Dear "Theater" Talk,

I don't know if this has ever been previously addressed, but I cannot look at your website or watch your series without my eyes immediately going to the shameless misspelling of the word "Theatre". While there is no dictionary defined difference, it has been a long held tradition that when referring to the art form, the word is to be spelled ending with RE, when referring to a building (such as a movie house), it is spelled ER. This is something held up by several academic institutions and in my experience, while seeming to be a small issue, it does reflect upon the competence and legitimacy of those discussing it. It is very hard for some people to take your program seriously because of this beaming grammatical oversight. I realize that a change would impact a lot of things for you especially because you have so many online connections, but it would certainly count towards your credibility. Please take this into consideration.

PS. You have permission to post this on your sight.

-Don Jackson
Lighting and Scenic Designer
Graduate Student, UCLA

Dear Don:
My Googling tells me that this is an long obsolete distinction. The New York Times, for example, uses theater throughout its "Theater", "Movies", and "Arts & Leisure" sections. We do too, because this "er" spelling is more progressive in both its look and definition, inclusive of all aspects of this ever-changing art form and term.

Also, as Patrick R. Dorn writes on BroadwayWorld.com:
"When Daniel Webster codified American English into his now-famous dictionary, he decided to un-anglicize many words. “Honour” became “honor,” “grey” became “gray,” and “theatre” became “theater.”

That's good enough for us.

Thanks for writing.
Best,
Susan