The main goal of the Mellon Grant project has been, and continues to be, the introduction of the use of electronic media in the curriculum of the Theatre Department at Reed College. It has been my intention to introduce and to put to use within the theatre curriculum the tremendous wealth of information available on the World Wide Web. My project has been basically divided into two areas. One area pertained strictly to the curricular use within the framework of one particular course in Theatre History, and the other dealt exclusively with the pedagogical use of theatrical reviews and their accessibility within the electronic environment. In addition I intended to study and to introduce some graphics programs within the subject of theatre directing. However, I have not implemented this part of the proposal for reasons that I will explain below. It has been my intention to study the field of electronic media and its use for the first part of the project duration, and to implement my findings in the form of two distinct Web Pages in the second part. In the coming semester of Spring 99 I will be introducing those Web Pages to the students in my classes, and will encourage the students to expand the pages with their own findings.

The activities that I undertook can again be divided into several steps and areas. First I had to familiarize myself and my departmental colleagues with the available resources and possibilities. To that effect I have invited an expert in both theatre and the electronic media Mr. Roger Downey from Seattle, WA to visit the campus and to give a workshop on the use of the WWW in the specific field of the theatre. His workshop and his advice has than pointed me into the right direction, as far as the various sites on the Web are concerned. I have than spent a great amount of time "surfing" the Web, I have visited some friends who are well versed in both theatre and the Internet, and I have slowly started to amass a large number of possible sites that were pertinent to my project. At the same time I have started to familiarize myself with the art of creating Web Pages, and I learned how to use Claris Home Page program. The next step involved a careful sorting out and "editing" of the amassed material on the Web. As I have mentioned above my Internet research proceeded on two distinct tracks. One pertained strictly to a syllabus for my class "Twentieth Century Experimental Theatre" and the other dealt exclusively with finding Internet resources dealing with theatre reviews. To that effect with the help of a student assistant I transferred my syllabus on Claris and onto the network and started adding relevant links to each and every one of the class sessions. I have basically divided the links into three distinct categories - one dealing with a particular playwright, style, period, movement, theatre or any other subject that the particular class session deals with; the other dealing with links to printed resources such as books and magazines; and the last one referring to newspaper, magazine or electronic reviews of the particular play that we dealt with in the class. At the same time I have created an other page with links to archival and current theatre review sites. I consider theatre reviews an extremely valuable tool in teaching both history of the theatre as well as directing. An easily accessible treasury of reviews past and present is a great resource, and I plan to expand on that site. There are several questions and problems that I encountered while creating the review site, and I will address them later in this report. Concurrently I have been looking for possible graphics programs that could be useful in my directing studio. Some of those programs have been demonstrated to me in Seattle by Mr. Jeff Ried, others I have been able to access via the Internet. However, after some consideration I have decided not to pursue that line of research and implementation since I have not found many of the programs very useful - they appeared to me to be more of a fascinating toy than a useful tool, and since I have realized that the use of such programs require a great amount of computing power which was not accessible to me at a convenient location either at my home or in my office.

As is often the case with large projects such as this the goals that one sets out to accomplish undergo an amazing metamorphosis in the course of its implementation. While my project is no exception, I think that many of the original intentions have come to fruition. The electronic syllabus, I think, is more or less what I was intending it to be. It provides the students with a great deal of additional and interesting information, it is easy to use, and it broadens the scope of the course. However, my major problem creating this site is the "information overkill" as I would call it. The last "W" in WWW stands for "Web", and this is exactly what it is. Links link links to links, which link the links to yet another set of links, etc., etc.. There is simply no end to the inter-connection, and while working one's way through the spider net of information one gets lost, annoyed, bored and numb at times. Having realized that the major advantage of the Web, namely exactly this inter-connectness is also its greatest danger and shortcoming, I have decided to assume a role of and, as it were, "editor". There is lots of bad information on the web, and sifting through it became my mission as I progressed. In the end, I am not sure whether the site is exhaustive enough, over-exhaustive, or just right. There is always the temptation to add on, and as such the site will never be complete. As far as the Theatre Review Site is concerned I have encountered a different set of challenges. Many of the archival sites linked to daily newspapers in the US are charging fees fro access. As such I had to forgo their use, and had to eliminate a large amount of information, which would have been very useful. I have ordered some CD-ROMs of theatrical magazines and Newspapers such as the London Theatrical Record and the New York Times; but I have not found the time nor the method of transferring information from them onto the Page. While the Page at this time lists several thousands of Theatre Reviews from all around the English speaking world there is one major problem that I would like to solve. The Page consists of numerous links to different sites listing theatre reviews, but in order to access a particular review the user needs to open one link after the other and search each of them individually. That is a lengthy process, and it can be quite frustrating and discouraging. I would like to find somebody who could create a search engine that would function strictly within the Review Site and could perform a title or a subject search of all the links within that site. Michael Harnahan, the Instructional Technology Specialist here at Reed College is currently trying to find out whether a program could be found or developed for an engine that would do exactly that.

At this time the project is completed, and not completed. While both of the sites exist and contain a large amount of information I am continuing to work on them. I have addressed some of the remaining challenges above, and I am planning to continue working towards solving them. I am continuously adding new information to my Syllabus, and I will do so in the future, hopefully with the help and collaboration of my students in the class. I would like to find ways of transferring the CD-ROM information on my Theatre Review Site, and I would like to make the use of that site less cumbersome with the use of an, as of yet unknown search program.

As I have already mentioned, I will be making my findings available to my students. In my "Twentieth Century Experimental Theatre" class the students will be assigned readings and projects that will require the use of the electronic syllabus; and I will be asking them to expand on the information already provided. I will be making a great use of the Theatre Review Site in both of my next semester classes - that above mentioned "Twentieth Century" class, as well as in my directing studio. I consider the electronic resources that I created an useful tool in expanding the possibilities of research for the students, and a lot of the class work will pertain to the sites. However, I consider these resources simply a tool, a helpful tool but certainly not the Alpha and Omega of the educational experience. While the information on the Web can expand the students' horizons, it should not take precedence to discussion, writing assignments, actual reports, and class projects. I think that it is of vital importance that the electronic resources' use is limited to referential use, and not elevated above everything else.

In the course of the project I have accomplished several goals. I have been able to familiarize myself with the technology and the availability of resources both in terms of software and the Internet. My reception of the Grant and the subsequent work has energized the Theatre Department, and several other department members have followed my lead and started working on similar projects. Because of my newly acquired skills and knowledge I can now advise them on their projects, and help them with the use of the computers in their particular fields. I have learned how to create Web Pages, I have developed some skill in using the Internet effectively, and I will have the opportunity to use the results of my work in broadening the horizons of the theatre students. In addition I have given much thought to the more "philosophical" questions that are inherent in the use of electronic media, and I have come to the conclusion that while the electronic resources are a useful tool, there are many problems that need to be solved before the Internet especially will become a truly effective means of information transmission. As it stands now the use of the information available on the Net requires a large amount of "editorial" skill, and healthy skepticism.