Tulsa's theater community goes online in combined effort
By KAREN SHADE, 5/23/2005
The Tulsa theater community will now be linked by one Web site. Seated are Vanessa Adams (left), Anthony Batchelder and Jason Watts. Standing are Julie Tattershall (left), Devin Meadows, Frank Gallagher and Jeff Whitlatch. STEPHEN PINGRY / Tulsa World
Two characters in a little-known Broadway hit called "West Side Story" lamented over Stephen Sondheim lyrics looking for that "somewhere" and "a place for us."
Well, the Tulsa Area Community Theater Association (TACTA) has found it surprisingly close to home, or any home for that matter.
If you want to know about a Theater Tulsa audition coming up, go to the computer. If you want to discuss Theater North's latest staging, get online. If you have a funny story to tell or a bike you want to sell, you're not likely to meet any resistance.
Anthony Batchelder, TACTA president, started the association's Web site www.tacta.net in 1999.
"This last year we decided to add a forum for announcements and communication. It gives people a chance to get out to the theater community in a way they might not be able to," Batchelder said.
Though he set up the forum, Batchelder insists his part with the forum was purely technical.
"It's because of Jason Watts. The forum was his brainchild," Batchelder said.
Watts wanted theater regulars (patrons and participants) to have a center where they could look for theater information and also contribute ideas to the work that is produced in the region.
"It just made sense that this is something that TACTA could probably benefit from," Watts said. "It's still getting its legs. Me and Tom pretty much post everything on there, announcements."
But what Watts wants to see is members of the various area theater companies posting all their announcements on the forum a one-stop site anyone can visit to find out everything current in the drama scene.
Heller and Clark theaters already take advantage of the free and open forum.
"At Clark, we get huge amounts of people that come in and audition for our shows. It's children's theater," said Julie Tattershall, director for both Heller and Clark theaters. "Last year, we had hundreds of kids turn out for our auditions for ' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' So we started posting the cast list on the Web site."
This year, Heller and Clark have started posting their callback lists on the forum, as well.
"You can go to it at your own leisure and find out if you made it or not," Tattershall said.
The association has about 15 member theaters, according to the TACTA Web site, and several individual member sponsorships.
But for those numbers, the site's calendar of events has more than 2,000 hits per month, so more than several somebodies are interested to know what Tulsa-area theater has to offer 46 registered users to be exact since the forum went up in September.
That doesn't even count the guests who are allowed to post.
Tattershall said the forum has been useful in other ways.
"One of the most interesting ways people have used it is that people have started giving feedback on shows," she said.
That feedback can be more than helpful for new and developing shows.
"I check it every day and have posted a couple of things up there. I've asked about best theater experiences, and some of the responses were very insightful," she said.
As much as the site is welcoming of "theater people," Watts said he didn't want to see its use limited to frequent supporters, backstage techs and actors.
"There's not a whole lot of reason for us to talk online because we talk to each other almost every day. But the goal of this site is hopefully to attract people who've never been to the theater, but are curious," Watts said.