Howard's Exit

[Guillermo Verdecchia]

I too have been, in the past, frustrated or confused by some of the
activity or lack of it on this list. But much of my frustration had to do
with my unvoiced assumptions about the list and my FEAR of diving in and
saying something unlearned or off the mark. I have since gotten my feet wet
... and while the list does not exactly hum with activity and discussion,
it is a useful place to post and read information, to ask the odd question,
and do whatever else we want to do. (For a while, there was a journalist on
the list ... I want to say David Fox -- is that right? and he posted
reviews of shows he'd seen. He has since left for other lists perhaps ...
but his eforts were much appreciated .)

 I can only concur with Glen's recent posting. This list will only ever be
what we make of it. There is absolutely no point and nothing gained by
blasting "academics" for posting information which is pertinent to their
work (and I might add, pertinent to Our Work -- by our I mean the work of
professional theatre-makers outside the universities -- because it is often
ABOUT our work. If you can imagine that) on this list.

Read that sentence if you can. It's my day off; I'm not revising.

If we theatre-pros are too busy to really kickstart the discussions we want
to have, then, at least post press releases so people in other parts of the
country and world can have a clue as to what we're up to.

It's absurd and counter-productive for theatre-pros to take up antagonistic
positions with theatre academics. We are intertwined, interconnected. And
I'm not talking about obvious things such as courses which 
use/teach our plays, or classes who come to see our shows, or criticism and
theoretical discussions around the work ... I bet there are academics on
this list who could, for example, provide interesting perspective
(historical, marxist, labour history ...) on our beefs or quibbles with
Equity. (Some of them might even be equity councillors.)

 We might learn something ... we might get some new audience members ... we
might (eventually) have a unified, articulate, informed front with which to
face cutbacks, censorship, philistines and nasty reactionaries of all
stripes.

We need to talk ... get to know each other ... let's state the obvious for
a while -- if we don't then no one will ever know what assuptions we are
operating under. Stay on the list. Have a good day.

Guillermo Verdecchia