A Note from Our Director

Ever binge-watched a series on Netflix or Hulu? Ever listen to an album on repeat? Ever read a page-turner? Stephen King wanted his readers to have a hard time putting his books down. I direct productions that I hope will stay with you and make you come back for more. Artists want the fruits of our labor to be consumed with passion, zeal, fervor, dare I say, obsession. Every artist covets a captive audience. Misery explores what happens when an artist is held captive by his audience. 

There’s the old idiom about a tree falling in a forest. If art is not consumed or patronized, is it art? It certainly isn’t commerce, and if there’s no commerce it gets harder and harder to keep making the art. There are compromises to be made when arts institutions, organizations, and museums rely on funders to keep their doors open. Theatre companies cancel seasons when they can’t sell enough tickets so they better select programming that will get butts in their seats or else. Actors take roles they don’t want to play because the roles they do want to play don’t pay. Most Artists have at some point in their career experienced pressure to negotiate control over their work if they want to keep doing it.

But sometimes the stars align. Sometimes an artist makes something that is fulfilling, invigorating, and cathartic for themselves and for their audience. Sometimes it sparks a symbiotic passion, zeal, and fervor. It can be heaven when the obsession is mutual. As we see in this play, it can be hell when it’s not.

Scott Westerman

Director