For most of us, watching live performers act and sing is an infrequent luxury. Theater, like many of the other performing arts, long ago broke with its proletarian roots and assumed the gilded mantle of “culture.” In an era of instant entertainment on the TV and the Internet, attending a play or a musical has become a special event, identified (unfairly, some might argue) with formality, cultural literacy, seriousness and, above all, disposable income. But theater, by its very nature, is about emotional outreach. – Orange County Register