ban the word “commercial”
Why does the term "commercial theatre" exist?
The publishing business – more high minded than theatre – doesn’t separate out a division with the derogratory word; they just have books, and they range across all genres and audiences. The movie business has a division between studio and independant, but the line was blurred when the studios purchased the most successful indies, so "studio" doesn’t mean "B", low brow or artistically not credible.
Superficially, commercial may indicate that a theatrical production has the intention of making a profit, but it’s really a derogratory put-down that implies a deeper greed, and that profit is more important that the show / audience / art. This is riducolous; not only do most people invest for both financial AND artistic reason, when has their been a show that did not take itself seriously on artistic or entertainent grounds.
Example: in his overview of the Toronto fall season, Richard Ouzounian mentioned many privately funded productions (ie big musicals and plays, whether from Broadway or produced in Toronto), but labelled only Jewtopia as "the commercial production". Surely "commercial" was a put-down, especially when the similarly "commerical" productions of Pillowman, We Will Rock You and Drowsy Chaperone avoided the label.
I say, rename the Commercial Theatre Institute and avoid the word!