In the course of its involvement with the world of theatre, Seagull grew to realize that there appeared to be a crying need within the field for a national-level theatre journal that would fulfill a networking and developmental function, linking up theatre workers through the country who are not part of the commercial mainstream on which the media tends to focus almost exclusively; providing access to significant happenings; allowing information, ideas and experiences to travel freely in performance circles; and bringing theatre workers and audiences serious critique, theoretical analysis, responsible, informed reviewing and information dissemination. STQ approached theatre and performance as a social phenomenon, rooted in and growing out of specific cultural and historical contexts. In keeping with this, STQ placed a strong emphasis on generating original material and in retrieving and preserving oral histories of workers and performers, of indigenous performing traditions as well as ‘modern’ theatre, through in-depth first-person accounts.
