Vacation has a way of changing one’s perspective.  I just returned to snowy NYC from a long weekend in L.A.  Like any self-respecting NY-er, I went to the land of sun and surf with a healthy dose of arrogant scepticism.  (I’ve been a dedicated Mets fan championing mass transit over car culture for more than a decade, after all.)  For years, I’ve subscribed to the dominant theory that NY has the “best” contemporary performance scene in the country, and while the weather may be better other places, there’s just no replacing the arts community in NY. 

Now, that might be true.  However, for the first time, I started to wonder if it was actually preferable to be somewhere other than the place with the best, most established contemporary performance community.  What if there was no established structure?  No hierarchy of venues or forms or career points?  What if it was all a little more fluid, confusing, and challenging to create and find?  Would this necessarily be a bad thing?  After ten years in one place, I’m starting to consider what else is out there…