National coverage

[E-script]

Gaetan wrote:

>Why aren't we, in the rest of the country, more yanked off
>about this?
We are. Or at least, I am. I can speak with some working familiarity with the mindset of the people running national print media, esp. the Post. Theatre is regarded by them, I think, as a local story; unlike a book, which anyone can pick up and read, only a fraction of their readers can choose to go see a play under review. The Globe, after being blasted for years for regarding Toronto theatre as somehow less local than theatre elsewhere, has pulled back on running Toronto reviews in its national edition (at least the one I see in B.C.); but it has not picked up the slack in any ongoing way with reviews from elsewhere. Why? Money; internal politics; centralism; disinterest: it's clear their pages are skewing towards pop culture anyway (and the Post's started there).

I don't doubt these publications would be susceptible to onslaughts of letter-writing, or representations from national theatre organizations on the matter. But the real solution, it seems to me, is for some entrepreneurial person (with time on their hands), or some concerned institution, to grab hold of the new media -- in particular, the one we're using right now, the internet -- and set up an electronic publication which would cover theatre in a national way.

Meantime, if I want to know what's going on in theatre elsewhere, I read local papers on the web.

Regards,

Frank Moher
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