Golden Mask Festival 06 - Reflections Christian Parker Associate Director, The Atlantic Theatre Most important for me as I’ve traveled to Russia in the last year, is the preservation of the notion that I am not simply “shopping,” for plays and directors. We often talk here at Atlantic about how we value relationships that grow and thrive over time, and that we choose people to work with as much as we choose specific plays to produce. If on our travels, we should discover a piece or an artist that seems undeniably and perfectly poised to come directly to us, so much the better. But for my money, I am most interested to continue the process of seeing how people work, what their central concerns are in terms of both their artistry and the nuts and bolts of producing, and to begin to forge personal connections which might deepen to the institutional level.