Reflections Golden Mask Festival – Russia Case Carey Perloff, Artistic Director American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco The most overwhelming thing about our week experiencing Russian theater was undoubtedly the passion and plentifulness of the audience. There are two hundred theaters in Moscow and it appears that every single one of them is PACKED every single night. Honestly. There are lines out the door, the plays routinely start half an hour late, as students beg for tickets and people of every age cram in together to share an evening of theater. Ginkas said that his theater is the cheapest and therefore the poorest, and perhaps his audience was the most diverse: children, grandparents, teen-agers, twenty-somethings on dates, middle-aged couples—it was remarkable. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the American theater is STRUGGLING to find audiences, struggling to remain relevant in a culture saturated with media-on-demand… and it isn’t as if Russia isn’t highly wired and media-driven. But theater still MATTERS. It’s what you do at night. I suppose if the entire population lives in sub-standard housing and wants to escape the evening bickering, the most logical thing to do is go to a play…. Anyway, the miraculous phenomenon of the Russian audience has continued to obsess me—why do they go? What are they looking for? Will this be true in ten years? There must be something to be learned here…Huge heartfelt thanks to Philip for his passion for unusual theatrical adventures, for his uncanny ability to put the right people together at the right time, and for his incredible wisdom in leaving space for conversation to happen that really matters. Even given the remarkable theater we saw, it is the conversation that I will remember. I anxiously await our next adventure together.