I have not posted recently because I have been busy helping artistic directors Gabriele Schafer and Melanie Dreyer prepare our theatre’s new website. Thieves Theatre exists now only as historical archive and as practicing aesthetic under its new identity as International Culture Lab. Nothing sad in the retirement of the name; we had long ago evolved out its confines. Also the cultural and political climate in this country is no longer conducive to our earlier explorations disrupting the status quo. The post 9/11 world would need to classify our actions, regardless of its artistic pedigree, as dangerous and threatening. Distinctions between poetic terrorism and actual terrorism are no longer possible.

Although I haven’t been posting, I have been following some the recent theatrosphere topics and commenting at other blogs. In particular, I have been interested in the talk around Showcase Code reform. Isaac and Mark and Leonard and John and Isaac again, all have posts with comments on this subject. I will try to tie this issue in with the topic of decentralization of arts funding that Scott has been hosting at Theatre Ideas. (How does LA and NYC being allowed waiver contracts with Equity actors effect the production of theater in the nation as a whole?) The other topic that I have been following is the one that Chicago bloggers have recently been discussing in some detail is the ” preview review” and the related  “critic v. blogger” that has getting some traction in Chicago even as the New York theatrosphere has shied away from the volatility inherent in such an exploration as witnessed in the Leonard Jacobs/George Hunka brouhaha.

I have also been writing about the blogosphere itself for the spring issue of New York Theater Review. Much of that writing is relevant to some of these current discussions, so I will rewrite and post edited-out sections from there, linking to what I have been reading in other blogs.

I will also be posting and cross-posting in my role as dramaturg at the International Culture Lab blog.