Profiles Theatre, Chicago, in 2013 (Photo byEric Allix Rogers/Flickr)

The closure of a 50-seat theatre in Chicago, even one with a 28-year history of production, doesn’t typically become a topic of conversation nationally, let alone a subject for discussion internationally. But the shuttering of Profiles Theatre, announced by website and Facebook posts late on Tuesday evening, is a cautionary tale for anyone who makes theatre. Because Profiles Theatre didn’t shut its doors because of lost funding, dwindling attendance or poor management – the theatre is gone because it had, allegedly, condoned predatory and abusive behaviour on the part of one of its two artistic directors for many years.

On June 8, at 4:30pm Chicago time, the Chicago Reader posted an online story titled: “At Profiles Theatre the drama — and abuse — is real,” written by Aimee Levitt and Christopher Piatt. It was rapidly shared online throughout that evening and well into the next day. Described as being drawn from a year-long investigation that involved more than 30 interviews, the story carried accounts of reprehensible behaviour of Darrell W. Cox, co-artistic director, director and frequent lead actor at the company, which had often been praised by critics as being emblematic of the raw Chicago style. The article detailed a series of claimed transgressions towards women at the company, including allegations of manipulative sexual relationships and genuine physical abuse on stage during performances.

Save for an anodyne statement declining to discuss the charges, Profiles was silent. Two days later, after Penelope Skinner withdrew the rights to her play The Village Bike, which was to be the next production, Cox posted a statement to the company’s Facebook page. Neither materially challenging the assertions nor apologising for his behaviour, Cox bemoaned having been made into a villain, saying that those who knew him best knew the truth. Cox’s co-artistic director, Joe Jahraus, remained silent. Come Tuesday night, whether Profiles was unwilling or unable to offer any counterargument about what had occurred, they were gone. Just a week had passed. On the evening of June 15, responding via email to questions from the Chicago Tribune, Cox suggested his actions had been misinterpreted.

At the same time the main report was published, the Reader’s critic, Piatt, wondered in a separate essay whether he should have intuited an unhealthy culture at Profiles. Several days later, Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune expressed his own regrets, via Facebook, about his own unwitting role in the Profiles story, a company he had praised often. Several women who had worked at Profiles, but had not been interviewed for the article, came forward, seeming to corroborate the behaviour it described.

The ‘storefront’ theatre community of Chicago, which would certainly be recognised as akin to fringe theatre in London, is intertwined with the larger, more fully professionalised companies in ways large and small companies might not mingle in other cities. Profiles had operated for much of its life as a non-Equity company, only coming under an Actors’ Equity agreement four years ago. While the Equity status offered actors at Profiles recourse against inappropriate behaviour, the Profiles ethos is said to have produced a culture of silence that was apparently whispered in the theatre community, but only emerged fully with the Reader story.

An issue this highlights is about how difficult it is for artists, especially young artists trying to make a place in the theatre community, to come forward when they face established, even acclaimed, artists who are abusing their positions. Further, when artists are working in situations without the protection of union agreements and without a clear place to go for help, they are at a particular disadvantage. The Reader exposé is an important step in empowering people to come forward, so that such a culture isn’t allowed to fester for as long as it may have at Profiles.

Not so coincidentally, an initiative called Not in Our House was begun in Chicago, specifically designed to develop resources for those working in the city’s extensive non-Equity theatre ecosystem. The rumours and whispers about Profiles were part of the impetus for the formation of NIOH, which back in February proffered a draft code of conduct for the non-Equity community, seeking input through crowdsourcing. Since the Profiles situation was blown open, NIOH is hearing from theatre communities around the country, and may well serve as a template for satellites or similar organisations.

In a week when most eyes were focused on the Tony Awards, Broadway and New York, Chicago’s theatre community was convulsed by the Profiles situation, and even with the theatre having suspended operations, any sense of closure is surely still in the distance for so many. But instead of being looked at as an anomaly, the Profiles story needs to provoke more conversation, even in theatre communities that might like to think everything is perfectly fine. Because we never know, until we know.

If you’re looking for critical consensus, you won’t find much of it in the new book The Critics Say…: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (McFarland & Company, $35). That’s because the critics interviewed for the book by Matt Windman, himself a critic, have a wide variety of opinions about what it is they do, how they do it, why they do it and whether it will continue to be done.

Rather than devote a chapter to each critic, Windman organizes the book topically, so that even while the interviews were discrete, the critics’ thoughts begin to engage with one another on subjects from “Why We Exist” to “Regrets and Advice” through devised interplay. That’s useful, because transcribed speech often isn’t compelling to read, so by extracting themes, Windman is constantly changing up who is “speaking” at any given moment, creating rather more of a narrative than would otherwise be the case. Windman certainly threw out a wide net and reeled in many of the biggest fish, including both Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood from The New York Times.

If you go looking for gossip and backbiting in the book, you won’t find a great deal of it. Yes, Isherwood chides “those crazy queens on All That Chat,” and Brantley, who doesn’t use social media opines that it is “largely about” self-promotion. But the book is much more concerned with a sober-sided consideration of the place of the critic in the arts and journalism culture of today, and it provides a strong primer in the thoughts of those who practice criticism – or at the least what they’re willing to share on the record. Oh, there is a brief chapter devoted entirely to Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, but even there, the critics use the show as a pretext for discussing the power of critics, or lack thereof, in today’s society.

The book contains countless revealing insights into the minds of the people who shape public opinion of theatre, available almost by opening the book randomly to any page at all. A few choice thoughts:

“The critic is part of the theatre community, but he is the annoying guy at the part who’s telling everybody, ‘You look like shit.’” – Rob Weinert-Kendt, editor of American Theatre

“I tell students it’s a marvelous hobby, but I do not encourage them to pursue it as a career.” – Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, on advice to aspiring critics

“When I was on the Obies committee, I was told (though I think this was tongue-in-cheek) that the standard for conflict of interest is whether you slept with the person. Mine is that I can’t have been invited to their birthday party.” – Helen Shaw, Time Out New York

“One of the hardest critical jobs is the correct appropriation of praise and blame. Did this actor do this? Was it a directing choice? Did this flow from the play? Was the director absolutely doing that? A critic does not see the production process. To some degree the critic is trying to imbue the process.” – Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

“If there weren’t critics, people would have to depend on advertising. And advertising, by definition, almost always lies…” – John Simon, Westchester Guardian

Having begun my career as a publicist, albeit one who worked mostly in Connecticut, which short stays in Philadelphia and New York, I’ve had the occasion to know a great many critics, and the majority of the individuals in the book I know at least from reading, many from professional interactions and a few I consider friends. I’ve had the chance to discuss, debate and sometimes profoundly disagree with some of the critics in the book. Consequently, I can say that they come across just as they have across telephone line, social media and even a dinner table. Because of the timing of the book in 2016, I do find myself missing the presence of some of the critics with whom I worked most directly, and spoke with most often, from whom I learned so much, all of whom have now passed away: Mel Gussow of The New York Times, Howard Kissel of the New York Daily News and Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press.

While their absence is inevitable, there are a few major voices missing from the book, for reasons unknowable. While print may be shrinking or even dying, and online reviews are now widely accessible, making more criticism available to more readers than ever before, Mark Kennedy’s voice at the Associated Press has significant amplification and reach, through the many outlets that carry AP copy; he’s not in the book. On the west coast, which is generally underrepresented in the critical mix of the book, Charles McNulty at the Los Angeles Times is a major and influential writer about theatre not only in Los Angeles, but frequently in San Diego and New York as well. And Michael Feingold, the long-time – and once again – critic at the Village Voice has a historical perspective that is unfortunately not heard.

There’s one other voice I wish were included, that of Frank Rich, the former theatre critic of The New York Times, who is named multiple times in the book. Frank, unlike Gussow, Kissel and Kuchwara, is still with us, having gone on to write for the editorial pages of the Times and now as a political columnist for New York magazine (as well as being an executive producer of the TV series Veep). While his days as a designated critic may be gone, theatre has remained a part of Frank’s writing in the two decades since he left his post. His insight would have only added value to Windman’s book.

The book is not wholly New York-centric, with critics from the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Toronto Star and Austin Chronicle included, but it certainly skews to the America’s northeast. So while it’s problematic to draw any definitive conclusions about the critical community from the 57 critics represented, it’s worth noting that there are only nine female critics among the 57, and only two critics within – to the best of my knowledge – who are persons of color, highlighting the lack of gender and racial diversity in the critical ranks overall. The interviews don’t skirt this fact (though one critic mistakenly declares that Hilton Als is the only black theatre critic anywhere), but as an area of inquiry, discussion of how the lack diversity among critics affects audiences and artists is limited. It seems a missed opportunity.

Have I spent too much time talking about what I miss, rather than what’s in The Critics Say? I am perhaps guilty of doing so, but only because I have had the privilege of such conversations throughout my career and the book prompts me to want to ask yet more questions, both with the people in the book and those who aren’t. But that’s where Windman’s effort pays off, in assembling provocative conversations with people inaccessible to most readers and creating a strong platform for yet more discussion. In his preface, Windman cites two previous books that spoke with critics, from 1993 and 2004, but just as I miss hearing the opinions of those no longer with us and those who didn’t participate, perhaps this form of inquiry deserves to be undertaken once every decade or so, for the historical record, as criticism, theatre and the media continue to evolve.

Whatever the fate of theatre criticism is in the next ten years or the next hundred, The Critics Say is a worthy time capsule of where things are right now, and surely required reading in arts journalism and arts management classes. And for those you read theatre reviews and find yourself saying, “Who the hell wrote this?,” Windman’s book offers some answers about who did, and why.

Jerry MacKinnon in This Is Modern Art at Steppenwolf Theatre

If, like me, you’re connected to members of the Chicago theatre community on social media (I’m NYC based), you’ve certainly seen an outpouring of reaction to two major reviews of the new Steppenwolf for Young Adults show, This Is Modern Art (Based On True Events). Since all perception of what’s being said on any subject in social media is mediated by who you ‘follow’ and who you ‘friend’ and what you like and retweet, I can’t possibly tell you what the prevailing sentiments are overall, online or in Chicago theatre lobbies. But I will say this: my connections are very unhappy, and in some cases enraged. Among their charges are that the reviews are deeply insensitive to a story about young people of color, and by extension the lives of all people of color, and that they condescend to the work from a place of privilege.

Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune and Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times both gave what I would characterize as predominantly negative reviews of the production. Both shared a common theme: that the play, about graffiti artists, celebrated their work without making sufficiently clear, to the critics’ minds, that the majority of graffiti art is also illegal vandalism. Jones calls graffiti “disrespectful”; Weiss calls the characters “urban terrorists.” The play is based upon a true incident in Chicago, when elaborate graffiti was created on the exterior of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, so it summons shared Chicago memories, beyond the writers’, readers’ or audiences’ personal experiences.

From the reviews, I offer two excerpts (with links to the complete pieces):

“But here is what “This is Modern Art” barely even mentions: Graffiti comes at a price. It can be invasive, self-important and disrespectful of the property of others — and plenty of struggling folks have had to clean graffiti off something they own or love. Graffiti can be inartful, for goodness sake. More importantly yet, graffiti had the effect of making people feel unsafe in the city. It terrified people. It was only when public officials declared themselves determined to wipe it out that cities finally came back to life, with broad benefits.

You wanna go back to riding public transportation in New York or Chicago in the 1980s? I do not. You do not have to be conservative or somehow not down with youth to think it reprehensible that these issues do not have a place in a show for schools that is quite staggeringly one-sided.”  – Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

“To start, a hypothetical question addressed to the powers that be at Steppenwolf Theatre: How would you react were you to arrive at work one morning only to discover that the entire facade of your theater had been spray-painted with graffiti, and that the message left behind went like this: “All the world is OUR stage.”

I pose the question after having just seen “This Is Modern Art,” the wildly misguided new Steppenwolf for Young Adults production written by hip-hop artist Idris Goodwin and “Louder Than a Bomb” founder Kevin Coval, and directed by Lisa Portes.

Clearly the play is meant to be a provocation and a catalyst for controversy and discussion among the many high school groups that comprise the principal audience for this series. And no one would deny that in terms of its fine acting and knowingly “hip” writing and design this is an entertaining and “artful” production. But “This Is Modern Art” also sends out a slew of profoundly misguided messages to its impressionable viewers. And no politically correct review to rationalize it will appear here.”  – Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times

Now before I go on, I should point out that I write about this issue is as a middle-aged, Caucasian, cisgender, heterosexual Jewish male raised in and around New Haven, Connecticut. Many could say I write from a position of privilege as well; that’s their right. But I cannot be anyone but who I am and, as a longtime follower of theatre criticism, I would hope that all critics would write openly and honestly about their perceptions, with their biases out there for all to see and take into account. In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention that I’ve known Chris Jones for more than a decade professionally; I’ve never had any occasion to meet or communicate with Hedy Weiss.

This Is Modern Art at Steppenwolf Theatre

With all of that out of the way, I have to say that I find both reviews limited. Not because I disagree with their opinions of the play – I’ve not seen it or read it, so I can’t – but because the reviews fail to give me sufficient information about the play that might allow me to draw any conclusions of my own. So much of the bodies of the two reviews are devoted to condemning graffiti and vandalism, and taking the play to task for not sharing that perspective, that it’s very difficult for me – and I would assume most readers – to assess whether the play might be something I want to see, which a daily review should do, even a negative one.

Presumably Chris and Hedy could have noted their displeasure with the play’s perspective while still attending more fully to the details of the play and the production, which they fleetingly praise. Subsequently, as senior critics, they could have easily then written separate essays in which they explored their political and personal reactions to graffiti as vandalism, and question Steppenwolf’s responsibility in presenting the work if they wished, instead of forcing such op-eds into the confines of a standard review.

Inevitably, some of the rhetoric surrounding these reviews has addressed the role of the critic, always a charged discussion but one that must be considered in the context of the diminishment of arts coverage in legacy mainstream media. Nationally, critics remain in their positions for as long as they’re able, even as positions are cut and newspapers constantly seek buyouts that target veteran employees (read older, better paid) in an economic version of Logan’s Run. But with limited alternatives, few critics are opting out voluntarily, and so it’s not entirely surprising to find that many “major” critics mirror the demographics that prevailed decades earlier: largely white and mostly male. That can set up a division with both artists and audiences who make up the more diverse America of today (though the field of theatre still has a great deal of work to do on diversity and equity in its own ranks as well), since they find work, often as not, being judged publicly by people who may not mirror them in any way or share or understand their experiences. When I started in theatre, for example, I wondered where the young critical voices were in the major media; remarkably, 30 years on, I still wonder (though I know I can find those voices online, in many cases working for free).

Kelly O’Sullivan and Jerry MacKinnon in This Is Modern Art at Steppenwolf Theatre

In the case of This Is Modern Art, a work explicitly created for teen audiences, I would suggest that the arts or features editors at the two Chicago papers missed an opportunity. While absolutely still affording Chris and Hedy their primacy as the papers’ critical voices, wasn’t this the moment to offer more diverse staffers the opportunity to weigh in? While This Is Modern Art does have evening performances for the public, the majority of the schedule is daytime shows, presumably for students and youth groups, and therefore deserving of viewpoints that might in some aspect approach greater commonality with the expressly targeted audience. Admittedly, it would be impossible to check off a series of demographic boxes on any critic that would fulfill the wishes of every reader and every artist on every show, but the paper might have made an effort when reviewing a show for youth to acknowledge that the seemingly monolithic role of critics doesn’t always serve readers, by adding diverse voices here (and, when appropriate, in the future). Op-ed pages have multiple voices, not just one.

In concluding her review, Hedy appears to try to trump any criticism of her perspective, as follows, “Really, what could Steppenwolf have been thinking? Now, I just hope local politicians will not jump on the bandwagon and, as the ultimate hypocrisy, make this play their ‘cause.’” She has presumptively critiqued those who might disagree with her, which strikes me as unfortunate. Professional critics have every right to state their opinion boldly, but preemptively challenging those with other opinions seems unnecessary.

In his review, Chris notes “the authority figures like police officers (mostly played by Chris Rickett) are either inept or bumbling or misunderstanding — certainly they never are allowed to make any kind of sympathetic point,” and later declares, “By all means, connect the city’s kids to this artistic tradition, but I say there is a moral obligation to make them think about the price we all pay.” I will only say that West Side Story also portrayed the police as ineffective and a source for ridicule (“Gee, Officer Krupke”) and that there are countless works of theatre that don’t pretend to balance – where, for example, in Grease do we find an appealing, highly respected honor student to counter the allure of Danny Zuko?

J. Salomé Martinez in This Is Modern Art at Steppenwolf Theatre

Mind you, like Chris and Hedy, I’m not saying that I want to see our cities riddled with graffiti the way they were in the 70s and 80s. But I am open to seeing a story that attempts to explore what might have motivated some of the people behind it, then or now. Both reviews assert that because the show is targeted at students it is therefore irresponsible in its sympathetic perspective. While I doubt any young person is unaware of the potential consequences for the defacement of public property, especially those being taken to the theatre by teachers or counselors, the Steppenwolf study guide (available to all online) spells it out:

“For these artists…their art form is worthy of the likes of Caravaggio and Escher, but to the city it is defined as “the criminal defacement of property with paint.” The consequences are severe: $750 to $1,500 in fines, felony charges and possibly prison time for the offenders. And it can mean a big bill for the city: Chicago has spent nearly $5 million dollars in graffiti removal in this year alone. Although the protagonist of our story, Seven, is motivated by a desire to gain recognition for his art and an evolution of what the public views as ‘high art, fine art, worthy of being in a museum’ the Art Institute bombing comes at a cost. Not only to the Institute, which had to remove the paint, but also for the artists who committed the crime and, who, nearly five years later, still face felony charges if their identities are revealed.”

And while I was unsuccessful in securing a copy of the play to read, the study guide suggests that the show’s protagonist does not get away consequence-free:

“As for Seven, at the end of the play, he is left grappling with whether or not what he did was worth it; after all, he now has no crew, no girlfriend, no graffiti.”

The experience of theatre for young people taken to it is rarely confined to just watching a play. It is typically contextualized through conversation, both before and after seeing a show, at the theatre and at schools and youth organizations. The evening performances reportedly had those same opportunities, although they’re certainly not compulsory. But for the ostensibly impressionable young seeing This Is Modern Art, the play is not presented in a vacuum, which these reviews seem to presume it is.

In reading commentary about the reviews on social media, I found the personal attacks on Chris and Hedy extremely distasteful; I applaud those who sought to temper that unacceptable rhetoric. The conversation now should be a greater one than simply these reviews and this play. Hopefully this incident will provoke some genuine consideration and conversation – which includes Chris and Hedy and some of the artists expressing concern about these reviews – about what voices are given the platform to judge work, the need for not just critics but their editors to open new avenues to diverse voices and critical responses, and the necessity for work to be judged on its own terms, not just on the basis of what others think it should be, whoever the work is “for.”

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama and Senior Strategy Director at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.