Untangling the Web

Today my employer American Theatre joins the 21st century and debuts a fully functioning, up-to-the-minute website, Americantheatre.org (apparently "americantheater.org" also takes you there). This also happens to be our October season preview issue, which means the unveiling of our Top 10 Most-Produced Plays list, as well as our Top 20 Most-Produced Playwrights list, and an extra bonus that's kind of a dream come true for me: As a fan of podcasts like Bloggingheads and the various Slate-casts, I'm proud to inaugurate the new semi-weekly edition of AT Offscript, the debut episode of which features myself and my fellow editors Suzy Evans and Diep Tran, as well as my interview with the year's most-produced playwright, Christopher Durang, and a round table with critics from around the country who've seen his latest comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (you can also find Offscript in iTunes). While the technology of theater remains irreducibly live and human, other communications media haven't stayed so static; I'm happy (relieved, really) to be at an organization that's honoring the latter by responding (relatively) nimbly to the latter. The web, at its best, has its own kind of liveness and immediacy, after all--all it lacks is the in-person contact, and for that, we'll always need theater.