Money vs Art

            This question plays out in the realm of contemporary EVERYTHING.
             just contemporary- It's been happening for ever and ever. The "mainstream" .
             has always freaked out over every new development in the arts until those .
             developments either went away or became mainstream themselves. The powers .
             that be freaked out when a few wild monks came up with polyphony in the early .
             Middle Ages ("the devil's music"); when Liszt was writing chords that could .
             only be played if you had an extra digit (or a prehensile penis); when Mozart .
             wrote an opera in German; when Elvis shook his pelvis and had the nerve to .
             "sound black"; when they caught their kids listening to the local erotic .
             troubadour or ragtime or jazz or rock and roll or hip hop or rap; etc., etc.
             This happens in art- how many truly experimental young artists get their work .
             shown in major galleries? This happens in dance, this happens in novel .
             writing, this happens in film, this happens in television, this happens .
             everywhere. It happens in sports. People freak over every rule change, over .
             every new shoe, over every new surface, over every new herb some athlete gets .
             from his local mojo woman. .
             My point is this: If you want a ton of people to see your work; if you want .
             to make enough money to support yourself as well as the average banker; if .
             you want four-color posters and champagne receptions and your picture in the .
             New York Times; then your work MUST generate the kind of money that .
             necessarily supports that. And to make X amount of dollars, you need to .
             attract X x 10 amount of people. The sheer numbers of people required .
             necessitate gathering many of them from the "mainstream." Because the .
             definition of "mainstream" is that which is in the main, "the main" being .
             where the main- the majority- of people find themselves. It's just MATH.
             Should big old regional theatres take risks with all that dough they have? .
             Sure! And some do. Berkeley Rep, a multimillion dollar, Tony-Award-winning .