Paul Mullin isn't just a Stranger Genius Award-winning playwright. He's now an official expert on Seattle theater for the Guardian:

Throughout July there will be individual discussions with artists about their visions for the company's future, but, says chair Bruce Bradburn, "this isn't a formal hiring process for a new artistic director".

But not everyone is convinced. Paul Mullin, who's been critical of the Intiman in the past, canvassed some of his Seattle-based friends. Many are unimpressed, not least because the whole thing is being planned around the search for funders. One, Keri Healey, is particularly damning: "Right back to the old dependent-on-funders model that got them where they are. Why not rethink that construct, too, as they look at alternatives for operating models?" And Rik Deskin echoes many commenters when he says: "I really believe that Intiman needs to throw out the old book of running a theatre and start from scratch."

Mullin himself seems concerned by a lack of transparency in the consultation process. He asks: "Just who are the artists who Intiman plans on polling? And why wouldn't a discussion of this nature take place publicly?"

Go Mullin, Healey, and Deskin! You're better spokespeople for Seattle theater than most of the idiots—myself included—who are professionally charged to flap their gums about it. (And you're much, much better spokespeople than our ostensible "community" "leaders" who haven't got the spine for anything more substantial than vagueness and cheerleading—not in public, anyway.)