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In the few months that I have been publishing Man In Chair, I have discovered several online theatre geek havens in the form of theatre-related bulletin boards. As one participant puts it, “Where else can I quote Rent or Wicked or even Altar Boyz, and no one is there to give me the ‘that’s nice, dear’ smile, when I know that he/she has no idea what I’m talking about.”
They are all free, but require a one-time registration. Here are my faves:
Broadwayspace.com: Created by Ken Davenport, broadwayspace.com is like Myspace for theatre geeks. Ken tells of a childhood in Worcester, Mass blasting Les Miz on his way to high school, and then hiding the tape once he arrived at school. And sitting alone in his room framing his playbill from Phantom. Ken doesn’t know it, but we lived the same childhood half a country apart.
He created the site to be a place that made you feel like you were living in the heart of Times Square, even though you might be living in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Besides theatre fans from across the country, there are Broadway folk like Michael Rupert (known to me—and maybe Ken—as Marvin from Falsettos, known to kids today as Professor Callahan from Legally Blonde), Nicolette Hart from Rent, and Andrew Call from Altar Boyz in the network.
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Broadwayworld.com bulletin board: Whenever I think I know a lot about what’s happening in the world of theatre, I take a visit to the bulletin boards at broadwayworld.com for a lesson in humility. These folks know they’re stuff. It’s the most active board I have found, with lots of people posting, replying and retorting 24/7. Pretty much any breaking theatre news will make it’s way here pretty quickly, and it’s a great place to find theatre geeky gems like the Zombie Prom Movie download.
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Musicalfans.net: A very well-organized forum to discuss specific shows. They are listed alphabetically from A Chorus Line to You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.
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Musicals.net: A little more general musical theatre discussion forum. There are currently 15,038 registered members, and at this writing, 63 of them were online, so there’s almost always something going on there.
Yay for BWW! Of course, I’m only on the Off-Topic board these days… But it’s my home.
I have to admit, I probably spend way too much time browsing the broadwayworld.com message boards. But I do enjoy it. People seem to know what they’re talking about, and I’ve learned a lot. It’s also a pretty civil, helpful place for an Internet message board! And it is a great resource for those pressing questions like, should I get the complete symphonic recording of “Les Miserables” or the 10th anniversary concert CD? I haven’t heard of the others, though. I’ll definitely have to check them out.
Yes, Esther, that’s one thing I didn’t mention is that for message boards, the participants in all of these forums are pretty civilized, which makes participation that much more enjoyable.