The only thing that would take me out of my seat would be a communal experience in my community. How about Chekhov's Marriage Proposal in my library or local space?

Shakespeare (think A Midwinter's Tale), Cowboy Mouth with Boston rock and boston actors, repertory cast. Rock and Theater collaboration in general, Boston is so rich with talent.

Lesser known classics in reader or chamber formats.

Ensemble created. New works. 

In no order of priority:  1. non-linear / structurally innovative  storytelling  2. More explicitly sensual theatre (i.e. visuals, sounds, smells as storytelling -- not to the point of dance, but relying on senses for communication)  3. Returning focus to the unique potential for connection between the audience and artists, which seems to be the fundamentally unique aspect of theatre as an art.

Political revue, feminist, ecological, puppetry, mixed media, new operas and musicals (good ones!), cutting edge children's theater.

Performance art.  More dinner theater.  Vaudeville.

Bearable Shakespeare? Just kidding. In truth, I think Boston does a fair job of adopting a wide range of styles. The ART does their thing, and the Huntington gets a lot of big names in town, and I'd say the middle level companies (Lyric, Speakeasy, New Rep) really keep the range of genres alive. What I'd like to (continue to) see is younger, smaller, pseudo community theatre companies taking on fresh projects from New York, like the Gurnet Theatre Project's Dog Sees God.

All types of Classical Theatre and not just Shakespeare.

Movement theatre, multi-media/interdisciplinary.

Brechtian, fantasy/surrealism, romantic comedy and Clue the Musical.

Question 2: Name any playwrights whose work you enjoy and/or wish would be produced more often.

Every writer who receives Nobel prize would get free publicity.  When Dario Fo got the prize, only ART produced one of his plays (and it was very good too:  We Won't Pay, We Won't Pay.)  At that time it was said that Fo is the most produced contemporary writer in the world, but US is one big desert for anything foreign.

Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Adam Guettel.

Sarah Kane, Mamet (the old school Mamet plays, what happened to those?), Tennessee Williams.

Some comedies by American playwrights. But to see them in my community. Not Shakespeare because so few players can deal with the language.

Chekhov, Stoppard, Shakespeare.

Racine, Strindberg, Shaw, Shakespeare.

Brecht, Odets, Williams, Miller, Chekhov.

No particular order:  1. Wallace Shawn  2. Harold Pinter  3. Edward Bond

Caryl Churchill, Joe Orton, Russell Edson, Brian Friel, Shaw,Dario Fo, Ibsen. Soyinka, my own.

Jean Anouilh, Tennessee Williams ("Red Devil Battery Sign"), Christopher Frye, Sam Shepard (EARLY One-Acts), Tom Stoppard, Arthur Miller (the NON-"Classic" plays)

JON ROBIN BAITZ, Lee Blessing, Phyllis Nagy, A.R. Gurney, Shakespeare, Moliere, LaBute, Albee, Timberlake Wertenbaker, David-Lindsay Abaire, Ronan Noone, Michael Weller, David Marguiles, David Hirson, David Rabe

Eugene O'Neill.

Becket, Claude van d'Italie.

Pinter, international works translated into English.

Question 3: What are the top 3 plays (not produced in the greater Boston area in the past several years) that you would like to see mounted?

I am sure you could find current issues discussed in older plays, you just need to present the play to speak to today's audience.  You could look at some older Pulitzer winners: Sherwood, Sayoran, O'Neill or many foreign authors from Ionesco to Moliere.  ART had great success with Sartre (No Exit) of all the people.  Three plays that come to mind (again, I never saw them as otherwise I would not put them on the list):  A Taste of Honey (Shelagh Delaney), The Bald Soprano (Ionesco), Master and Margareta (Russian, original was a novel.)

The Goat, Proof, The Glass Menagerie

Blasted - Sarah Kane, Phaedra's Love - Sarah Kane, Sexual Perversity in Chicago - David Mamet.

Beckett, Yeats, Miller.

Was going to say Kentucky Cycle but lo and behold.

Andromache (Racine), The Apple Cart (Shaw), The Medium (one act opera by Menotti).

ubu roi  Woyzeck  Stop the World.

I don't know that I have a top three plays.  I will say to you guys what I said to StageSource in their recent survey:  What seems like the weakest parts of the Boston theatre community are the two which are most fundamental: 1) nurturing new plays; 2) nurturing new audiences.    There is no legitimate way for the theatre community to survive without building from those two fundamentals, yet most of the local theatres continue to put focus on either: 1) an older crowd (look at the upcoming seasons at Lyric, BTW, and New Rep for more than enough proof of this) or 2) fringe companies playing to a limited and similarly fringe audience (i.e. too "fringe" to be attractive to many people).    While I have no qualms about pushing theatrical limits, and storytelling styles, both are incredibly feasible without turning away from the audience.  Too much theatre is now made with the artists in mind, not the audience.  Shakespeare pushed limits and was still the most popular of his time.      There is no reason to not have both; and in a city which may be one of the capitals of intelligent youth (read: COLLEGES) in the country, it is a shame that such a huge percentage of the community (and also of theatre's future) are ignored.

The Faith Healer (Friel), Madmen and Specialists (Soyinka), Keely and Du (Martin)

"Thieves' Carnival" (Anouilh), "The Lady's Not for Burning" (Frye), "The Flies" (Sartre) 

The Distance from Here by Neil LaBute, La Bete by David Hirson, Two Rooms by Lee Blessing (that might've been done around here recently, so I'll also say The Cocktail Hour and/or Sylvia, both by A.R. Gurney.