April Editorial

Grant,Herewith, as directed by you and yes, twice, to your question.INTERNET IMAGESAll manner of developments are taking place on the web site with no apparent end to the flow of rich ideas. Clubs have been publishing the results of auditions; theres been a number of surveys; all sorts of administrative propositions have been discussed. Its all very positive and stimulating.Contributors are increasingly giving themselves descriptive middle names, so heres old David worry-guts CrewesIn a recent E-mail Grant invited us to showcase past productions on the website and linked to a spectacular example of one of his triumphs Pitchfork Disney. The page is presented complete with flyer, logos, photos, the lot. If budding archivists from all the clubs could follow this example it would make a fascinating resource. Incidentally, Kimberley Shaw mentioned at the last Committee meeting that she was willing to enter information, provided by clubs. I think she was particularly referring to print but the ITA office has a scanner so graphics and photos are a possibility.I can't avoid coming back to the problem of copyright and the danger I mentioned last month of the easy capability of publishing defamatory or unauthorized material world wide. Weve all seen examples of posters and flyers where the design looks very similar to the one used to advertise the film of the play say. I mean VERY similar. To send out a hundred or so of them in the post to local residents is probably a breach of copyright and the owner might, if he learnt of it, consider legal action to safeguard his intellectual property. Now, if some enthusiastic web archivist scanned the said poster onto their showcase, it would be made available to millions of surfers all over the world, and the owner of the original might have a very different reaction. Just a note of caution.One suggestion, from some web readers, was that reviews of productions would be an interesting addition to the site and a few have appeared already. I was reminded of my reaction, at the first ITA Committee meeting I attended, to the suggestion that the link should carry reviews. I said over my dead body, its not the function of the ITA to be criticizing the clubs, were here to support them not make their life harder. I guess the web is a different proposition but I still worry about the potential adverse affect for negative criticism. One type of review has been widely condemned by people who have talked to me. Its what we might call the Lolita syndrome where the critic voices a negative view without having seen the show. It goes something like this: Someone told me the actors were inaudible. Not helpful! I hope we can all try to be positive. For example instead of observing that the map, which formed the backdrop for the recent, beautifully staged production of Lawrence of Arabia, was inaccurate, one could marvel at the genius of Lawrence for managing to get to Akaba at all with such a cartographical inexactitude.