My Hope and Dream

A shout-out to Chris Bopst who was kind enough to post a pro-Brick comment in response to my not-so-pro rant below. I appreciate your insight, Chris, and as I hope I implied clearly enough, I’ve always been fond of Pete’s sense of humor (and yours too! Glad to see you in print again within the pages of Brick.) It’s good to hear that Media General isn’t planning to be a controlling patron, though I’m still a bit wary since, in one somewhat paranoid view, Brick’s ultimate goal would be to dilute (at least) or completely capture (at most) Style’s audience. Since I don’t praise my pals at Style that frequently, I'll take this opportunity to point out that one thing it does better than anyone in town is report on the Times-Dispatch. And, given the recent changes at the T-D, it’s a story that deserves some exposure.

My hope and dream, when I first heard about Brick, was that it might be able to give some coverage (finally) to the college theater scene and some of the more fringey theater stuff that happens here. I (and by extension, Style) can barely cover the mainline companies in town and have basically abandoned even a couple of the second-tiers (sorry, RTP and CAT). My fear with Brick is that it’ll end up covering a lot of the same ground that the T-D and Style (and Entertainment Weekly and a half-dozen other regional and national publications) already have pretty thoroughly shellacked, i.e., movies and TV and music. I hope that Pete can find someone that can cover the theater beat and, while I’m mentioning it, I should say that Style could also use someone to assist in theater coverage. If anyone else out there has some interest, E-mail me and I’ll pass your credentials up the line at the home office.

Oh, and I am still withholding any final judgment on Brick. I’ll still pick it up and read it over and ponder Free Will Astrology, if nothing else. And clearly, I’m not shy about giving it free publicity on my blog (for whatever that's worth!)