So What Next?

That is the question.  Do I use this blog for example to establish an independent voice on North Coast theatre?  Maybe make it a .com, try to sell some ads, explore the possibilities?

It's tempting.  I've been to only one play since I was fired by the NC Journal-- it was reviewed in three newspapers, and my views on it are strongly different from all three.  Besides views and reviews, there's nowhere else that does what this blog does with This North Coast Weekend.

But apart from internal commitment, something like that will take external support. So far the Journal's gamble that they could snuff me without anyone noticing appears to be paying off. (That they've exactly copied the form for my Stage Matters print column that I painstakingly invented probably helps.)  I've received a number of private emails supporting my work, but as yet not a public word.

In any case, I've decided not to decide for the rest of this calendar year.  I'll see what weekends are like without those responsibilities.  I'll see if I ever want to go back to the pain involved in reviewing the work of others.

In the meantime, for the rest of this year I'll be retrospective, and maybe introspective as well.  I've read some old columns lately--an interesting experience.  By necessity my process was to concentrate on the play and production at hand very intensively, including the writing of the review.  Then after its publication I would read it twice, perhaps post a fuller version or additional notes here...and then forget it all.  So reading old reviews reminds me of productions I'd just about forgotten I'd experienced.

So I will probably post some of those old reviews, adding some new context perhaps.  Some because the productions stand out in my (recently refreshed) memory, some because of a person or persons involved, some because of the play or the playwright, partly because I know this blog is used a lot as a reference.  It gets far-flung readers looking for specific plays and playwrights.

Sometimes these posts will be excerpts, sometimes fuller pieces and reviews, drawn from my drafts rather than from published versions.

Anyway, that's the immediate plan.  As for This North Coast Weekend, as long as theatres keep sending me information, I'll keep posting it, at least until the end of the year.