End of the Road for the Austin Live Theatre Blog

This post at www.austinlivetheatre.blogspot.com is #5247 in a series that started in June, 2008.   It's the last one that will appear.

The new site is Central Texas Live Theatre (CTXLT.com).  Click to go the new site:

Austin Live Theatre began here at www.blogspot.com.  I kept this blog alive even after my family gave me the Christmas present of a .com website for my theatre musings, principally because Blogspot's connection to Google promised enhanced web visibility.  Starting sometime in 2010, I put everything up at the blog, including all those inside pages at AustinLiveTheatre.com that I was creating whenever I got word of another live theatre production in the greater Austin area.

In late 2012 I extended the sites' coverage to San Antonio and nearby towns.  I found I'd bitten off more than I could comfortably chew.  With much more information to gather and process, creating a new page for every production became more tedious and time consuming.  

I decided last October that I would instead simply link theatre companies' websites and Facebook postings to the listings in the Central Texas theatre calendar. Since that time the content of this blog has been essentially the same as that of AustinLiveTheatre.com. 

At about the same time the firm that hosts my site began admonishing me to upgrade my content management software, still in its 2009 version.  Since late November I've been operating a 'beta' site with up-to-date software and security at www.CTXLT.com.  It still needs some fixing, polishing and improved formatting, but as of today that site is the principal -- and only -- location for this ongoing coverage of theatre art in Central Texas.  My various URLs all now redirect to www.CTXLT.com. 

I greatly appreciative those who've followed this blog, especially the 28 who subscribed to to it.  I invite you to use the RSS feed for the new site. Here it is:

(for www.ctxlt.com)

One of the principal lessons I've learned over the past 5½ years is that theatre is about community.  

That's not true of big media.  Films are not community; Broadway touring shows are not community.  A live theatre production in your own town is an event that enhances empathy, concern, and a sense of belonging, whether you're a theatre artist, a technician or an audience member.  

I concluded some time ago that my original goal of increasing the audiences for live theatre was quixotic.  This undertaking is unlikely to move those who don't already know live theatre very far off their couches or out of their bars.  

Instead, with Austin Live Theatre and its successor Central Texas Live Theatre (CTXLT) I aim to inform artists and potential artists, to provide informed commentary, and to help bridge the distances between the many theatre communities active across the region.  

After all, knowing more about one another reminds us of what we have in common.  That includes not only the art form itself but also the shared emotions and human concerns that give theatre its relevance and vitality. 

 

Michael Meigs