Author’s note: I attended two different “versions” of Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music at The Curran on Sunday September 24 and at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall on Wednesday September 27. This review compares the two audience experiences of “Chapter IV” and “Abridged Version” respectively.
What makes a piece of theatre a phenomenon? What turns it from instance to event? Driven by conscious and subconscious hope that their art goes the analog equivalent of viral, artists create art everyday from fine to pop, traditional to technological. Artistic organizations do this, as do artist teams. Most of it never becomes an event. Theatre that does may do so incidentally, and in cases like the Broadway productions of ANGELS IN AMERICA, RENT and HAMILTON, deliberately. Continue reading “Rhapsody in Blue Eyeliner: Taylor Mac’s ‘A 24-Decade History of Popular Music’”