It's been real...

Readers of all kinds,
        What an interesting social experiment this has turned out to be. Throughout the semester this has been one hell of an experience for me. I don't believe I have ever attended so many GW shows in a single semester, and the rewards are immense. Thank you to all of those who helped, in any way, to put on a production this semester. It was a great season for GW theater.
        But, with graduation fast approaching, an acting role, my thesis, a writing opportunity, a visit from a special group of South Africans, and about a billion cover letters to write all in the same semester, I just don't think I'm going to be able to keep it going. Because I'm me, however, I can't resist a few things before I go:

1. From where I stand, this blog has done exactly what I wanted it to do. It both gave me an outlet to write down all my theater thoughts, and got people talking about the shows GW produces. Agree or disagree with any of my reviews, chances are if you read it, you talked about it with someone. And if you talked about the reviews, you talked about the shows. That was my main point here. Get people talking - because the more we talk about the quality of shows we produce, the more likely we are to produce good shows.

2. To the vast majority of you who supported me - especially the alumni and friends - Thank you! Chatting with all of you and hearing your feedback has been phenomenal. If you're upset I'm shutting it down, I'm sorry.

3. To those few of you who voiced your discontent with this blog in a respectful manner - Thank you as well. Your feedback was just as rewarding, and welcomed. Our opinions may have differed, but you have my respect regardless.

4. To the even fewer of you who voiced your discontent disrespectfully, called secret meetings to try and shut me down or get me blacked out of student theater, or quietly spread nonsense in the corner of a cast party thinking I couldn't hear you - I have two things to say. The first, a quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living." The second: buzz off, you read it anyway.

5. There will be two more reviews posted on this blog in the coming semester. The first will be a review of Michael Salgorolo's production, assuming he still wants me to do it - I am a man of my word who doesn't like getting punched in the nose. The second, will be a guest review of my thesis because this very same rubric I've used will be used to poll select audience members as part of the thesis itself.

6. In hindsight, yes, perhaps the creation of this blog was pretentious. But if you haven't noticed that every aspect of theater is a little bit pretentious in and of itself (with theater criticism perhaps being at the top of the list) then you're in for a very Spring Awakening.... I mean rude, rude awakening - do you see my point?

I'm excited about the coming theater season at GW. There are some awesome shows coming up and I hope I can get even a little bit close to seeing as many of them as I did this semester. Much love to all of you!

See you in the theater,
Ed