In a week when flaws in Rolling Stone’s reporting of a culture of rape on the University of Virginia campus created national headlines, the lapses of a single cultural reporter at the Wall Street Journal doesn’t seem to amount to a hill of beans. But it’s a story that is much buzzed about in theatrical circles, and perhaps throughout the field of the arts, with implications much greater than Joanne Kaufman’s self-appointed role as a serial “Broadway bolter,” who has accepted who knows how many complimentary tickets only to depart frequently at intermission.

In a column last week, Kaufman declared:

I’m embarrassed by how unembarrassed I am to admit that the very next night, I took early leave of “The Country House,” and the following night of “It’s Only a Play.” If only. Don’t ask me what happened during the second acts of “Matilda,” “Kinky Boots,” “Pippin” and, reaching back a few seasons, “Boeing-Boeing” and “Billy Elliott. ” Really, I have no idea. But I am nothing if not cosmopolitan in my tastes, or distastes—French farces, English musicals set in gritty industrial cities, and American entertainments involving Charlemagne ’s Frankish kin.

I happen to believe that, for the regular theatregoer, there’s nothing wrong with leaving a show at intermission. You paid for the right to be there and if you’re miserable, it’s probably to your benefit and the benefit of the rest of the audience if you depart. It’s your right (so long as it’s not done mid-scene, which is far too disruptive) and frankly the rest of the audience and the actors are probably better off without your repeated loud sighs, your ongoing dialogue with the person you came with, or your snoring.

But anyone who is attending in a professional capacity, let alone someone with complimentary tickets, has to stick it out – because it’s their job, or simply good manners as a guest. If not, the tickets have been accepted under false pretenses and the individual’s credibility is damaged, if not destroyed.

Now it’s important to note that in my circles, both personal and online, there seems to be little sympathy or tolerance for Kaufman’s recurring disappearing act. Other journalists have shot verbal arrows at her on Twitter, as have theatre professionals from every discipline in the field. She has been the subject of nothing less than ongoing ridicule, and she’s likely to be a longtime theatre punchline. Publicist Rick Miramontez (a friend and professional colleague) has had a blog post in which he calls out Kaufman go viral, in part because he lays bare her failings and also because many assume that p.r. people will kowtow to the media at all costs.

Miramontez wrote, as part of declaring that he would no longer invite Kaufman or provide her with complimentary tickets:

I couldn’t help but feel a bit like a chump for having accommodated the woman so many times over the years.  Certainly every audience member, paid or comped, has the right to form whatever opinions they might about any production they see, but I don’t think it’s too much to expect those who attend on press tickets stay for the duration.   Would a fine art writer only peer at half a canvas before deciding she’s bored and it’s time to move on?  Does a music reporter think he can make an informed decision on an album if he only listens to a couple of tracks?  Why would we accept such sheer laziness from our theatrical press?

Since others have effectively demolished Kaufman’s questionable professional ethics, I need not rehash them further. But let me go a step beyond.

Unlike bloggers with their own sites (say for example, me), journalists don’t simply write something and have it magically appear in print or online. There’s at least one editor and a copy editor who has seen the piece, and at a paper like the Wall Street Journal, probably more. So it’s important to note that Kaufman was not writing in a vacuum, but rather with the tacit approval of every staffer at the WSJ who got a glimpse of her piece. It’s more than a bit worrisome that no one at the paper apparently saw anything wrong with either Kaufman’s actions or her almost gleeful confession of her ethical gaffes. Frankly, why did this piece run at all?

While her piece was opinion rather than reportage, surely average readers may now wonder about the veracity of other WSJ writing – and that’s a shame, because I know many arts reporters at the paper and know them to operate with the highest integrity and profound respect for the arts. While I haven’t asked him, I can’t help but think that Kaufman’s actions are particularly galling to the WSJ’s drama critic Terry Teachout, especially as many accounts of the “Broadway bolter” incorrectly identified her as the WSJ’s theatre critic.

Should it be up to publicists to put Kaufman on the straight and narrow? Even if she does start paying for tickets, will her bosses only permit her to attend with a minder? Will she become a culture writer only on works of 90 minutes or less, since that’s all she can tolerate? Perhaps she’ll need an ankle bracelet so they can be certain that she stays for the duration.

In a moment of sympathy, I’m willing to suggest that perhaps Kaufman, and her editors, fell prey to aping the lingua franca of the internet: snark (see prior paragraph as an example). Maybe the flip, contrarian tone was an effort to mimic the style of bloggers and tweeters. But in the august, conservative WSJ, it stuck out like a sore thumb – and while it may well have tapped into a new audience, it did so only to be met by significant derision. It seems that, for all of the angst surrounding critical arts coverage in general, Kaufman had truly crossed a bridge too far by slamming work she hadn’t even bothered to assess in full. If anything, she proved that there is still a place and desire for arts journalism, but that she may have no place in it.

On the same subway ride during which I read Kaufman’s piece, I also read an essay by Tim Walker, who has recently been let go from his position as theatre critic for London’s Sunday Telegraph. Understandably troubled by the ongoing culling of arts critics in London (an issue in the U.S. as well, and a concern I share), he cites a conversation about criticism he recently had:

One leading impresario told me he looked around at the motley crowd that had turned up to sit in judgment on one of his productions and he realised he didn’t know a single one of them. “They were young, spotty, out of their comfort zones and clearly exhausted, having been diverted at the last minute from other tasks at their hard-pressed media organisations,” he lamented. “Honestly, after all the work we had put in on our side, and all the investment, it felt like a slap in the face.”

The conventional wisdom is that readers of theatre reviews are migrating – along with the advertising – to online, but who, honestly, can name an internet critic who has the authority of, say, the Guardian’s Michael Billington? Or – until he also joined the exodus – the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer?

While he has given himself the cover of quoting someone else, Walker seems to side with his unnamed commentator. He also mimics someone in a vastly more significant situation, namely the prosecutor in the Michael Brown case, who repeatedly spoke of the failings of social media before revealing the wholly inadequate results of the grand jury findings. Two decades after the advent of general internet use, nearly a decade after the advent of social media, one can no longer make the case for journalism, or any endeavor, by slamming the reality of how we communicate now and continuing to proclaim the superiority of the “mainstream media.” Walker’s legitimate concerns about the state of arts criticism are undone by condescension, just as Kaufman skewered herself with her own glee over her risable actions.

Arts journalism is no different from any other facet of journalism today in that many of the old structures are falling and the future is evolving at an exceptionally fast pace, chewing up both practices and people in the process. But the bottom line is that if you find the rug pulled out from under you, it won’t serve the field to have you bemoaning the new and ever-changing normal; if you still have a platform, use it to imagine a better, sustainable future. And by all means, if you have a platform, use it professionally and ethically, lest you go out on a limb and saw it off behind yourself.

Broadway dreams being immediately blown up into pending productions is something that really gets my goat. Why? Because it’s a case of hyperbole becoming ostensible fact in the press, and the only people it serves are those trying to make a nascent production into reality.

When I last wrote about this phenomenon about nine months ago (it really makes me cranky), I suggested that it makes an argument for why paid professional arts journalism is so essential – to separate real news from puffery. I regret to say that I’ve been proven wrong in that regard.

Perhaps you saw one of the many announcements yesterday about the new Broadway show based on the syndicated TV series, Soul Train. “‘Soul Train’ Headed for Broadway” was the headline in both USA Today and The Chicago Tribune. “Soul Train’s A Comin’ To Broadway,” declared The Wall Street Journal. “Rock Of Ages producer is bringing Soul Train to Broadway,” announced The A.V. Club.

Here’s the problem. There is no Soul Train musical. No writers. No director. It’s unclear if any music rights have been acquired. All there is, right now, is a producer who has licensed the trademark and plans to develop a show.

Every article I saw actually makes note of this fact in some way, but it’s buried at least a few paragraphs in. One of the examples cited above makes it the very last sentence. But I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who glanced at this story (with 120 Google News citations and climbing) thinks it’s a done deal.

Mind you, I take no pleasure in pointing this out, because I know three out of the four journalists involved in these stories pretty well, and I may get some grief from them. It’s certainly worth pointing out that journalists rarely write their own headlines, so the majority of the responsibility may not lie with the writers. In our clickbait world of online news, “happening” is much stronger than “may happen,” although such a distinction can be quickly elided by aggregators. But somewhere along the way, accuracy is sacrificed.

But I should in all fairness note that headlines more reflective of reality did appear: “Soul Train Aims To Pull Into Broadway Station” (Variety), “Soul Train May Boogie To Broadway” (The Grio, running an Associated Press story), and “Soul Train Making Tracks To Broadway?” (San Diego Union Tribune) are examples. Jim Hebert at the Union Tribune struck a strong note of skepticism in his copy, going so far as to say “don’t hold your breath on this one…” The cause is not lost.

I suppose if I were the producer and publicist for the show – and keep in mind I was a publicist for more than a decade – I’d be thrilled by the amount of attention garnered by the existence of a legal agreement. But when I see so many worthy arts activities that actually exist, eager and even desperate for media attention, this inflation of intentions is really rather depressing. I assume anyone who has a show that has already been written feels much the same way. But clearly the retro lure of a famous brand, with photos ready to run, holds greater sway than what’s happening now (those last three words actually being connected to a property someone may option any day).

In the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, there’s a famous quote: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Fifty years later, it’s been simplified in a way that would make Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and perhaps even Lee Marvin blanch, since we no longer wait for something to become legend: “Print the hype, with a great headline.”

“Stanley? Is that you?”

A very good friend of mine began a successful tenure as the p.r. director of the Long Wharf Theatre in 1986, one year after I’d taken up the comparable position at Hartford Stage. He came blazing out of the gate with a barrage of stories and features in the first few months he was there. But as their third play approached, he called me for some peer-to-peer counseling.  With a worried tone, he said, “Howard, my first show was All My Sons with Ralph Waite of The Waltons. My second show was Camille with Kathleen Turner. Now I’ve just got a new play by an unknown author without any stars in it. What do I do?”

My reply: “Welcome to regional theatre.”

Now as that anecdote makes clear, famous names are hardly new in regional theatre, though they’re somewhat infrequent in most cases. In my home state of Connecticut, Katharine Hepburn was a mainstay at the American Shakespeare Theatre in the 1950s, a now closed venue where I saw Christopher Walken as Hamlet in the early 80s. The venerable Westport Country Playhouse ran for many years with stars of Broadway and later TV coming through regularly; when I worked there in the 1984 and 1985 seasons, shows featured everyone from Geraldine Page and Sandy Dennis to David McCallum and Jeff Conaway. I went to town promoting Richard Thomas as Hamlet in 1987 at Hartford. The examples are endless.

So I should hardly be surprised when, in the past week, I have seen a barrage of coverage of Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire with True Blood’s Joe Manganiello, or Joan Allen’s return to Steppenwolf, for the first time in two decades, in The Wheel. Indeed, I make the assumption, even the assertion, that they were cast because they were ideal for their roles, not out of any craven attempt to boost box office (Manganiello has even played the role on stage before, and of course Allen is a Steppenwolf veteran). I truly hope they both have great successes. But the stories are coming fast and furious (here’s an Associated Press piece on Allen and an “In Performance” video with Manganiello from The New York Times).

I have to admit, what once seemed a rare and wonderful opportunity to me as a youthful press agent gives me pause as a middle-aged surveyor of the arts scene.  Perhaps it’s the proliferation of outlets that make these star appearances in regional theatre seem more heightened, with more attention when they happen. And that’s surely coupled with my ongoing fears about where regional arts coverage fits in today’s entertainment media priorities, which by any account are celebrity driven.

At a time when Broadway is portrayed as ever more star-laden (it has always been thus, but seems to have reached a point where a successful play without stars is the rarity), I worry that this same star-focus is trickling down. Certainly Off-Broadway is filled with “name” actors, so isn’t it reasonable that non-NYC companies would be desirous of the attention made possible by casting actors with the glow of fame? If Broadway maintains sales for plays by relying on stars, it’s not unreasonable for regional companies to want to compete in the same manner against the ongoing onslaught of electronic entertainment.

Again, I doubt any company is casting based solely by name, like some mercenary summer stock producer of bygone days, but one cannot help but worry about the opportunities for solid, working actors to play major leads when Diane Lane takes on Sweet Bird of Youth at The Goodman or Sam Rockwell plays Stanley Kowalski at Williamstown.  Aren’t there veteran actors who deserve a shot at those roles? Yet why shouldn’t those stars, proven in other media, have the opportunity to work on stage, especially if it benefits nor-for-profit companies at the box office without compromising artistic integrity?

I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth here, and I know it. But I go back to the essence of my friend’s quandary back in 1986: what do regional theatres do when they don’t have stars? They go back to serving only their communities, which is their first and foremost priority, but they fall back off the radar of what remains of the national media that might allocate any space to stage work outside of New York. They have raised the expectations of their audiences, who love seeing famous folk in their town, on their stages, then can’t always meet them. Are theatres inadvertently contributing to a climate in which celebrity counts first and foremost? How then does the case get made for the perpetual value of the companies that either don’t – or never could – attract attention by working with big names.

Theatres play into this with their own marketing as well; it’s not solely a media issue. Even when they rigorously adhere to alphabetical company billing in programs and even ads, their graphics usually manage to feature famous faces (notably, Yale’s Streetcar does not). Though in some cases, even the billing barrier has fallen, acknowledging the foolishness in trying to pretend someone famous isn’t at the theatre, it grates a bit when regional theatres place actors “above the title” in ads or use the word “starring,” when ensemble was once the emphasis. When the season brochure comes out for the following season, or seasons, which actors seem to recur in photos, for years after their sole visit?

This past February, The New York Times placed a story about celebrity casting on its front page, as if it were something new, and ensuing reportage seemed to carry a whiff of condescension about the casting of stars in Broadway shows. Though when the Times‘ “The New Season” section came out two weeks ago, who was on the front page of it? James Bond – excuse me, Daniel Craig. Celebrity counted there as well. Because it sells.

In a week when Off-Broadway shows like The Old Friends, Mr. Burns and Fetch Clay, Make Man opened to very strong reviews, it’s worth noting that none featured big box office stars, and that as of yet, none have been announced for commercial transfers. Their quality is acknowledged, but perhaps quality alone is not enough to sustain the productions beyond their relatively small-sized venues. Time will tell. While that’s no failure, it suggests that theatre is evolving into two separate strata, unique from the commonly cited divisions of commercial/not-for-profit or Broadway/Off-Broadway/regional. Perhaps the new distinction for theatre has become “star” or “no-star.” And if that’s the case, I think it bodes ill for the health of not-for-profit companies, the vitality of audiences, and for anyone who seeks to spend their life acting, but may never get that TV show or movie that lifts them into the realm of recognition, or even higher, into fame.

Incidentally, can anyone say, quickly, who’s playing Blanche at Yale? Because, in case you forgot, the play is really about Blanche. Not the werewolf.

This afternoon on Twitter, journalists were decrying the proliferation of the word “premiere” in theatres’ marketing and press materials, especially in cases where the usage is parsing a point rather finely or declaring an outright untruth. I feel for Jason Zinoman, Johnny Oleksinski, Charles McNulty, Diep Tran, Kelly Nestruck and their peers, because at times they may have editors wanting them to take note of important distinctions, but don’t necessarily have a complete production history in order to insure accuracy. Having previously explored the obfuscations of arts communication in Decoder and Decoder II (which remain inordinately popular), it falls to me to dissect this phenomenon.

How has “premiere” metastasized? World premiere. U.S. premiere. East coast premiere. West Coast premiere. Professional premiere. New York premiere. Broadway premiere. Regional premiere. Area premiere. Local premiere. World premiere production. Shared premiere. Simultaneous premiere. Rolling premiere. I’m sure I’ve missed some (feel free to add them in the comments section).

So what is this all about?

It’s a sign of prestige for a theatre to debut new work, so “world” and “U.S.” premieres have the most currency. This is the sort of thing that gets major donors and philanthropic organizations interested, the sort of thing that can distinguish a company on grant applications and on brochures. You would think it’s clear cut, but you’d be wrong.

If several theatres decide to do a brand new play all in the same season, whether separately or in concert with one another, they all want to grab the “premiere” banner. After all, it hadn’t been produced when they decided to do it, they can only fit it into a certain spot, and they can’t get it exclusively, but why shouldn’t they be able to claim glory (they think). Certainly they’re to be applauded for championing the play, and reciprocal acknowledgment is worthy of note.

But still I imagine: ‘Oh, there was a festival production, or one produced under the AEA showcase code? Well surely that shouldn’t count,’ I can hear some rationalizing. ‘We’re giving it more resources and a longer run. Besides, the authors have done a lot of work on it. Let’s just ignore that production with three weeks of paid audiences and reviews. We’re doing the premiere.’

Frankly, sophisticated funders and professional journalists aren’t fooled. But there are enough press release mills masquerading as arts news websites to insure that the phrase will get out to the public. If anyone asks, torturous explanations aimed at legitimizing the claims are offered.  When we get down to “coastal,” “area,” “local” and the like, it’s pretty transparent that the phrase is being shoehorned in to tag onto frayed coattails, but at least those typically have the benefit of being honest in their microcosmic specificity. That said, if multiple theatres, separately or together, champion a new play, they’re to be applauded, and reciprocal acknowledgment is worthy of note.

In the 1980s, regional theatres were being accused of “premiere-itis,” namely that every company wanted to produce a genuine world premiere so that it might share in the author’s royalties on future productions, especially if it traveled on to commercial success. Also, there was funding specifically for brand new plays that was out of reach if you did the second or third production, fueling this dynamic. Many plays were done once and never seen again because of the single-minded pursuit of the virgin work. To give credit where it’s due, that seems less prevalent, even if it has done a great deal to make the word “premiere” immediately suspect. But funders and companies have realized the futility of taking a sink or swim attitude towards new work.

To give one example about how pernicious this was, I was working at a theatre which had legitimately produced the world premiere of a new musical, and the company had been duly credited as such on a handful of subsequent productions. But when the show was selected by a New York not-for-profit company, I was solicited to permit the credit to be changed to something less definitive – and moved away from the title page as is contractually common – lest people think this was the same production and grow ‘confused’. I didn’t relent, but it’s evidence of how theatres want to create the aura of origination.

I completely understand why journalists would be frustrated by this semantic gamesmanship, because they shouldn’t have to fact check press releases, but are being forced to do so. That creates a stressful relationship with press offices, and poor perception of marketing departments, when in some cases the language has been worked out in offices wholly separate from them. Have a little sympathy, folks.

Production history of Will Power’s
Fetch Clay, Make Man

That said, at every level of an organization, truth and accuracy should be prized, not subverted. What’s happening at the contractual level insofar as sharing in revenues is concerned is completely separate than painting an accurate picture of a play’s life (the current New York Theater Workshop Playbill for Fetch Clay, Make Man provides a remarkably detailed and honest delineation of the play’s development and history, by way of example). Taking an Off-Broadway hit from 30 years ago may in fact be its “Broadway debut,” but “premiere” really doesn’t figure any longer, since there’s little that’s primal or primary about it. If you’re based in a small town with no other theatre around for miles, I suppose it’s not wrong to claim that your production of Venus In Fur is the “East Jibroo premiere,” but does anyone really care? It’s likely self-evident.

Let’s face it, any catchphrase that gets overused loses all meaning and even grows tiresome. If fetishizing “premiere” hasn’t yet jumped the shark quite yet, everyone ought to realize that there’s blood in the water.

P.S. Thank you for reading the world premiere of this post.

Thanks to Nella Vera and David Loehr for also participating in the Twitter conversation that prompted this post, which has been recapped via Storify by Jonathan Mandell, including some comments I’d not previously seen.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

For those complacent about the ongoing reduction and elimination of professional arts journalism, I would like to offer a small but concrete example of where this decline is leading us.

On Monday June 10, the website BroadwayWorld.com published the following item, credited only to “BWW News Desk.” In my experience, this usually means that it is, more or less, taken directly from a press release.

Eric LaJuan Summers and Felicia Finley to Star in BASQUIAT THE MUSICAL Reading, 6/24

Basquiat, a new musical based on the life and times of 80’s art-star, Jean-Michel Basquiat will get a private reading on Monday June 24th.

Basquiat was a New York graffiti artist who shot to stardom in the early 80’s with his neo-expressionistic paintings and bad-boy image. He was a part of a cultural revolution that included fellow painters, Keith Haring and Fab 5 Freddy, New Wave bands Blondie and Talking Heads and Basquiat’s mentor, Andy Warhol. He was one of the most sought after painters in the 80’s until his untimely death in 1988 at only 27 years old. Written by Chris Blisset (music and lyrics), Matt Uremovich (lyrics) and Larry Tobias (book), Basquiat deals with the triumphs and failures of one of the art world’s most controversial figures.

The cast stars Eric Lajuan Summers (Motown) and Felicia Finley (Mamma Mia). Summers, who recently won an Astaire Award for Outstanding Male Dancer for Motown the Musical, will be reading the title role of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Other performers include: Roger DeWitt, Chad Carstarphen (In the Heights), James Lambert, Justis Bolding (Woman in White) Frank Viveros, Jason Veasey (Lion King), Gabriel Mudd, Rubin Ortiz, and Eddie Varley.

Basquiat is conceived and directed by Paul Stancato.

Now this is a pretty straightforward announcement of something that happens constantly in New York, a reading of a new musical. But in our era of search engine optimization, curation, consolidation, aggregation and “reporting” based solely on something written elsewhere, stories begin to grow. On Tuesday June 11, The Huffington Post carried the following “story,” with no byline, which escalates some of the language around this one-day industry reading. It is, presumably, drawn from the same source as the Broadway World item, or extrapolated from the item itself.

‘Basquiat The Musical’ Is Reportedly Happening

Move over Matilda, there is a new unlikely Broadway star in town. According to Broadway World, “Basquiat The Musical” will get a private reading on June 24 with stars Eric LaJuan Summers and Felicia Finley.

That’s right, art star Jean-Michel Basquiat will have his meteoric life immortalized in song, thanks to writers Chris Blisset, Matt Uremovich and Larry Tobias, and director Paul Stancato (who is married to Felicia Finley).

Of course if any artist were to get a Broadway debut, we would assume it would be Jean-Michel. The neo-Expressionist bad boy’s iconic style, charismatic persona and tragic early death make for an extremely compelling story. He’s already been the subject of documentary and film, and a blockbuster auction at Christie’s, but the musical threshold has yet to be crossed…until now.

Summers, who previously starred in “Motown,” seems like a good fit to play the graffiti king, leaving us wondering who will play Basquiat’s mentor Andy Warhol and brief beau, Madonna.

What do you think of the prospect of a Basquiat-based musical? And which artist would you most like to see doing jazz hands on Broadway? Fingers crossed for Gerhard Richter…

On the very same day that a one-day reading is announced by Broadway World, The Huffington Post informs us that Basquiat is “reportedly happening” as a Broadway show and the actor taking the lead role in the reading has been elevated to having “previously starred in Motown.” Considering that Motown has only been running for a couple of months, the use of past tense seems unwarranted, and the actor in question is a member of the ensemble there, not playing a lead role (the Motown ensemble plays a wide variety of small roles). In addition, this as-yet unseen reading is apparently already generating buzz, as the unnamed reporter opines that this actor “seems like a good fit to play the graffiti king,” even though the reporter is unlikely to have read the script, heard the score or been able to extrapolate from the actor’s Motown performance how his talents would bear on that material. Incidentally, as I write, 133 people saw fit to share this story with others, 67 tweeted it out and 463 “liked” it.

Then, in turn, this morning, Complex.com does its own “reporting,” credited to Justin Ray (noting it is “via The Huffington Post,” but also citing Broadway World as a source) in which Basquiat is now a sure thing.

“Basquiat The Musical” Will Be Coming to Broadway

We have heard a slew of rappers refer to Jean-Michel Basquiat in song, however the influential artist’s involvement with music will be taken to the next level. Basquiat The Musical will be having a private reading on June 24 according to Broadway World.

Yes, the prolific art icon will now have a musical dedicated to his life starring Eric LaJuan Summers and Felicia Finley. The musical was written by Chris Blisset, Matt Uremovich, and Larry Tobias. It will be directed by director Paul Stancato. Although it is unexpected, we imagine it will be a pretty awesome story. It’s another thing he could have added to his hilarious resume.

Eric LaJuan Summers starred in the big musical Motown and is sure to play the part well. However details have not been released as to who will play Madonna or Andy Warhol. However we anticipate it will become popular, though it will be hard to outsell his works (which have gotten crazy amounts of dollars).

Yes, in less than 48 hours, Basquiat is not only “coming to Broadway” – all reference to a reading is gone in the headline – but Complex “anticipate[s] it will become popular” and the lead actor is “sure to play the part well.” The snowball effect is well underway, for a show that hasn’t even had its industry reading.

I don’t bring this up in order to cast any aspersions on the artists or creators of Basquiat; I genuinely wish them well. But these three items, taken together, demonstrate how quickly some simple facts about a show early in its development blow it up into a Broadway show based solely on the voracious appetite of news consolidators and headline fabricators. Have they done so wholly of their own accord, or were they easy prey for a wily publicist? Hard to say.

Since I was a child, I’ve known the phrase, “You can’t believe everything you read.” But nowadays, when it comes to news, when facts are elaborated upon and disseminated by multiple “news” sources, our skepticism needs to be greater than ever before. If this is the new standard for news, we shouldn’t be bemoaning the death of accuracy, even more than the anticipated death of print?

And as for arts coverage? Without reliable and verifiable reporting, whether in print or online, our descent into nothing but gossip draws ever closer.

*   *   *

Full disclosure: I periodically cross-post blog entries from this site to The Huffington Post as an arts blogger, for which I receive no compensation, and I have not communicated with anyone there in connection with this piece.

Mind you, there’s only so much one can squeeze into a TV spot, but the ad I just watched managed the following in its voiceover: 1) play title; 2) key award nominations; 3) names of three lead actors; and 4) quotes from reviews. The name of the playwright, and the director, photos of the stars (not in costume), the logo for the not-for-profit theatre that produced it, and ticket ordering information appeared on screen. The piece runs only 15 seconds.

Now this is a Broadway show and it’s Tony season, so I could simply chalk this ad up to awards fever. But it’s just another in a long line of theatre marketing tools that I see which constantly manage to skirt what strikes me as a rather important element in theatrical communication: the plot.  TV time is precious, but that’s not the case in brochures, press releases and even radio spots, which are far more likely to be deployed by the majority of theatres in the country. Yet sometimes the plot is nowhere to be found.

Theatres skip over plots for one of two reasons: a) their show is a revival of a famous classic work and it’s assumed that everyone likely to be interested already knows what it’s about, or b) the theatre doesn’t actually want to say what it’s about, even if the play has never been seen before. In both cases, the decision is ill-advised.

For a classic, it may well be true that a significant portion of the likely ticket buyers already know not only the plot but the ending of Othello, A Doll’s House or Death of a Salesman. But cloaking the show solely in its author’s name and adjectives about its greatness leaves out anyone who happens to have not seen it before, and may be looking for clues as to whether it will interest them. Indeed, we forget that the great works of literature may be daunting to the uninitiated, so by bypassing even a bit of plot description, we skip the opportunity to cultivate new patrons or place the seemingly archaic work within a context that might appeal to a modern audience.

It also pays to remember that this applies to relatively recent works as well. For example, Children of a Lesser God won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play and the lead actress in the film version won an Oscar in 1986, but how many 25 year olds know the piece? We must always be thinking of new patrons – whatever their age – not just endlessly mining the so-called “avids.”

As for avoiding the plot, the motivations can be varied. Perhaps the actual storyline could be seen as off-putting (deranged barber murders customers and his landlady bakes their remains into pies; boy blinds horses) or vague (two hobos wait endlessly for someone to show up). But skilled copy writing can put those stories into a larger and perhaps more enticing context without ever being untrue or misleading. It’s when we employ only adjectives that we’re dropping the ball; plays (and all stories) are rooted in nouns and verbs, that is to say people and action.

Even when the work in question is brand new, and there’s concern about revealing too much, it’s a mistake to say nothing; your gaggle of adjectives will less effective, since there’s no outside affirmation (as might eventually come from reviews), there’s just you trying to tell potential patrons what they’re going to think of the show if they come. (I refer you to my guides to clichéd marketing-speak and the true meanings behind it in Decoder and Decoder II.)

I’m not advocating lengthy recountings and I recognize that very often, a cursory précis of a story can be reductive; I’ve seen many authors (and artistic staffs) bridle at simplifications. But marketing and communications are not reviews or dramaturgy or literary criticism; they should be as accurate and appealing as possible, but they can’t be all-encompassing. And they must appear. The play may be the thing wherein we’ll catch the king’s conscience, but we’ve got to get him into the theatre first.

My friend Frank Rizzo of The Hartford Courant apparently spends a good bit of time listening to NPR. On more than one occasion, it has caused him to have little eruptions on Twitter. His frustration is caused by the repeated refrain of, “That’s a very good question,” from a presumably wide variety of guests.

Now I have no idea which NPR station Frank listens to, or which programs, but I don’t doubt his characterization at all. I am quite certain that he hears this all the time, and not just on NPR. We all do, though we may not even realize it.

“That’s a very good question” is a ploy that media coaches teach interview subjects to use; I imagine a number of people have simply picked up the phrase for their own use, through the very repetition that has Frank riled. Following a question from a moderator, a fellow guest, or perhaps an audience member in a town hall setting, “That’s a very good question,” along with its cousins, “I’m so glad you asked me that” and “I’ve been giving that a great deal of thought,” does two things at once.

The first thing it does is buy time. Only the most verbally dexterous can immediately formulate a perfect answer to a complex inquiry, so “TAVGQ” is a reflexive placeholder, preventing dead air or the dreaded, drawn-out “ummm…,” while an answer, or perhaps a diversion to a less fraught topic, develops in some other portion of the brain. In confrontational situations, it prevents the moderator from scoring points by pressing the topic in an available gap before the guest even replies to the original question.

Secondly, The Phrase That Shall No Longer Be Spoken also flatters whomever has asked the question, because it praises their interrogatory skill and, even if it doesn’t fool them, it shows the listeners or viewers what a sympathetic, considerate person the interviewee can be.

And so, with decades of experience, I’d like to offer new conversational placeholders during media opportunities, to allow the gathering of wits, and which in many cases can serve to redirect a troublesome dialogue.

1. “You’re brave to broach that. Who among us hasn’t confronted that issue and been afraid to talk about it openly?”

2. “Before I answer that shrewd query, I’d like to make certain that you don’t need to put quarters in the meter.”

3. “I was just discussing that at home this morning and it’s amazing that you thought to bring it up on the very same day. Incredible. Psychic.”

4. “I’m so glad we’re going to get into that, but first, may I try on your gorgeous jacket?”

5. “That was such a concern of my late mother’s. I have her picture here somewhere.”

6. “Bill, George, Barack and I have been grappling with that for some time, but not one of us has managed to summarize it as clearly as you just did.”

7. “Before I go on, I have to tell you that your voice is mesmerizing. Do you sing?”

8. “I’m sorry, I was distracted by the image of us in the monitor. Looking at myself next to you makes me think I should stick to radio and print, don’t you think?”

9. “That really is one of the essential questions of modern life, but unfortunately I can’t elaborate on it due to national security.”

10. “Wait! What’s that over there? Oh, sorry, I thought I saw a bat. You were saying?”

Study these phrases and learn them well, and one day soon, you can speak to the media skillfully, taking control without ever lapsing into the predictable.

You’re welcome.

Every January, the media run features on how to lose those holiday pounds. As schools let out for the summer, the media share warnings about damage from the sun and showcase the newest sunscreens. In Thanksgiving, turkey tips abound.

For theatre, September reveals two variants of its seasonal press staple, either “Stars Bring Their Glamour To The Stage,” or, alternately, “Shortage of Star Names Spells Soft Season Start.” Indeed, the same theme may reappear for the spring season and, depending upon summer theatre programming, it may manage a third appearance. But whether stars are present or not, they’re the lede, and the headline.

The arrival of these perennial stories is invariably accompanied by grousing in the theatre community about the impact of stars on theatre, Broadway in particular, except from those who’ve managed to secure their services. But this isn’t solely a Broadway issue, because as theatres — commercial and not-for-profit, touring and resident — struggle for attention alongside movies, TV, music, and videogames, stardom is currency. Sadly, a great play, a remarkable actor or a promising playwright is often insufficient to draw the media’s gaze; in the culture of celebrity, fame is all.

But as celebrity culture has metastasized, with the Snookis and Kardashians of the world getting as much ink as Denzel and Meryl, and vastly more than Donna Murphy or Raul Esparza, to name but two, the theatre’s struggle with the stardom issue is ever more pronounced. Despite that, I do not have a reflexive opposition to stars from other performing fields working in theatre.

Before I go on, I’d like to make a distinction: in the current world of entertainment, I see three classifiers. They are “actor,” “celebrity,” and “star.” They are not mutually exclusive, nor are they fixed for life. George Clooney toiled for years as a minor actor in TV, before his role on ER made him actor, celebrity and star all in one. Kristin Chenoweth has been a talented actor and a star in theatre for years, but it took her television work to make her a multi-media star and a celebrity. The old studio system of Hollywood declared George Hamilton a star years ago, but he now lingers as a celebrity, though still drawing interest as he tours. Chris Cooper has an Oscar, but he remains an actor, not a star, seemingly by design. And so on.

So when an actor best known for film or TV does stage work, it’s not fair to be discounting their presence simply because of stardom. True stardom from acting is rarely achieved with an absence of talent, even if stardom is achieved via TV and movies. Many stars of TV or film have theatre backgrounds, either in schooling or at the beginning of their career: Bruce Willis appeared (as a replacement) in the original Off-Broadway run of Fool For Love before he did Moonlighting or Die Hard; I saw Bronson Pinchot play George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? while he was a Yale undergraduate (the Nick was David Hyde Pierce); Marcia Cross may have been a crazed denizen of Melrose Place and a Desperate Housewife, but she’s a Juilliard grad who did Shakespeare before achieving fame. But when Henry Winkler is announced in a new play, three decades after his signature television show ended, despite his Yale School of Drama education and prior stage work, all we hear is that “The Fonz” will be on Broadway.

The trope of “stars bringing their luster to the theatre” is insulting all around: it implies that the person under discussion is more celebrity than actor and it also suggests that there is insufficient radiance in theatre when no one in the cast has ever been featured in People or Us. By the same token, there’s media that won’t cover theatre at all unless there’s a name performer involved, so ingrained is celebrity culture, so theatre sometimes has to look to stars if it wishes to achieve any broad-based awareness. But the presence of stars on stage is nothing new, be it Broadway or summer stock; we may regret that theatre alone can rarely create a star, as it could 50 years ago, but we must get over that, because the ship has sailed.

There’s certainly a healthy skepticism when a star comes to the theatre with no stage background, and it’s not unwarranted. But I think that there are very few directors, artistic directors or producers who intentionally cast someone obviously unable to play a role solely to capitalize upon their familiarity or fame. In a commercial setting, casting Julia Roberts proved to be box office gold, even if she was somewhat overmatched by the material, but she was not a ludicrous choice; at the not-for-profit Roundabout, also on Broadway, Anne Heche proved herself a superb stage comedienne with Twentieth Century, following her very credible turn in Proof, before which her prior stage experience was in high school. Perhaps they might have tested the waters in smaller venues, but once they’re stars, its almost impossible to escape media glare no matter where they go.

The spikier members of the media also like to suggest, or declare, that when a famous actor works on stage after a long hiatus, or for the first time, it’s an attempt at career rehabilitation. This is yet another insult. Ask any actor, famous or not, and they can attest to theatre being hard work; ask a stage novice, well-known or otherwise, and they are almost reverent when they talk about the skill and stamina required to tell a story from beginning to end night after night after night. Theatre is work, and what success onstage can do is reestablish the public’s – and the press’s –recognition of fundamental talent. Judith Light may have become a household name from the sitcom Who’s The Boss, but it’s Wit, Lombardi and Other Desert Cities that have shown people how fearless and versatile she is. That’s not rehabilitation, it’s affirmation.

I should note that there’s a chicken-and-egg issue here: are producers putting stars in shows in order to get press attention, or is the media writing about stars because that’s who producers are putting in shows? There’s no doubt that famous names help a show’s sales, particularly the pre-sale, so in the commercial world, they’re a form of (not entirely reliable) insurance. And Broadway is, with a few exceptions, meant to achieve a profit. But it’s also worth noting that star casting, which most associate with Broadway, has a trickle down effect: in New York, we certainly see stars, often younger, hipper ones, in Off-Broadway gigs, and it’s not so unusual for big names to appear regionally as well, cast for their skills, but helping the theatres who cast them to draw more attention. Star casting is now embedded in theatre – which is all the more reason why it shouldn’t be treated as something remarkable, even as we may regret its encroachment upon the not-for-profit portion of the field. But they have tickets to sell too.

Look, it’s not as if any star needs me to defend them. The proof is ultimately found onstage; it is the run-up to those appearances that I find so condescending and snide. It shouldn’t be news that famous people might wish to work on stage, nor should any such appearance be viewed as crass commercialism unless it enters the realm of the absurd, say Lady Gaga as St. Joan. If stars get on stage, they should be judged for their work, and reviewed however positively or negatively as their performance may warrant.

I’m not naive enough to think attention won’t be paid to famous people who tread the boards, and I wish it needn’t come at the expense of work for the extraordinary talents who haven’t, for one reason or another, achieved comparable fame. I don’t need a star to lure me to a show, but I’m not your average audience member. Perhaps if the media didn’t kowtow to the cult of celebrity, if they realized how theatre is a launch pad for many, a homecoming for others, and a career for vastly more, theatre might be valued more as both a springboard for fame and a home for those with the special gift of performing live. So when the famous appear in the theatre, let’s try to forget their celebrity or stardom, stop trying to parse their motives, and try, if only for a few hours, to appreciate them solely, for good or ill, as actors.

A famous cover from the early days of The National Lampon — which did in fact sell magazines.

“Unless business improves,” potential audiences were told, “we will have to close.”  Let’s parse that for a moment, this phrase that has popped up in ads and press releases a couple of times lately.

“Unless business improves” means that business is lousy. A honest admission to be sure, but when used in connection with entertainment, it also can say, “No one is coming to our show.” And if no one is going to a show, isn’t that a self-perpetuating situation? After all, who wants to go to a show that no one is going to? There must be something wrong with it, or else people would be going.

“We will have to close” is a statement of simple fact, since in theatre, if no one is going, you can’t generate enough income to sustain the run by at least meeting your weekly operating expenses. This seems rather self evident, given the first half-of the phrase. It’s amazing that news stories actually carry this phrasing straight from the press release, since it’s not news.

Taken together, there’s a somewhat larger meaning, namely that if you (yes, I mean you) don’t do your part, some unnamed ‘we’ will suffer. The unnamed we, if you think about it with a sensitivity to the people who make theatre, can mean that actors, crew and house staff will be unemployed. No one likes putting people out of work. But the we can also refer to the people who make the decision to close, namely the show’s producer(s). Without meaning to imply anything, I suggest that there is probably more sympathy among the public for actors than producers.

But that’s what is being played on – our sympathy, or looked at another way, our guilt. This message says it’s up to us to keep the show in question going, and if the show closes, then its our fault. Now perhaps we already saw the show. Therefore, we’ve done our bit and can’t be reasonably expected to go again just to keep the show alive. Maybe we’ve always been curious to see the show, in which case we either have to get a move on, or come to the realization that we’re just not going to get there. Or maybe we were never interested in the first place, and this sort of please means we can start gloating early.

Guilt, in general, is not a good sales tool in the arts. Being forced to eat broccoli doesn’t make it taste any better, and guilt isn’t going to make us want to see a show we’ve chosen not to see.

There’s a new variant of this. “Final weeks? Book and keep the conversation going.” Again with the guilt. There’s hope, this ploy says, but only if you act now, to co-opt the words of a thousand infomercials. Coupled with an ongoing campaign in which this same show constantly tells us about the celebrities who’ve seen the show, we’re made to feel like we’re losing out and we’re the ones dropping the ball. We’re not cool.

I haven’t named specific shows because they’re hardly the first, although you may well know of the ones that have deployed this maneuver of late. It’s a tactic of longstanding, yet I’ve never even heard an apocryphal story about a show that pulled this particular arrow out of their quiver and provoked a change in fortune. Might they have managed an extra week or two? Perhaps. But I’m unfamiliar with a turnaround. (Yes, Dreamgirls ran for months while advertising “final weeks,” but at some point, that devolved into a claim that no one actually believed. As many know from raising children, threats are only effective if you’re prepared to follow through on them.) This is a tactic of last resort, used when you can’t think of anything new to say or show about your show in order to sustain flagging interest. It’s a creatively bankrupt marketing campaign and death knell all in one.

At this time of year, when Broadway and Off-Broadway shows are closing in the seasonal culling of the herd, most merely announce their final date and hope that those who have yet to attend, or those who wish to attend once again, will be motivated by finality, and do what they’re able to do. The productions march stolidly to their final day, sometimes building sales as the end draws nigh, sometimes finding they’re really already gone. But telling us it’s our fault, that we should, that we’ll miss out? To me, that’s like ordering me to eat my broccoli. And you know what? I never have.

Followers of the ethical issues surrounding the press in general, and arts journalism in particular, spent the first few days of this week watching and opining on Peter Gelb’s decision to remove reviews of The Metropolitan Opera from Opera News and his decision, only a day later, to restore said reviews, amidst an almost unanimous outcry against his maneuver. Gelb’s efforts inspired sufficient umbrage that even when he reversed his decision, people then criticized him for folding so quickly and not having the strength of his own convictions.

As a result, you may be unaware of another critical contretemps that has set the theatre world abuzz – the Australian theatre world, that is. This past weekend, the stage musical of the film An Officer and a Gentleman opened in Sydney, Australia (please, hold your contempt for musicals derived from movies for the moment). This opening was a source of national theatrical pride, as Australia seeks to bolster its image as the starting place for major musicals, a position declared in the pages of Variety only last week. Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Dirty Dancing, also film-derived, are two previous productions cited. With the advent of the internet, going out of town to work on a show without press scrutiny has become increasingly difficult. Australia is seeking to supplant the West Coast of the U.S. as a place where one can go relatively free of prying eyes.

So what’s the fuss? The Australian, a national daily, first published a short review on May 19 critical of the musical and, on May 21, the same critic reinforced her views with a longer piece. But on the 21^st, The Australian also saw fit to publish a letter from Douglas Day Stewart, screenwriter of the film and co-writer of the book of the musical, in which he lashed out strongly at The Australian’s review and its critic, going so far as to suggest that she is “incapable of human emotion.”  Because I have seen this coverage on the Internet, I do not know the relative prominence each piece received in print, although it is fair to say that The Australian sought to provoke controversy, since they could have declined to run the letter.

Now artists writing to newspapers to complain about reviews is hardly a new phenomenon. It’s not hard to understand why someone involved in a creative venture would feel compelled to try to debunk not only criticism but the person who wrote it. After all, no one likes being told their baby is ugly. However, in my experience, it’s an impotent gesture at best and a counterproductive one at worst: I am unaware of any critic ever seeing such a missive and then realizing that they were “mistaken.” More often, the critic will respond to such letters by reiterating or embellishing upon their original position, and the artist doesn’t get a second whack. The critic may harbor resentment, to be expressed in the future, against the artist or the producer, whether commercial or not-for-profit. When this sort of thing has come to me as press agent, as general manager, as executive director, I have always sought to talk the artist down, expressing genuine compassion, but trying to explain that other than making themself and perhaps the company feel better, no real good comes of such an action.

When this first blew up in Australia, several of my Twitter friends down under were quick to send me various links, saying, more or less, “Have you seen this?” My initial reaction was to not comprehend why this perennial conflict merited much attention, but consistent replies said that, indeed, national pride was at stake.  If that’s the case, then it is unfortunate that so many people have invested emotionally in the current state of Australian theatre through this one production – and even more unfortunate that Mr. Stewart (Mr. Day Stewart?) caused more attention to be focused on An Officer and A Gentleman.  The fact is, were it not for his letter, this opening might have escaped me (and no doubt many others internationally) entirely and the show would have been free to develop in relative solitude. Instead, it’s now “the show where the author got mad at the press.”  By citing “a plethora of five-star reviews,” Stewart sent many looking for them, and let’s just say I hardly found a “plethora.” (For your reference, here are a selection of reviews from: The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Stage, Crikey, Nine to Five, and The Coolum News)

Thanks to Mr. Stewart, my sense of An Officer and a Gentleman is that it did not meet with general critical acclaim, save for The Australian, but (thanks to comments beneath reviews) that it is a crowd-pleaser. If the creative team feels they have an impeccably wrought success and feel no further work is necessary, the show may be a risky venture based on what I’ve read. The more strategic response to the reviews, if there was to be a response, would have been to talk about the value of many opinions, critical and general public, and talk about how the time in Australia was going to be used to make the show even more successful and entertaining before conquering the known world.

Like the Gelb incident, the Officer and a Gentleman kerfuffle is a result of people not thinking through their actions fully in advance, perhaps not seeking (or accepting) the counsel of others, to the detriment of their institution or their production. The Metropolitan Opera will go on, and it’s very likely that An Officer and a Gentleman will be seen in other countries one day soon. But in both cases, focusing on the productions instead of the press would have been more, well, productive.