{"id":4180,"date":"2009-06-11T10:10:25","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T16:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conradaskland.com\/blog\/?p=4180"},"modified":"2009-06-11T10:10:25","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T16:10:25","slug":"selling-tragedy-vs-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/selling-tragedy-vs-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Tragedy vs. Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am bewildered on a seemingly simple decision that I believe is common to any writers or creators. Tragedy vs. Comedy; which to create? There was a related article I just read (http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2009\/SHOWBIZ\/Movies\/06\/11\/ew.movies.adults\/index.html<\/a>) that says it’s much more difficult to sell a movie aimed at adults vs. a fun kid’s movie. Here’s a quote from the article:<\/p>\n

“Audiences don’t want to be reminded of the darkness in the world,” he says. “They want to laugh, get taken to space, watch things in a museum come to life.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And this is something I have been thinking on for quite some time. I have a project I want to do. It’s a performance piece. I have two ideas that are “dark” and one idea that is silly. My personal opinion is that it’s much easier to create something dark. It’s difficult to be funny. Also, I think it’s easier to write a good sounding song in a minor key than it is to write a song in a major key. Why? I’m not sure.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to be funny impromptu and off the cuff – but to be funny within a set framework, very difficult. Like writing weekly screenplays for a comedy tv show – I think that must be very difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So my ideas for a theater piece that are dark I can see very clearly and think I could follow through well. But would anyone want to see it? When I think of the performances I have been part of the last several years, the most successful ones box-office-wise were the upbeat ones, funny and silly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stephen Sondheim says he doesn’t worry about whether an audience will “like” what he does, he only is concerned with their understanding of what’s happening. The most important thing: that the audience understand and is with you at all times. Whether they like it or not, you can’t control. (I THINK that is what he was saying).<\/p>\n

If you have any input on this I would love to hear from you. Please leave a note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am bewildered on a seemingly simple decision that I believe is common to any writers or creators. Tragedy vs. Comedy; which to create? There was a related article I just read (http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2009\/SHOWBIZ\/Movies\/06\/11\/ew.movies.adults\/index.html) that says it’s much more difficult to sell a movie aimed at adults vs. a fun kid’s movie. Here’s a quote from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-15q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4181,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions\/4181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}