With increasing budget cuts, threatened staff reductions and the potential loss of the graduate program looming for MSU's Theatre Department, your recent coverage (such as it was) of our own university's theatre production was, to say the least, disappointing.

The review of the show was buried deep in the paper, included no photos and consisted of only a few small columns of print.

Insult was added to injury the following day, when your paper included extensive coverage of a Bath Township theatrical production which started on the front page of the section, included photographs and extended well onto the next page.

Balanced reporting of off-campus events is one thing, but this slight against your own university's theatre department was anything but balanced. MSU's Theatre Department, as well as the entire College of Arts and Letters, is faced with serious issues that may threaten its very existence.

We need help from The State News, not indifference. We get enough of that from the university, whose tunnel-vision appears focused on luxury boxes and gate receipts, rather than providing a fair balance of support and funding for the arts and humanities here.

Edward Howell
theater senior