ABSTRACT
The prospectus for a conference entitled “Why Theatre: Choices for the New Century”2 posed a question that goes straight to the heart of the matter that concerns me here: “Theatre and the media: rivals or partners?” My answer to this question is unequivocal: at the level of cultural economy,3 theatre (and live performance generally) and the mass media are rivals, not partners. Neither are they equal rivals: it is absolutely clear that our current cultural formation is saturated with, and dominated by, mass media representations in general, and television in particular (though television is admittedly locked in combat for cultural and economic dominance with the Internet and telecommunications).
