Theater Commentary: The Boston Theater Critics Association — Finally Reached a Conclusion?

By Bill Marx

The Boston Theater Critics Association should take action in support of #MeToo. But this will probably be the last year I request that Israel Horovitz’s Elliot Norton Prize be withdrawn.

In 2018 I wrote that I would make this request in The Arts Fuse with each Elliot Norton Awards ceremony — until the Boston Theater Critics Association does the right thing. I am making good on that promise, though I assume some will see it as a futile gesture. This year’s ceremony, because of COVID-19 restrictions, was virtual. A hearty congratulations to all the winners.

The 1986 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence should be withdrawn from Israel Horovitz, given the November 30 2017 New York Times’s report on multiple accusations of sexual harassment, which included references to my 1993 Boston Phoenix articles exposing charges of Horovitz’s despicable behavior. The prize was not removed in 2018. The BTCA told me it was taking “its own good time” considering that action. The next year I asked, again, if a decision had been made. Joyce Kulhawik, president of the Boston Theatre Critics Association, responded that “we continually evaluate and have decided to leave [it] as is for now.”

Why the paralysis? The BTCA has never given a reason for why no decision has been made. Perhaps it is because, as I wrote in my 2018 column (posted below) the committee members figure — probably rightly — that the award is decades old. People will forget the damage that was done to the Boston theater community. That is unfortunate. Our reviewers accept, all too easily, the notion that their responsibility to theater criticism (or to entertainment reporting) is limited to serving as consumer guides who toss a yearly party. It would be pretty easy to withdraw the award to Horovitz — but that would mean taking a stand on #MeToo. And perhaps ruffling some feathers. Better to do nothing … just keep being positive and sell tickets.

I thought that this year the Weinstein guilty verdict might change things. But the do-nothing policy continues, though at this point the reasoning has become pretty ridiculous. I once again asked Joyce Kulhawik how deliberations were going on the question of withdrawing Horovitz’s award. She sent me the following statement:

We are not rescinding the ELLIOT NORTON AWARD to Israel Horovitz at this time.
While we condemn the assaults of which he has been accused, we gave the award to honor his body of work and his legacy as co-founder of Gloucester Stage Company. It clearly does not extend to his personal behavior.

The phrase “at this time” suggests the decision could change in the future. The BTCA awaits new evidence? The rest of the statement is puzzling. Horovitz infused his aberrant “personal behavior” into his professional life. He used his position as artistic director, playwright, producer, and teacher to prey (allegedly) on a number of women over decades. That is an essential part of his “legacy.” Could someone reasonably argue that, because Weinstein produced a notable “body of work,” he should escape condemnation? And what about Horovitz’s “body of work?” The verdict in the real world — based on a Google search — is that his plays are pretty much dead in the water. (L.A Works recently streamed a radio version of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard; there was a September production of My Old Lady at the Twin Lakes Playhouse in Arkansas.) That rejection will most likely continue for a long time to come. For some unfathomable reason, American theater companies (unlike the BTCA) can’t ignore multiple accusations detailing Horovitz’s heinous behavior. Are we losing out on masterpieces? No — but the BTCA obviously disagrees.

But I may stop requesting that Horovitz’s award be withdrawn after this year. My assumption has been that the BTCA is a journalistic organization made up of free-thinking critics, not a gathering of out-and-out boosters. But Joyce Kulhawik has agreed to be a co-host for the Huntington Theatre Company’s Annual Spotlight Spectacular Gala, which will be held on June 15 via YouTube and Facebook Live. I assume Kulhawik is donating her show-biz savvy, but this example of conflict of interest is embarrassingly blatant. Is the president of the Boston Theater Critics Association going to recuse herself from critiquing any upcoming HTC productions? Will she withdraw from voting in categories that HTC  have been nominated in? Doesn’t anyone, even in the era of Trump, see a problem with this?

There is a class aspect to this. Why work with the HTC rather than other stages who desperately need funds to make it through the pandemic? Might it be that Kulhawik will be able to hobnob (electronically) at this Gala with a richer breed of theater patron? (“Ticket buyers and sponsors will be given access to a VIP experience including a custom party box and an exclusive Zoom cocktail reception with Huntington artists and guests.”) How might this questionable behavior make sense? If other members of the BTCA also hosted virtual fundraisers for area theaters, medium-sized and small. Is WBUR’s Ed Siegel going to whip up support for Flat Earth Theatre? Is the Boston Globe‘s Don Aucoin planning to Zoom in and raise the roof for the Front Porch Arts Collective? I doubt it — chances are much greater that we see will see a local production of a play by Israel Horovitz.

(Note: There is a germ of a useful idea here. Why can’t the BTCA put together a virtual fundraiser for Boston theaters that have been throttled by the pandemic? The money pulled in could be distributed through StageSource or the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund: that way the funds would not just flow to the wealthier, well-connected companies, such as the HTC or the A.R.T. Those fat cats are not going anywhere. The same cannot be said for a number of other Boston area theaters.)

The demise of the IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Awards a year ago means that there are no independent alternatives to the Norton Awards. StageSource sent out a survey to its membership last June as part of an admirable effort to “create a new system of recognition.” But nothing has come of the proposed “New England Theatre Awards.” I recently e-mailed executive director Dawn Simmons and received this understandable response:

Covid-19 has shifted our priorities for the near-term. We’re focusing on our response to the community via the new Tuesday Newsletter, Covid-19 Resource Page and #WeWillBeBack Community Calls and hoping to be able to share employment opportunities as they come back online.

Hearing that many producers may be postponing seasons till late fall or winter, so not sure of the timing at this point.

Given the COVID-19 emergency, that is as it should be. But I hope StageSource returns to the issue. When theater comes back, it may not be quite as impregnably complacent. As I write this, there are over 40 million unemployed people in this country; food lines are growing longer by the day. Starvation for millions around the globe has become a genuine possibility. There are protests and riots in our major cities, triggered by the murder of a black man by the police. Quality theater should be made for the jobless, the desperate, and the marginalized, not tailored for (and marketed to) the privileged, who see theater as a place for musical-ized escapism or empathic hand-wringing.

It is time for a return to truth and beauty — emphasis on the former. There will be pressure (at the very least from the young) to have our stages reflect reality: shows on the climate emergency, plays from the past that challenge us today, scripts that grapple with the intractability of income inequity, labor issues, systemic injustice, the 1 percent, political corruption, police brutality, and institutionalized racism. And, of course, the absurdity of existence. What’s more, if theaters begin to churn out less commercial mediocrity it could mean that an organization made up of critics, quasi-publicists, and reporters who have rewarded (for too long) this line-of-least-resistance will undergo renovation as well. There may well be a need for an enlightened and diverse New England Theatre Awards in the future.

As it is, it may not be worth all that much to call out the Norton Awards committee on Horovitz. The organization’s own “legacy” is becoming increasingly obvious.

I don’t have anything to add to the column (below) from two years ago. It remains fairly relevant. (Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape.) An updated list of BTCA members are listed at the end — contact them if you agree. Or, if you are part of a theater company, inquire whether he or she will host your troupe’s next fundraiser.


Ignorance is no excuse. The Boston Theatre Critics Association can’t be unaware of what is happening in the era of #MeToo. As I write this column, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has just been brought on trial for rape charges in New York, Bill Cosby has had a number of honorary degrees from major universities rescinded, including one from Boston College. Recent charges of sexual harassment made against actor Morgan Freeman are generating possible action from SAG.

What’s more, Joyce Kulhawik, President of the BTCA, referred to #MeToo in her PR huzzah for the May 21 2108 awards show (“This has been a tumultuous year socially and politically. Time’s Up! #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, students marching for their lives — people are finding their voices, challenging the status quo and fueling change”). Despite the reference, the BTCA appears to want to back away from this ‘tumultuous’ spirit of change, at least regarding #MeToo. There was no press release issued before the awards ceremony quietly indicating Horovitz’s prize had been withdrawn. That would have been an easy step to take — if the BTCA cared seriously about the issue.

Does the BTCA give a damn? Leading up to Elliot Norton Awards, I asked, via e-mail, whether the organization is considering rescinding the prize to Horovitz. Here is the official response:

The Boston Theater Critics Association will handle all matters relating to the Elliot Norton Awards in its own good time.

This reads like a crisply arrogant, back-of-the-hand response, but it is actually pretty revealing. What does “in its own good time” mean? In terms of Horovitz’s behavior, it took over two decades before the New York Times article made a crucial difference, forcing the Gloucester Stage Company to take significant action. Will we have to wait 20 years for the BTCA to work up the gumption to rescind the award to Horovitz? Exactly what does “in its own good time” mean? That action will be taken only when it is convenient and/or expedient for the committee? If this is the case, here are some recommended hashtags for the BTCA: #MeTooGiveMeTime, #MeTooNotYet

Let me speculate about what “in its own good time” really amounts to. As with the Trump Administration, the BTCA has its leakers, and my sources tell me that rescinding the award was discussed at a BTCA meeting. No action was taken because it was noted the prize had been given over thirty years ago — and 1986 is ancient history. Better to keep silent about the matter and hope no one objects. Just the way the status quo goes about its inert business. The argument’s weakness is obvious: Horovitz served as GSC artistic director well beyond 1986 and when he left that position his scripts were still regularly produced by the Gloucester Stage Company, which fundraised off the glittery presence of Horovitz, who was routinely celebrated by The Boston Globe, local NPR stations, etc. Meanwhile, as reported by the New York Times, accusations of sexual harassment involving Horovitz continued well beyond 2000. Over the decades GSC’s presentations, as well as those of its favorite dramatist’s plays (the last staged as recently as 2016), were eligible for Norton Awards consideration. Is there a statute that limits public recognition of the harm Horovitz’s actions did to the theater community? An “in its own good time” loophole?

Why should we wait for the current BTCA’s “good time”? I didn’t know Elliot Norton well, but near the end of his life I got to spend some time with the celebrated critic. He was nothing if not an old-fashioned gentleman, punctiliously proper. I don’t believe for a moment he would accept that an award in his name would stay with Horovitz after the recent revelations.

Regarding some of the other Norton Awards judges I served with when I was on the BTCA (I left in 2006), I’d bet my life savings Skip Ascheim would have quit the group had the award not been rescinded; I have no doubt Arthur Friedman and former BTCA President Caldwell Titcomb would have been horrified as well. For some reason, the current membership is willing to move on without a word, aside from taking “its own good time.” Might the reluctance be credited to BTCA’s graying line-up of critics and entertainment reporters? Women and men in their twenties and thirties are deeply concerned about this issue. I am confident they would move with alacrity — not check their watches.

So why the wait? My best guess is that the BTCA’s passivity is symptomatic of Gore Vidal’s notion of the “United States of Amnesia.” The organization is taking “its own good time” because it is banking on the fact that as each year passes people will forget the New York Times article (as they did my 1993 Boston Phoenix pieces), the multiple accusations of Horovitz’s aberrant behavior, and the embarrassing response from the mainstream media and the GSC. Could it be that the risk-adverse BTCA is hesitating because somewhere, somehow, someone objects to rescinding Horovitz’s award? Or are the critics and entertainment reporters afraid someone (powerful?) will object. Why take a chance when it will all fade away?

If your principle critical mission is to bolster the theater community by hyper-blurbing stage productions and tossing an annual party dedicated to handing out awards, then anything that raises serious questions must be brushed aside for the sake of purveying positive vibes. But, if your goal as a critic is to contribute to the long term health of the theater community, then there’s a responsibility to acknowledge grievous injustice and injury. The “good time” for that is now — not later.

Note: If you agree with me, please contact the members of the BTCA — Don Aucoin, Jared Bowen, Terry Byrne, Carolyn Clay, Christopher Ehlers, Iris Fanger, Nancy Grossman, Joyce Kulhawik, Kilian Melloy, Bob Nesti. and Ed Siegel. — and tell them that the 1986 prize to Horovitz should be rescinded.


Bill Marx is the editor-in-chief of The Arts Fuse. For over three decades, he has written about arts and culture for print, broadcast, and online. He has regularly reviewed theater for National Public Radio Station WBUR and The Boston Globe. He created and edited WBUR Online Arts, a cultural webzine that in 2004 won an Online Journalism Award for Specialty Journalism. In 2007 he created The Arts Fuse, an online magazine dedicated to covering arts and culture in Boston and throughout New England.

12 Comments

  1. Susej Nyhan on June 1, 2020 at 6:04 pm

    Bravo — for your insightful article. Your voice does make a difference.
    Joyce Kulhawik was always more interested in her giltsy image & Chestnut Hill attire in front of the cameras than a deeper understanding on what’s going on in the theatre.
    Many of my associates always thought she was ‘overrated.
    I plan to write to her.
    My late husband wrote for the Globe for almost 30 years & wonder about ‘her hype’ in the real world of theatre.
    So many of us appreciate the time & depth you have displayed in writing about this.
    By the way — Israel Horovitz is my first cousin. I grew up with him.. He was hitting on young women even in his 20’s & would exaggerate his achievements while wandering through my college dorm working his charm to pick up naive young women. Always a predator….

  2. David Greenham on June 1, 2020 at 6:16 pm

    The fact that the award is for “sustained excellence” says all you need to know BTCA. As Dr. King said in his challenging call to end the Viet Nam War, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” It might be controversial to pull an award when you find out sustained excellence includes sexual harassment, but Bill’s right, you’re on the wrong side of history and you have an opportunity to fix that.

    Besides, look at the great work that’s going on at Gloucester Stage now! Bob Walsh and company are doing a wonderful job, key renovations are underway, and their partnerships with Our Place Theater and other new and powerful voices is rising above sustainability and moving on to raising the bar and becoming a leader in the region.

    You’re holding on to a damaged past, and in the end, it will sink you.

  3. Debra A Wise on June 3, 2020 at 8:23 pm

    YES, I would like to reiterate what David says re Gloucester Stage under its current leadership. We need to reinvent ourselves in fire, like the phoenix. Thanks to ArtsFuse – essential for such reflection.

    • Bill Marx on June 4, 2020 at 9:44 am

      Hi Debra: Good to hear from someone in the Boston Theater community about this issue. As for reinvention, let’s see what happens. Lots of no doubt sincere words at the moment. But will they be followed up by transformed action? I am referring to what theater companies produce, how they produce it, and how the ‘new’ is written about. Or will the old habits — and critics and audiences — prevail? Does Calista Flockhart in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband speak to the times? Or Teenage Dick? Yet another go round for Jelly’s Last Jam and Doubt? Is anyone going to wonder about those choices in light of what is going on? To me, seasons have to be completely rethought — if we are going to get reinvention rather than recycling.

  4. Jules Becker on June 11, 2020 at 6:12 pm

    Hi Bill.
    As always, your comments on Horovitz are very well-taken. The IRNE’s, as you probably remember, did rescind a best play honor given to him. I can happily reveal that a serious attempt to organize a new organization of independent reviewers-one reflecting diversity and the importance of Black Lives Matter-is under way. I hope to have detailed information about this group eventually.
    Jules Becker
    (Bay Windows,South End News,Jewish Journal, and my blog Boston Theater Wings)

    • Bill Marx on June 11, 2020 at 7:23 pm

      Happy to hear of any professional alternative to the Norton Awards. I hope your group is not going down the path of Joyce Kulhawik. It is not right for stage critics (let alone one who selects awards!) to help raise funds for selected members of the Boston theater community.

      • Jules Becker on June 12, 2020 at 10:05 am

        The IRNE’s scrupulously avoided conflicts of interest and fundraising for any theater companies. The new group will conscientiously do likewise.

        Jules

    • Mike Hoban on June 15, 2020 at 11:06 am

      Mr. Becker states that Israel Horovitz had his “Best New Play: Small Theater” IRNE Award rescinded, which is incorrect. In fact, Horovitz was the recipient of two such awards by the IRNE Committee: Man in Snow awarded in 2017, and Sins of the Mother awarded in 2010. Neither was rescinded. Horovitz resigned from the Gloucester Stage Company in November of 2017 following numerous allegations of sexual assault from multiple women dating back to 1986. The IRNE Committee disbanded in 2019.

      Mike Hoban
      Co-Editor, Theater Mirror
      Former IRNE Spokesperson

      • Jules Becker on June 16, 2020 at 12:18 am

        Mr. Hoban may be right here — if so,we should have rescinded at least the 2017 one. We definitely spoke out about Mr. Horovitz’s conduct. I for one would have rescinded his prize.

        The new group will be very clear about such matters.

        Jules
        (IRNE member from the organization’s second year and executive board member who also spoke for the group)

  5. Thomas Garvey on June 17, 2020 at 4:17 pm

    Oh, I don’t know. You clearly have a personal stake and this, and you definitely should have been heeded in 1993. But sexual harassment and bad behavior are so prevalent in the theatre, and the arts in general, that I wonder at any move to begin rescinding awards from decades past . . . Should Dustin Hoffman, a documented sexual predator, give back his Oscars? Should Roman Polanski give back his? What about Pixar (John Lasseter)? The Grammy pantheon is even thicker with sexual harassers, pedophiles and rapists. David Bowie and various Rolling Stones are guilty of statutory rape. Then there’s Michael Jackson, James Brown, and R. Kelly . . . as for television, should Charlie Rose give back his Emmys? Should Jeffrey Tambor? Maybe your answer to all these is “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!!” But in the end you can’t rescind history or the impact of a body of work. Picasso was a predator, and so was J.D. Salinger; should we cancel them? Caravaggio was a murderer, and Bernini disfigured his mistress. Norman Mailer stabbed his wife, William S. Burroughs SHOT his, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf were anti-Semites, Gertrude Stein was a fascist sympathizer, and Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson were Nazis . . . you can see where this is going. If your principle were applied generally, there wouldn’t be much left of the culture. So – why is Horovitz different from all the other jerks who have won awards? With regrets, I say leave it be. And don’t worry, no one considers Joyce Kulhawik a real critic, or thinks the Norton Awards have any integrity. Just trust me on that.

    • Bill Marx on June 18, 2020 at 11:58 am

      I see your point. George Bernard Shaw shared our current president’s admiration for thuggish heads of state. And yes, we can’t toss out the invaluable culture and works of art created by creeps. Of course, Horovitz never created any art on the level of most of the names you bring up. At best, he is an efficient entertainer.

      My request that Horovitz’s Norton Prize award be erased is keyed into the notion of the personal that you mentioned. The people he attacked are still around and still hurting. I hear from them from time to time. He was a predator in power who damaged young women for decades and many people (still around as well) knew it and did nothing — and that should be called out in a theater community that overlooks this kind of horrid behavior far too easily. So yes, Horovitz is no different from the other jerks in the history of the arts. But his victims are still around. And I feel I owe it to them — and to do my bit to discourage creeps in the future — to call him out. I can’t point the finger at thousands. But this one I won’t let up on.

      As for Joyce the K, it is no headline that the Empress critic has no clothes – she has been parading naked on the cat walk for years. I am pointing out how her compromises are enabled by the theater community, in this case the Huntington Theatre Company. As journalism melts down, even the facade of Independent criticism (keeping an ethical distance between reviewer and reviewed) is becoming a thing of the past — which means criticism will soon become just another form of publicity/advertising. Critics are now fundraising for some theaters (the big ones) and not others — the haves versus the have-nots. The Norties are symptomatic of what is becoming a terminal loss of credibility. So my attack is about more than one faux-critic; it is about the demise of “professional arts criticism.” Representatives from WGBH, WBUR, the Boston Globe, the Daily Dig, etc, remain on the Norton Committee — so I guess a member critic hawking the wares of a local theater company is just fine by them.

      • Bill Marx on June 24, 2020 at 9:25 pm

        A recent example (today) of why Israel Horovitz’s Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence should be erased. Actor Trudi Goodman in a Facebook conversation that touched on Horovitz and his predatory behavior:

        I knew one of Israel Horovitz’s victims. People knew for years about Horovitz.

        My friend will never be the same. Ever. All kinds of people knew. I knew also. I told a good friend of mine who was a director who interned with Horovitz to make sure that his wife was never alone with Horovitz. The man is a monster.

        The committee’s inaction is going to be part of its “legacy.”

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