If you have read the papers, listened to the radio or watched the TV, or looked along the shelves of your local newsagent recently you'll have realised that the net has most certainly fallen upon us all. It would seem that everywhere you turn you find the 'net', 'Information Superhighway', 'Internet' or 'web'. Has everyone gone cyber-mad or is this new phenomenon of real value to the populace in general and the performing arts community in particular?
The 'Information Superhighway' is actually an umbrella term for a range of services based on computers interconnected over phone lines. Most of these services are now provided over a network called the Internet which, perhaps surprisingly, is around 25 years old and was originally designed to link military and research organisations in the USA. Joining the Internet requires you to have a computer and a modem, which allows the computer to 'phone' other systems. You also need some software and an account on the Internet, these last two are readily available and, like mobile phones, joining the community is becoming easier and cheaper all the time.
So, having reduced a multi-billion dollar, many thousand man-hour, incredibly complex system to a passing paragraph we'll move on to look at why so many people are rushing to become a part of it. The initial impression brings flocks of sheep (or lemmings) to mind, millions of people whipped to a technological frenzy by some misplaced hype. Actually, the Internet is not the modern equivalent of 'anorak country' and is now largely populated by non-technical users.
The main thing about the Internet is that it is big, very big. In fact words such as `massive' and `huge' really don't work, it is a combination of a phone system with 40 million subscribers and the largest library and museum ever created by mankind. Once you're connected to it all this information is a few mouse clicks away - if you know where to look - and free to access (except for a local phone call). The main interface to the Internet for most people is a nifty system called the World Wide Web ('the web' to its friends) which hides away the complexity of the system behind an easy to use.
Just about every subject you can think of (and quite a few you'd rather not) is covered on the Internet: art, literature, current affairs, culture, gardening, astronomy, religion, music, jokes, politics and, the reason we're here, theatre!
An example of the type of information services available is the UK Theatre Web, an on-line index of performing arts information in the UK. Here you can find listings of all theatre venues in the UK plus details of amateur and professional performances. The index also provides links to other related on-line resources both in the UK and around the world. Index services are important because the Internet has no central control, and no central contents list, with over 700 new services launched a day it's enough to make the bravest librarian faint and to make finding information something of a nightmare.
UK theatre professionals have been somewhat slower than their US and Canadian colleagues in embracing the Web but there have been some notable early showings. Some of the first groups to go on-line were London's Royal Court Theatre and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Several smaller theatres have joined the idea of self-promotion over the net and a number of amateur groups are also finding this an interesting way of promoting their activities. The Opera Factory and the Northern Ballet Theatre have extensive on-line areas and the Dance Umbrella and Edinburgh festivals both appeared on-line in 1995. Services such as these provide extensive background information on the companies and performances, as well as dates for tours.
Recently, the Really Useful Group (USA) appeared on the Web with information covering all their activities worldwide and shortly an activity to put all of Oxfordshire's theatre's on-line will be completed. But the information on-line is not just for the audiences, several agencies have gone on-line and professional services are beginning to appear too. One topic that, not surprisingly perhaps, has a lot of coverage on the net is Shakespeare on the Internet, from complete texts to models of his early theatres.
So that's a brief introduction to the Internet and how it relates to the performing arts. If you want to experiment with the Internet yourself and don't have immediate access to a suitable computer then why not visit one of the many emerging cyber-cafés where you can have a hands-on guided introduction to the net. All the on-line site mentioned in this article can be found by connecting to http://www.uktw.co.uk and looking at the `Articles' page, you can also contact me there.
[793 words - Copyright UK Theatre Web, UK. 1995]
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