WOS Launches Dedicated Site for Dance Lovers

Edited by leading dance journalist Sarah Frater, the new section provides news, reviews and features from the world of ballet, dance and physical theatre in London as well as the wider dance scene, with integrated links to the comprehensive and continually updated Whatsonstage.com listings database. The new dance section follows the launch this past March of Whatsonstage.com/opera (See News, 3 Mar 2009).

A long standing dance critic, Sarah Frater has written about ballet and contemporary dance for over a decade. She was the editor of Dance Gazette, the membership magazine of the Royal Academy of Dance and a contributor to The Stage, among others. She currently writes for the Evening Standard, the Wall Street Journal and the Radio Times. She is also working on her first book. Frater used to be the features editor of Design Week magazine and the books editor of the Twentieth Century Society magazine.

Commenting about the dance section launch, Frater said: “It will be a real pleasure to cover dance for Whatsonstage.com. There is a huge and enthusiastic audience, and a lot of good stuff going on. From the Opera House to fringe events, the dance world is buzzing.”

In other site developments, we’ve also introduced a revamped Radio section with a dedicated audio player and a regular series of in-depth interviews conducted by another new high-profile contributor, writer and broadcaster Edward Seckerson.

Seckerson is chief classical music critic for the Independent. He wrote and presented the long-running BBC Radio 3 series Stage & Screen, in which he interviewed many of the most prominent writers and stars of musical theatre. His interviewees have included everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Liza Minelli, Paul McCartney to Pavarotti, Julie Andrews to Jessye Norman. For more information, visit www.edwardseckerson.biz.

Seckerson said today: “Whatsonstage.com is a place where theatre enthusiasts can really share and interact – and as such I can’t think of a better place to reach the kind of informed audience that once enjoyed my BBC musical theatre show Stage & Screen. Watch this space, or better yet listen: Whatsonstage.com Radio is where it’s going to be at.”

Whatsonstage.com also runs a network of regional microsites, as well as a thriving Off-West End site (See News, 10 Jun 2008). National coverage was further bolstered recently by the appointment of a crew of “theatregoer reporters”. For biographies on these and other members of the full Whatsonstage.com editorial team, click here.