Will working with audiences encourage stage companies and theater artists to go beyond the status quo? Or just cement them into their sweet spots?
theater-criticism
Critical Condition: Why Be Negative? Don’t Ask “The New York Times”
If the New York Times can’t make a reasonable case for the need for discrimination rather than salesmanship, we are in real trouble.
Stage Commentary: “The Boston Globe” to Boston Theater — Drop Dead?
Critics were once seen as the ‘canaries in the mineshaft’ — now newspapers and magazines are closing down the mines.
Theater Interview: Writing about the American Stage
As a theatrical event, The American Stage anthology would have to be classified as a rousing vaudeville show: there are literary routines for all brows—high, middle, and low. The American Stage: Writings on Theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner, edited by Laurence Senelick, Library of America, 867 pages, $40. By Bill Marx “There is […]
Theater Commentary: George Jean Nathan — The Divine Devil of American Theater Criticism
“The best of the regular theater critics … the brightest America ever had.” – Eric Bentley “Intelligent play-goer number one.” – George Bernard Shaw “The truth is that Mr. Nathan is both a theatrical storehouse, full of the most voluminous and astonishing information, and a whole theatre in himself. He maintains an impetus and lustre […]
Response: Critical Justification
A certain number of people (not huge) want to read critics who take the arts seriously, who do more than tell readers what is worth spending their money on.