Audience participation ... blogs mean that ordinary theatregoers' opinions now count in critical debates. Photograph: Mark Lambie/AP
I'm beginning to think theatre coverage across the pond is undergoing a mini-revolution. Those who want a survey of the New York theatre scene may still go to the New York Times for the latest reviews and features, but the blogosphere is reaching corners the increasingly PR-driven and squeezed-for-space arts pages of the print media can't (or won't).
A bevvy of New York-based playwrights, critics, directors, academics and assorted drama fans are using blogs to have conversations about theatre culture, post reviews, challenge critical consensus, respond to breaking news and plug their productions. What binds them together, from the formidably prolific Superfluities to Playgoer (my personal favourite), is genuine excitement about the medium.
Time Out New York's theatre editor, who's just climbed aboard the bandwagon with Historiomastix, says he turns to blogs for "informed opinion and passion" and reckons the blogosphere is "where serious theatre journalism is headed these days". Why, after all, should conveying what is new and beautiful on our stages be left solely to salaried newspaper and magazine critics?
One of the most refreshing things about the theatre blogosphere is its internationalism (want to find out about theatre in Australia? Try Theatre Notes). The Whatsonstage.com discussion boards suggest there's an increasing appetite for online debate about theatre in the UK, too. (Playwright David Eldridge has even joined the fray there, standing up for his show, Market Boy.)
London theatre-lovers have some catching up to do in the blogging stakes, but we're catching on. There's Encore Theatre Magazine, with its mix of murderously witty, smart broadsides and casual abuse. You might sometimes quibble with the tone, but its aim - to dislodge the movers and shake the shakers - is laudable. And it's well worth checking out the thoughtful musings of freelance theatre director Paul Miller, Mark Shenton's newsy blog on The Stage website or writer/director Chris Goode's recently launched Thompson's Bank of Communicable Desire.
Reserve could be to blame for British theatre-makers' comparative reluctance to start blogging, but you suspect it has more to do with people watching their backs. It's telling that Encore, set up to "champion what is good and attack what is not... To be a voice for a new theatre" is run by an anonymous group of stage folk (part of the fun is trying to guess who they might be).
