I joined Myspace and later Facebook almost under protest at the insistence of my then theatre students at UAB in the fall of 2006. I remember the day all too clearly, sitting in my office, as one of my students took over my computer and directed the browser of my eMac to facebook's "create account" page. As unwilling as I was, quickly I became a convert, as I learned that not only could I keep up with my students, I suddenly had the means to keep up with not just my close family but most of my extended family - biological and otherwise... my "brothers of another mother" or family of choice, who work, fate, and life had removed from my day to day existence, along with folks I went to high school with, fellow SUU grads (or non-grads who dwelt there while I did,) and most amazingly, theatre people. I found folks who I'd met and worked with, laughed and partied with, survived tech and long nights with, years before during summer stock, and in the inevitable transitory theatre way, lost touch with.

I also found, that it was a lot easier to keep folks up to date with the events and things happening in my own life. Although I've all but deleted the account, for the better part of 2 years, I kept a personal blog on myspace, so if family and friends wanted to see what I was up to, they could, or no, without being bombarded by awful "bulk" e-mail's I often felt compelled to write out of duty, friendship, or something akin to accountability, yet felt so impersonal and bland sending out.

The down side, is that I learned quickly anything I posted or blogged became public property, and that I'd better be ready to account for anything I said or documented - especially about things that I said or felt about the work place. As I entered a really stressful period, this lead to me ceasing to blog - at first for an extended length, and then entirely, as anything I wrote had to be so vague as to not communicate my anger or frustration, or so cryptic, I often wasn't sure what I'd been talking about when I went back to read over things later.

What I have discovered most recently with becoming a part of the Theatreface community, and this past week joining Twitter, is that I am now connected not only to people I know, but also people I DON'T know, most importantly, my colleagues - those theatre people I have yet to meet, or to work with. This becomes increasingly important to me (as I blogged about previously) as my schedule has kept me from meeting folks in person at trade shows and conventions. I've also become keenly aware of this contact in the light of being in a community WITHOUT a theatre community. As much as I love working in the theatres of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival surrounded by the beautiful Blount Park, Montgomery has very little other theatre venues, and what there is, does not (at least for me) seem in the least networked. Even in Birmingham with only one small professional theatre, there were other practitioners on educational and a huge passionate community theatre pool.

As much as theatre can be a second family, when you are isolated from that family, or, at any rate from more than a few members of it, it can be pretty lonely. Blogging and social networking are a way to never be really alone. From this, I've learned a lot - not only in my knowledge base - but about myself... my own job experience, my own qualifications, and my own limitations.

If you, too, have discovered the community of social networking and are so inclined, you can follow me on Twitter @SoundPukeyGirl.