Wherefore and Therefore

Time to write.

In truth, I've been writing quite a bit, just not where you can see it. As anyone who read my old blog knows, theater has been taking up a much bigger slice of my life than it used to. It's been about four years since I posted anything there, and one reason is that I've been both attending more theater performances and getting more involved in a theater company. Combine that with all my other activities (not to mention a family and a job!), and there doesn't seem to be much time to write.

But the fact is, one of the things I've been doing with my friends at the Shotgun Players is giving feedback on not just their shows, but pretty much every other play I see or read, which is a lot. So a friend suggested that maybe what I ought to do is turn some of that into a theater blog.

Wherefore

It strikes me as important to discuss my reasons for all this theater, as well as for sharing it. Theater has been part of my life for a long time. My mother was a drama teacher before I was born, and imparted a love of theater and dramatic literature in both of her children. But it wasn't until about twenty years ago, when I started going out with the woman who would become my wife that we started going to a lot of plays. We learned early on that we both enjoy plays more than movies, so we started looking for them.

What started with a season subscription to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre eventually became full-season subs to at least three or four theater companies, ad hoc tickets to plenty of other plays, and trips to New York City and London specifically to see plays. Pretty soon we had subscriptions to ACT, Berkeley Rep, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the SHN "Best of Broadway" series, and more.

Along the way, friends introduced us to Berkeley's Shotgun Players, specifically because they were undertaking a production of Tom Stoppard's trilogy, The Coast of Utopia. We are huge fans of Stoppard's work, and a trip to NYC to see "Coast" at Lincoln Center was one of our first trips out of town specifically for theater. We had assumed that would probably be our only chance to see it, ever. Learning that Shotgun was going to produce it right here in our backyard, we eventually got on board as production sponsors. Next thing I knew, I'd been invited to join Shotgun's board!

Therefore

So, what to write about? Plays. Actors. Theaters. I see lots of all of them. I have opinions. I'm not really looking to write reviews, but I do see most of the major productions in the bay area as well as lots of minor ones. I'm looking for compelling plays, inspiring performances, trends good and bad. We'll see where that goes./p>

The Name

We've had a running gag going the last few years about the number of plays we see during brief trips to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Is it possible to see too much theater? The jury is still out, but so far, we don't seem to be close.

Perhaps if I try blogging about theater as well as attending, I can achieve "too much." Stay tuned.