As someone whose life revolves around the theatre quite a bit, I'm lucky enough to have surrounded myself with close friends who almost all share the same interests as me. There's nothing I enjoy more than discussing what shows people have booked to see, how many times the second understudy Elphaba has performed this year or how early to start queuing in order to get a good seat at the Southwark Playhouse. However, I've slowly come to the realisation that not everyone outside of my close circle of friends is actually interested in talking about the theatre 24/7.
I know, I know! Shocking, right? It turns out that my grandma actually doesn't really care about who is going to be the new Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, my housemates aren't that interested in speculating about which musical Beverley Knight might star in next, and no one at my friend's flatmate's surprise birthday house-party is really that bothered by how long I had to wait in the Miss Saigon dayseat queue last weekend. Hmph!
Thankfully though, there is a new online forum filled with people who want to discuss all of these things and more on a daily basis, and that forum is called TheatreBoard.
TheatreBoard features sections discussing Musicals; Plays; Performers and following member
demand, a new area dedicated to Opera and Dance. Conversations already cover dozens of
productions including West End, fringe and touring; alongside topics as diverse as badly behaved
audiences to theatre technology and a live chat planned for the upcoming Olivier awards.
Following the announced closure date of the old whatsonstage theatre discussion board (a board which I had been a member of for more that 3 years) a number of board members volunteered their time, expertise and even their own money in order to ensure that theatre fans new and old had a place to discuss theatre and keep up to date with theatre news. It was really heartening to see such a passionate display from the theatre loving community, and the resulting TheatreBoard forum is absolutely brilliant,
All year round the UK delivers an exceptional wealth of live theatre in venues ranging in size from
over two thousand seats down to the most intimate studio spaces. TheatreBoard aims to support
informed, varied and vigorous debate among those who love theatre.
So if you're like me, and you find yourself boring your workmates to death with weepy stories about how your favourite show is closing soon, or killing every party you are invited to by only requesting tracks from the Hamilton OBCR then sign up to TheatreBoard for free today and join over 600 other theatre fans who are all just as annoyed about the scourge of people talking through overtures and unwrapping sweets noisily as you are!