Interesting thread. I lived in New England for 6 years, college and after, before moving here to Central VA. So I am a "yankee" even though I hadn't even lived in the States before college... talking about parochialism...

But back to the thread: From the Cambridge coffeehouses I frequented, there was no sense of New England as a region. There was Maine (very rugged, proud of its cold), Vermont (very closed-mouthed and proud of its mountains), New Hampshire (very Boston-suburby, and proud of it) and Massachusetts (pastoral, and outside of Boston very proud of not being actually IN Boston). Then there was Boston, which thought it was New York. So I guess that every state is so proud of not being the other states that there is no "regional" anything, so I bet there is no more NH talent in Maine shows as Maine talent in VT shows or Chicopee talent in a Boston show. My guess only. I left 15 years ago, too, so it's all that and dated, too.