'Katharine Brisbane became the national drama critic for the Australian in 1967. For the next seven years she put it all together, writing the story of Australian theatre as a new chapter in our cultural history, as if it were important. Published on the leader pages of a young, lively newspaper, she told her readers what was happening on stages around the country and furnished them with names worth remembering. It was exciting stuff, regular reports for an episodic serial recounting the irresistible rise of a new generation of theatre-makers as they bludgeoned their way from university stages into the soon-to-be-funded mainstream. Dear God, some of them are still there.' (Introduction)