Buy Local

It's all the rage with the hippies nowadays: buy local. That's right--as with all things that move in cycles, we, as a society, have come back around to understanding the benefits of a strong local economy. Hell, Boulder has had a campaign to produce its own currency to keep the local economy strong. We understand how important community shared agriculture (CSA) is. We know what it means to build relationships in the community with our local merchants. We hippie Boulderites strive for more cottage industry and are willing to pay fifty percent more for damned near anything if we can proudly support our local economy; it makes us one of the strongest, wealthiest small cities in the US today.


And naturally, that begs the question of WHY?! Why what? WHY is there no equity theatre here that supports the LOCAL actors?

One of my most recent theatre auditions was for the Denver Center Theatre Company. Sure, Denver is something of a cowboy town still, but it's coming up on the radar of cool cities in the US. It has a night life that involves steampunk operas at Lannie's Clocktower, a zombie crawl, a Columbus Day protest and more! It has a few great restaurants and a reasonable amount of film and theatre production (in spite of the lack of tax breaks) for a place known for wrangling anything but the acting herd. And yet, there are so many wonderful actors in and around Denver. So again, I ask you WHY?

It's one thing to audition for equity theatre in NYC. Crammed into the back room of the equity building, seven to a bench, getting friendly with your neighbor at seven a.m. hoping desperately that if you're one of the eight left by five p.m. you'll be seen by one of the casting directors. In Denver, the acting market isn't quite so saturated so we each get appointments, AEA and non-AEA alike. How lovely.

Except... in spite of the casting appointment and the AEA-like treatment, it's all a sham. Denver has no intention of using their local talent pool. It's like any other medium sized US city today: they all import their actors from NYC or LA. Occasionally, they'll travel to Chicago if they're really desperate.

Buy why? WHY? There's talent here. And if they used their local talent they wouldn't have to pay to house out-of-state actors. And if they 'bought local' then the actors scraping by here could use that AEA cash to spend more money in the Denver area, feed the local economy, support the CSA farms, spend that extra boutique 50% at local businesses. Further, no show in the DCTC season hinges on the pull of a big-name actor in a solo performance. In fact, this argument is in no way exclusive to the Denver Center Theater Company--it goes for all those medium sized cities across the US. You don't need out-of-state talent. You just don't.

And...oooooh--AND, I want my chance to be rejected, goshdarnit. That's right! I believe it is my right, as an actor, to be rejected. And when the local equity theater company won't even give the local actors a true opportunity for a good, honest rejection, what do we have left? It's not fair to tease the Denver actors with an audition only to scamper off to NY and LA because it's fashionable. Give us a chance, even if it's a chance to be rejected.

There's really no sound reason not to hire locally, theater peeps. And I can't answer the big, glaring, incomprehensible WHY that lingers around this topic. It make so much sense to me to hire local actors so please, DCTC, join the hippies in Boulder and buy local.