RE “PHANTOM of the theater: Audience is getting older” (Page A1, June 17): I’ve been a theater buff for years — I’m 57 — and I thought I’d explain how I got into it in the first place.
I attended Classical High School, Providence’s equivalent of Boston Latin. At least twice a year, through the program Project Discovery, we attended plays at Trinity Repertory Company. Some of artistic director Adrian Hall’s wilder forays were a bit much for my conventional middle-class upbringing — “Lovecraft’s Follies” comes to mind — but the exposure was wonderful, and something I might not have had otherwise. Those plays, plus a junior year drama club trip to Broadway to see “Jesus Christ Superstar,” fostered a lifelong love of theater.
I don’t have kids, so I don’t know what the schools are doing. Nevertheless, it seems that with all the professional theaters in Boston, not to mention all the regional, amateur, and student productions going on, schools ought to be bringing students to plays regularly.
With all the empty seats — about two-thirds of the balcony was empty on a recent Saturday night at a Huntington Theatre production of “Private Lives” — theaters and schools could work something out to expose high school kids to the joy of live theater without breaking the bank. Those are the audiences of tomorrow, and those are the people who need to be exposed to live theater now.