Past is Prologue

A couple of changes to the old Mad Theatrics blog this morning.  I restored our spiffy "honeybee" masthead up top, and I added an article archive widget to the right.

My wife and I started this thing back in May of 2006 as a place to vent about about our theatrical experiences in Los Angeles. (As she so presciently wrote in the very first post, "We didn't set out to piss anyone off, but we managed to." Story of our lives.)

Seven years later, Mad Theatrics is dedicated to honest and informed reviews by people who have actually produced theater, and the occasional eruption of frustration and armchair quarterbacking about theater in general and the state of the Los Angeles theater scene in specific by yours truly.  We also publish the Permanent Ink list at the end of each calendar year, spotlighting the best new plays to debut in Los Angeles as nominated and voted on by the community.  Oh, and we added Phillip Kelly to the writing staff.

Over the course of these many years, I've published many words here.  I've struggled with theater as an artform vs. theater as commerce, I've banged the war drums against dues-paying companies, I've quoted Peter Brook so extensively you might actually be able to piece a complete text of The Empty Space together, and I have generally feigned brilliance and only occasionally actually approximated it.

There's some good stuff hidden in the archives.  Some embarrassing stuff, some far-too-personal stuff, but still some pretty good stuff.  At the very least, I've tried to be open and honest.  As the readership for this blog has grown (We're up from four regular readers to at least seven now!  Hi, mom!) I realize some of you might actually be interested in what I have to say about the "Have to Have" rut, why I think one-person shows suck, or why I think Scot Nery is one of the most brilliant entertainers I know.

Thus, to better facilitate the happy accident of running across such articles, I have added the archive widget.