Old Playbill.COM Live Chat on AOL Reunion

[nydirector2]

Posted: 5/29/11 at 11:46pm

Does anyone remember talking in these rooms about 10-15 years ago. I used to love spending my high school nights avoiding doing homework and bitching and complaining about Broadway and now I would love to see where anyone and everyone has ended up.

My screen name was SimonMcFly and was from Alabama, then lived in New York for tyears before moving back to Alabama. ANyone else remember me?

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/29/11 at 11:50pm

Oh. My. God.

I totally forgot about those! The chatroom community then moved onto the Broadway.com message boards.

[Nif1025]

Posted: 5/31/11 at 1:35am

And what about the also-defunct Playbill message boards (at least I think they were message boards and not chat)? That was where I was glued around spring-summer 1997 where my (performing arts) summer camp had its 1st unofficial online presence (Long Lake Camp). I distinctly remember having to wait just to get into that section of the site and always reading posts from people who disapproved of Sherie R. Scott as a replacement Maureen in Rent! I have wanted to see what those messages looked like in recent years, but archive.org doesn't go that far! (I was also in high school back in those days, before any of us could connect with others on facebook, friendster, etc.) You can still go to that archive.org site to see what playbill.com looked like (Bway headlines of the day) in the late 90s!

[carnimiriel]

Posted: 5/31/11 at 5:07pm

Oh I remember this! You're talking about the chatroom moderated by Jenny Lyn Bader, right? My screen name then was Arch8ngl. That was the first time I got to chat with other Broadway fans and really feel how much of a community this was. Oh for those more innocent days...

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 5/31/11 at 5:17pm

Ha! I didn't chat on AOL but I was on PBOL's chat when they hosted it on their own site. I was Serafimo. :)

[Owen22]

Posted: 5/31/11 at 10:01pm

I was Holbee...I remember actually arguing about "Rent" with Anthony Rapp on those boards while the original cast was still performing...
Updated On: 5/31/11 at 10:01 PM

[henryt]

Posted: 5/31/11 at 11:06pm

This archive.org thing is so cool. This is what BWW looked like after being online for a week: https://web.archive.org/web/20030523140031/https://www.broadwayworld.com/

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/1/11 at 11:27am

I was "Enema Man" before I got banned.

[DooWahDiddy]

Posted: 6/1/11 at 12:13pm

Ha, I was... DooWahDiddy. Actually, believe it or not, I met the woman who became my wife in that Playbill chat room. It didn't have a happy ending, as we divorced four years ago, but I still consider it a cool story.

Anyway, yes, I remember many a night spent in front of my (incredibly bulky) monitor talking about everything and nothing. Life was so much simpler then...