atlantic criss-crossing

The story so far: we wanted to take part in a conference about environment and drama that's taking place right now in the US but we didn't want to incur any airmiles (however persuasive Kevin Spacey's ads may be).

Instead, we filmed six short interviews with theatre artists working in the UK and sent the DVD of the interviews to the conference.

On Friday evening, those who appear in the DVD (along with your blogger) gathered in a basement in central London to share a satellite discussion with some of the people at the Oregon conference. It was 5pm our time, 9am their time.

Once we'd shouted greetings and waved at each other, we all introduced ourselves. Then we went offline for 30 mins to watch the DVD and regrouped afterwards for 45 mins to discuss the questions raised.

Plenty of interesting things were said. But probably for all of us the most memorable thing was that it was happening at all.

Further comments on what was actually said, and a transcript, will appear shortly.