The other day, Aaron asked me to write a paragraph or two explaining the quote, and why we chose to use it as the name of our show.

Upon sitting down to write, I realized that I wasn’t so sure what the hell the quote meant. So, turning to Google and the crappy academic version of LexisNexus, I launched a semi-serious, not-so-in-depth investigation into the common usage of the phrase. A portion of the raw data compiled, in the form of quotes containing references to said phrase, is included below.

In general, the quoters of the phrase fall into three categories: those who think that to shout ‘Theater!’ in a crowded fire means to do something utterly futile, those who use it as a reference to the surreal, and those who have no idea what it means but quote it anyway. Examples of usages that fall into these three categories follow:

“…Adding another TLD to the Internet will not do much to help those goals, and in some ways will actually hinder them by creating a mobile Internet that is separate from the mainstream. Like a man shouting "theater" in a crowded fire, this initiative may create a lot of noise, but it does little to address the real challenges facing mobile applications, in particular mobile enterprise applications.”
Carl Zetie

“It's in this context that the Missyplicity Project must be reinterpreted. It starts to take on the appearance of surrealism, of shouting theater in a crowded fire.”
R.U. Serious

“Listen: never change screams in mid-horse, never shout theater in a crowded fire. Across the event horizon of the black hole light is eaten as gravity energizes until a teaspoon of matter weighs a trillion tons consuming all light. Yes, light bends.”
Sebastian Lockwood, “Density of Coincidence.”

“[Some musician who I’ve never heard of] is the kind of person who yells "Theater" in a crowded fire, which should give you some idea of his sense of humor.”
Nick Lancaster

“Premier Bernard Landry cried, "Referendum" in a crowded fire station yesterday.”
Kevin Dougherty, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec).

I found most of these usages either uninspiring, or mildly intriguing but having nothing to do what I think our radio show is about. Despairing, and running low on time, I was about to give up when I came across a passage at www.menstuff.org, on a page that seemed to be dedicated to poetry about men, or poetry by men, or poetry for men, or something like that. It read: “Abbie Hoffman described a goal of guerilla theatre as ‘yelling theatre in a crowded fire.’ As the fire continues to grow more crowded every day, more and more of us are finding our true voices.”

This was the quote that I had been looking for. As far as I’m concerned, this radio show is called “A Crowded Fire” because shit’s burning up. We’re all in the fire, and we want to shout about it. While we may be shouting ‘Radio!’ instead of ‘Theater!,’ we hope that the effect will be similar.

Thanks for listening. Fuck the FCC. Get home safe.