Why Slings and Arrows could never be a U.S. TV show

It's perhaps surprising that nobody's done this before - a comic series about life in the theater - as you'd think actors and writers would know this milieu, but the fact is they don't know this milieu - probably 1 of a thousand American TV actors/writers/directors have any significant background in live theater. Of course it's different in England, and even in Canada, which as it turns out is where "Slings & Arrows" arises. It's about two theater troupes - not exactly rivals because they're so much on opposite ends of the spectrum - in a Canadian city obviously modeled on Stratford. The festival theater has corporate sponsorship - lots of jokes about, Hello! It's a business! - and lavish production values and a British director who's way burned out and a totally bored audience of worthies and swells. Across town, a another theater (they're both doing Shakespeare, and it doesn't seem as if the small theater is particularly avant garde) is being kicked out of its warehouse space for nonpayment of rent. The link is that the director at the small theater used to act for the British director at the festival until he had some kind of breakdown - it's an episode none of them talks about about, but it seems to be at the epicenter of the lives of several of the characters. Lots of Shakespeare references, which is fun (for me), and the crew gets so many of the types completely right, from the ingenue to the aging star to the earnest producer and the insidious corporate sponsor and the hangers-on - and the lives of actors after the show, centered on a lot of drinking.