October 2010
To our readers and fans:
 Off-Broadway shows have begun to open, Broadway shows are in previews and there are rehearsals for new productions taking place all over town. So while I find that theatre really knows no season, because there's always something new and exciting starting most every day, I will take the post-Labor Day cavalcade of new activity to take a moment to thank you for your interest in the work of the American Theatre Wing. While this monthly e-newsletter, which experiences readership growth every month, focuses specifically on our work, it's a good time to remind ourselves - and all of you - that our main goal is to be a resource for those who aspire to work in theatre, those who are making their lives in theatre, and those who want to feel closer to and more knowledgeable about theatre. There would be no point to an American Theatre Wing without the vitality and creativity on stages across this country and around the world, and without dedicated fans like you. Thank you for your support of the work of the American Theatre Wing and for sharing our love of theatre.
Sincerely,
Howard Sherman
Executive Director
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Online Buzz About ATW
 It seems like you can't open a newspaper, website or e-mail these days without spotting the buzzwords "social media" countless times. For the uninitiated, social media encompasses a variety of websites and mobile applications designed to foster communication between people with common interests, be they friends or strangers. MySpace was an early player in this field, which has come to be most exemplified by Facebook (about to be the subject of a movie written by Aaron Sorkin) and Twitter.
ATW has worked hard to harness the power of these resources to spread the message about its own work and to highlight interesting theatre stories from around the country. Over 2,400 people to date "like" The Wing on Facebook, meaning they want to see what we're up to when they check out their Facebook "wall" of updates every day.
Strikingly, our Twitter "followers", meaning those who see our comments in their ongoing feed, are only slightly higher in number. As of this writing, @TheWing boasts 2,750 followers. Depending upon when they signed on, they've had the opportunity to read some 1,900 updates in the 18 months since ATW first signed on to the service.
While these numbers may not seem huge compared to what you may have heard about Kanye West or Taylor Swift, the various services that rate the quality of social interaction consistently rank the quality of ATW's communication at the very top for people who have expressed an interest in theatre. And part of what makes social media so appealing and useful is that even though our messages may go to a couple of thousand people at a time, they can share it with their followers, who can share it with their followers, and so on.
If you're already active on Facebook or Twitter and you're not already tied in to us, we certainly hope you'll want to hear from and about our work more than just once a month. And if you haven't yet dipped your toes into the waters of social networking, perhaps now is the time. Get started with us and you can hear from - and respond to - us everyday.
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Larson Grant Recipient's Trails Hikes to NYMF
 Jonathan Larson Grant Recipients Jeff Thomson and Jordan Mann have been busy with a wide range of projects since receiving the Jonathan Larson Grant in 2008. This summer, their musical Jawbreaker (book by Darren Stein based on his movie of the same title) had a sold-out reading in Los Angeles featuring Megan Hilty, Eden Espinosa and Shoshana Bean. Also, their musical Trails (with book by Christy Hall) will be a part of this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival with performances in NY from Oct. 8 - 16. Finally, their music will be heard by students across the country in the new cyber-musical Virtually Me (book by Jeremy Desmon and Jeremy Dobrish) in a production associated with TheatreworksUSA. Noting that their three productions have happened in just three months, Mann said, "It's amazing to have had all these projects growing in the past two years, and it's incredibly exciting to have them all coming to fruition right now."
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Major Audience Growth For ATW Media
 What business wouldn't like to say that they've reached their prior year's "numbers" with four months left to go? Well that's a boast that ATW can make regarding both Working in the Theatre and Downstage Center, since each program had topped its total 2009 download count by the end of August.
The long-running Working in the Theatre series has untold audience numbers here in New York from its many airings on CUNY TV. But when it comes to downloads, we know that the digital files that allow the program to be watched on computers, iPods and other platforms have been downloaded more than 363,000 times as of August 31, 2010 - and we topped out at 359,000 for all of 2009. As for Downstage Center, there have been 573,000 downloads in 2010 thus far, compared to 547,000 for the entirety of 2009.
To be sure, we have fans who are grabbing everything we produce, but if you think of these numbers as the equivalent of attendance at performances, The Wing is on track to surpass more than 1 million "admissions" this year, an impressive number by any standard - even if the work is offered for free.
Keep in mind that's for only two of our online programs. The In The Wings series, not yet a year old, is seeing month over month audience growth and should surpass 50,000 downloads in 2010, not to mention those who access media from our partners SDC (Masters of the Stage) and The Broadway League (This is Broadway), which are also available on our site.
This may be dizzying you with numbers, but the bottom line is that ATW media, and the ATW website, is meeting and exceeding its goal of being the country's number one resource for free online media about how theatre is made, in the words of the people who actually make theatre.
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When Twitter & Facebook Aren't Enough
Executive Director Howard Sherman has begun a weekly blog on the Wing website, which will appear each Monday. In case you missed the first two entries, here they are:
Matinee Idol
Nine Years and a Day
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What They Said
Moisés Kaufman, on ATW's Downstage Center, September 2010.
"Fables are one of the oldest narrative forms, and continue to be an important form that we all look to at different times as writers, as directors, as theatremakers."
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