E tu, All That Chat?

The most interesting and intellegent people to ever post at All That Chat have been banned. And if you mention one of the banned ex-members (VERACHARLES) then you get banned, too. That board is now a slow moving bore.

Bitter is certainly the right word to describe All That Chat and most of its denizens. I consider that site to be one of the least supportive places on the net for the theater world. I much prefer the community here at BroadwayWorld which I consider 1000x more supportive of what's out there, big and small.

The attitude over there of being the first to post reports on previews, actors, etc. to tear them all to shreads turned me off on that site months ago. Checking it now, it does look like they're getting a lot less posts than they used to. Pity.

Well said Etoille!

I find that the chatter at ATC is more acerbic than that here, but the no polls policy is a beautiful thing, there's less repetition of opinions, the knowledge base is excellent, and there have been some really amazing discussions there.

I see ATC as being filled with mostly very devoted and experienced theater fans who don't have much patience for newbies. BWW is friendlier to young and inexperienced fans as well as fluffier discussions. I like to check both, just because they talk about different things. They're not even rivals in my eyes- they're just two different things. Like apples and kumquats. :)

Edit: Okay, maybe I'm not reading the right threads or something. There are some really sour posters at ATC, but it's easy enough to see who they are and not take what they say to heart. Or maybe I'm just overly naive- I usually believe the best about everyone until they really prove me wrong. But I think my ideal Broadway message board would be somewhere between BWW and ATC.

Updated On: 6/4/04 at 09:58 AM

Jack, I think we've agreed on two threads today, alone. What's going on here?

LOL, only if you and I can produce, direct and cast it.

Holland Taylor, wow is HT still amongst the living? That's a name I've not heard in ages. Good one!

Yes, but you're only out 10 dollars to get annoyed and be around rude, idiotic patrons. For a 100 dollars, I have no tolerance. How about when they actually decide to have the conversation as was the case with Lisa Ling at a performance of La Boheme' that I attended. I was shocked.

That's priceless. No, she was one of the original "View" ladies. A show that makes my skin crawl btw. She was infuriatingly oblivious as to proper theater etiquette. I couldn't tolerate that behaviour from an A-lister, let alone some Z-lister, like Ling.

All brilliant. I've heard All that "Crap", or did I make that one up?

ive never been to atc, nor do i plan to, not from what ive heard about it. this place can get pretty nasty sometimes, but there are also a lot of fun, and informative people who i love to talk to because of how much i learn about theater that i could never learn out here in nowhere, usa.

sometimes i feel horrible at the prospect of some of the stars we post about reading our threads, and they arent always even that bad. i just wish we could all remember that the people in the shows we talk about ARE in fact people, and they should be treated with human decencey, whether or not we enjoy them as performers.

But of course, no one could accuse the posters here of bitterness or vitriol against ATC...

Quit generalizing, folks. Saying ATC is populated entirely by bitter old queens is the same as saying the audience of Wicked consists entirely of vapid teenage girls. Not true, and definitely not up to the standards of fairness you claim BWW upholds.