A great deal has been written about the diminishment of arts journalism in general, and criticism in particular. Editors want to focus more only on big name productions, or celebrities, as budgets are continually cut and positions and space are pared back.

So it’s really sad when you find a critic doing their utmost to diminish the perception of critics and criticism entirely of their own volition. While I wouldn’t suggest that this is a regular occurrence, a particularly egregious aberration has emerged out of Seattle in recent days. A critic has posted on Craig’s List about his regular availability of a spare ticket to the city’s many cultural venues, making the following offer:

I am compiling a list of people who would like to purchase these single great seats for the performances. I plan to sell the ticket, and the price will less than half of the face value. In addition, your input might well be reflected in my review.

He goes on to write:

If you’re interested in participating, respond with your name and email address. I will then reply with my blog address (to prove that this is a real offer and give you an idea of what I’ve reviewed in the past few months) and the first list of upcoming events.

Thanks for considering this proposition and helping me to keep these seats from being empty in the future.

While some commenters on Facebook have provided links to who they believe this critic is, I am holding back from linking because I haven’t got absolute proof. But whoever this guy is, he seems blithely unaware of – or unconcerned by – the ethical and possibly legal boundaries he has crossed.

Here’s the complete listing:

I could write at great length about why this is wrong, but I hope it would seem obvious. The short version is that this bozo is being afforded complimentary tickets for his use as a critic and if he doesn’t need more than a single seat, he simply shouldn’t take the second one. It is not his role to fill that second seat, and it’s certainly not his right to profit from selling that seat, even at a discount, regardless of whether he’s being paid to write or not. I have seen some critics offer their second ticket – gratis – to their readers on social media, which seems an inventive way of reaching out to their own audience and to audience members for the theatre. But no money changes hands.

So whoever this is, I hope that the theatre community in Seattle blackballs him. I hope he isn’t given tickets by anyone ever again. I hope the theatres don’t feel they somehow need him. If, as it appears, he writes for The Huffington Post, I hope they withdraw that platform from him, because even with the very broad range of unpaid writers at HuffPo (an ethical debate for another day), he’s not doing that site any favors in the credibility department either.

Dude, not that I have any authority here, but as a former publicist, general manager and executive director, I’d say you’ve forfeited your rights to complimentary tickets. If you want to write about theatre, then you can buy a seat. If there’s any justice, your free ride is over.

P.S. This “offer” is under “men seeking women,” so there may be even more to the deal than meets the eye. Maybe that’s why he’s always got an extra ticket, too.

Update, November 2, 6:15 pm: The Craig’s List posting was removed within one hour of this post going live.

Update, November 2, 7:30 pm: Seattle’s weekly The Stranger has written about this situation, insuring it will spread throughout the Seattle arts community.

A few weeks ago, the headline of a review rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t have an issue with the review itself, by Charles McNulty for The Los Angeles Times. But the headline for the piece, which covered the new Broadway productions of Old Times and Fool For Love, read as follows, “Clive Owen and Sam Rockwell hit Broadway in ‘Old Times’ and ‘Fool for Love’ with different results.”

Why was the headline only about men, I thought. Admittedly, I hadn’t seen either production at that point, but I was familiar with the plays, and knew that the character Rockwell plays in Fool is at least evenly matched with the role played by Nina Arianda, and Owen shares the stage in a triangle with characters played by Eve Best and Kelly Reilly. My theatre-centric brain took this headline as gender inequity.

Thinking on it, I can see why the men might have gotten the headline mentions, since both have done television and film work, with Owen currently in the second season of The Knick. But neither are exactly bankable stars who “open” movies. Best and Arianda are “only” Tony Award winners, which may mean less in the entertainment hierarchy these days than electronic media work, especially in the major paper of the city that is the center of television and film business.

That said, Best appeared in 51 episodes of Nurse Jackie, though she’s not the lead, as Owen is on The Knick, but she did that series for much longer on Showtime than Owen has been doctoring on Cinemax. Admittedly, Owen was making his Broadway debut, and Rockwell was only making his second appearance, making their gigs slightly rarer than Arianda and Best each taking their third Broadway turns. I decided this wasn’t a clear cut case of advancing men over women, despite my own perception of implied unequal worth among the players along gender lines.

But this male favoritism sprang to mind again just this morning, when I saw this headline on a theatre story on NorthJersey.com, a website that includes coverage from The Record and other New Jersey outlets: “The woman directing Al Pacino in David Mamet’s new play.”

Now I knew instantly that the piece was about Pam MacKinnon because it’s my business to know who’s working on what show, but also because Pam has quickly become one of New York’s most recognized female directors, for such works as Clybourne Park (for which she had received an Obie) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (for which she won a Tony). Yet the headline was all about the big, male names, even though neither of them had spoken to The Record’s Robert Feldberg. Only Pam had done so.

Pam MacKinnon

Sure, you can chalk it up to celebrity, to what might get the most clicks online, but once again it was a case of choosing male names over female, and in this case the article was about “the woman.” I don’t fault the writer, but an editor and perhaps someone at the copy desk, who figured they’d go with male fame, rather than the female subject of the story.

Obviously it’s not possible to say from the two headlines I’ve cited to say that there’s a widespread pattern here, but I would suggest to readers who care about this issue that they should be on the lookout for such casual disregard of women in the theatre and call it out (or let me know; I’m starting a list) whenever it appears. Yes, it’s a very small-bore, incremental game of standing vigilant, but if indeed there’s a pattern, then it has to be broken at every opportunity.

Before I wrote this post, I called out The Record on its headline on Twitter as follows, at 10:30 am:

Now I can’t know for certain there’s any cause and effect, but 25 minutes later, after multiple favorites and retweets of my message, The Record altered its headline to “Director’s hard work on ‘China Doll’ pays off.” It appears they got the message – though presumably the original headline is what’s in the print edition. It’s also worth noting that the headline was changed without any acknowledgement, so in the long memory of the internet, the male-centric headline never happened. That’s dishonest.

But even in an effort to ameliorate their insensitivity, it seems The Record still can’t bring itself to give the “Director” a name. So I’ll say it once again: it’s Pam MacKinnon. Remember it and use it, because without it, the record is incomplete and the paper’s bias is showing.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts School of Drama.

A few weeks ago, the headline of a review rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t have an issue with the review itself, by Charles McNulty for The Los Angeles Times. But the headline for the piece, which covered the new Broadway productions of Old Times and Fool For Love, read as follows, “Clive Owen and Sam Rockwell hit Broadway in ‘Old Times’ and ‘Fool for Love’ with different results.”

Why was the headline only about men, I thought. Admittedly, I hadn’t seen either production at that point, but I was familiar with the plays, and knew that the character Rockwell plays in Fool is at least evenly matched with the role played by Nina Arianda, and Owen shares the stage in a triangle with characters played by Eve Best and Kelly Reilly. My theatre-centric brain took this headline as gender inequity.

Thinking on it, I can see why the men might have gotten the headline mentions, since both have done television and film work, with Owen currently in the second season of The Knick. But neither are exactly bankable stars who “open” movies. Best and Arianda are “only” Tony Award winners, which may mean less in the entertainment hierarchy these days than electronic media work, especially in the major paper of the city that is the center of television and film business.

That said, Best appeared in 51 episodes of Nurse Jackie, though she’s not the lead, as Owen is on The Knick, but she did that series for much longer on Showtime than Owen has been doctoring on Cinemax. Admittedly, Owen was making his Broadway debut, and Rockwell was only making his second appearance, making their gigs slightly rarer than Arianda and Best each taking their third Broadway turns. I decided this wasn’t a clear cut case of advancing men over women, despite my own perception of implied unequal worth among the players along gender lines.

But this male favoritism sprang to mind again just this morning, when I saw this headline on a theatre story on NorthJersey.com, a website that includes coverage from The Record and other New Jersey outlets: “The woman directing Al Pacino in David Mamet’s new play.”

Now I knew instantly that the piece was about Pam MacKinnon because it’s my business to know who’s working on what show, but also because Pam has quickly become one of New York’s most recognized female directors, for such works as Clybourne Park (for which she had received an Obie) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (for which she won a Tony). Yet the headline was all about the big, male names, even though neither of them had spoken to The Record’s Robert Feldberg. Only Pam had done so.

Pam MacKinnon

Sure, you can chalk it up to celebrity, to what might get the most clicks online, but once again it was a case of choosing male names over female, and in this case the article was about “the woman.” I don’t fault the writer, but an editor and perhaps someone at the copy desk, who figured they’d go with male fame, rather than the female subject of the story.

Obviously it’s not possible to say from the two headlines I’ve cited to say that there’s a widespread pattern here, but I would suggest to readers who care about this issue that they should be on the lookout for such casual disregard of women in the theatre and call it out (or let me know; I’m starting a list) whenever it appears. Yes, it’s a very small-bore, incremental game of standing vigilant, but if indeed there’s a pattern, then it has to be broken at every opportunity.

Before I wrote this post, I called out The Record on its headline on Twitter as follows, at 10:30 am:

Now I can’t know for certain there’s any cause and effect, but 25 minutes later, after multiple favorites and retweets of my message, The Record altered its headline to “Director’s hard work on ‘China Doll’ pays off.” It appears they got the message – though presumably the original headline is what’s in the print edition. It’s also worth noting that the headline was changed without any acknowledgement, so in the long memory of the internet, the male-centric headline never happened. That’s dishonest.

But even in an effort to ameliorate their insensitivity, it seems The Record still can’t bring itself to give the “Director” a name. So I’ll say it once again: it’s Pam MacKinnon. Remember it and use it, because without it, the record is incomplete and the paper’s bias is showing.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts School of Drama.

Benedict Cumberbatch in rehearsal for Hamlet

Four years ago, I pondered whether, in this age of social media and vastly accelerated information distribution online, “Will The Embargo Hold?” I was referring to the long-accepted practice by which theatrical productions designated a preview period, during which the production would be refined and altered, in view of the public, but with the critical press waiting until the defined opening night to render their verdicts.

The Benedict Cumberbatch Hamlet, now in previews at The Barbican in London, has been perhaps the highest profile test of the arts embargo, with several outlets sending critics and reporters to the very first performance. Some wrote out and out reviews, some claimed they were simply reporting on it, but nonetheless, the production was described with specificity and opinions were rendered. A wave of commentary on the breach of the embargo ensued.

A report in The Daily Beast on Monday, elaborated upon in The Telegraph yesterday, added a new twist to the conversation. According to the Beast, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, which had been relocated to the very start of the play in early previews, was now back in its original place in Shakespeare’s script.

There’s no question that the director’s early vision regarding one of the most famous speeches in theatrical history was a surprise, and you may have your own views about whether such a change is advisable. But Hamlet is in the public domain, as are all Shakespeare’s works, which means they can be manipulated, reworked, transformed and pillaged as artists see fit. Director Lyndsey Turner had every right to try this approach.

But because of the reporting on those very early previews, Turner’s directorial decision was subjected not only to scrutiny, but to scorn from some quarters. As a result, we don’t know whether the restoration of the speech to its original place in the script was driven by critical, academic and public outcry, or simply because Turner (and perhaps Cumberbatch) decided it wasn’t working. Deprived of the opportunity to experiment and explore a bit without critical judgment, I expect that even the reviews of the final version will still opine about the placement of the speech, even though it’s back where it began and many critics never even saw the initial, atypical version.

The press’s near-obsession with the Cumberbatch Hamlet is quite extraordinary. It seems that there are news stories almost daily, whether about the production itself, about Cumberbatch’s request that audience members don’t shoot video of it, and so on. It’s not entirely unexpected for a show which sold out its run a year in advance, but surely bigger stars have taken to the stage before; perhaps this is the first UK social media theatre blockbuster and it has forced the mainstream media to struggle to keep up.

While I was fully aware of the increasing permeability of the arts embargo, I’m still troubled by what’s happened with this Hamlet. Has the exceptionally early appearance of reviews and “reports,” which gave other outlets the right to report on that coverage even if they elected not to review the production themselves, had a fundamental effect on the production? Has Lyndsey Turner directly or indirectly been forced to alter her production, in part because the shock impact of reworking the text has been eliminated by the press, and because of criticism of the approach?

While I suspect the slow crumbling of the embargo has been accelerated by Cumbermania, it may last in general use for a while yet. Theatres will likely cling to their stated openings for as long as possible, even when media outlets make their voices heard somewhat prematurely, in the eyes of the producers and artists involved. But it’s possible that, especially for productions with major stars, this may force shows back towards more limited previews, lest the press be allowed to start playing show doctor (or dictator) at their own discretion. And if that’s the case, are artists – regardless of whether they’re working in a commercial or not-for-profit settings – losing out? And ultimately, are audiences losing out as well?

Synetic Theater’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Seemingly out of nowhere, The Wall Street Journal published a column yesterday, “A Silenced Shakespeare in Washington: Shakespeare without puns is like French cooking without butter,” which slams the work of Washington D.C.’s Synetic Theater for their movement-based productions of Shakespeare, productions which have garnered critical and popular acclaim for more than a decade. What’s curious about this op-ed cum review, written by a contributor who is not a member of the paper’s arts staff, and certainly not their widely-traveled critic Terry Teachout, is that not only does it seek to demolish Synetic’s work, but to trash anyone who might enjoy or support that work. The author is James Bovard, identified as “the author of ‘Public Policy Hooligan’ and a member of the USA Today Editorial Page Board of Contributors.”

Here’s a few samples:

The latest Shakespeare fashion, at least in the Washington area, is to invite people to a feast of language and serve nothing but grunts, grimaces and grins—with a few gyrations thrown in for dessert…

The company has received numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and its state affiliate, the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Synetic is known for high-energy performances relying on acrobatics, pantomime and special effects. But flips and twists cannot suffice for nouns and verbs….

Silent Shakespeare is akin to mental nouveau cuisine with more flourishes than calories. The fact that many Washingtonians consider Silent Shakespeare an improvement rather than an oxymoron reflects unkindly on the capital’s cultural pretensions. But perhaps we should not be surprised that the city that pioneered obfuscation is now exalting expunging English altogether.

Synetic responded to Bovard’s assault on a blog, but inevitably that will be seen by fewer people than those who read the Journal, one of the country’s largest newspapers in print and online. Here’s a bit of their riposte:

It is unclear to us from The Wall Street Journal’s latest opinion piece whether or not the writer James Bovard has seen a Synetic production, or whether his opinion has been formed from YouTube videos and editorial content from other publications….

Synetic’s wordless Shakespeare has never been recommended as improving upon or replacing his plays produced in the traditional way, focusing on and emphasizing the richness of the prose and poetry as it appears in English (however many a mewling schoolboy would contest that Shakespeare’s language is not English). At Synetic, his words are translated into physical language and visual poetry, just as they have been translated into countless other languages and art forms throughout history….

Perhaps the most contradictory paragraph involves Mr. Bovard’s comparison to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. He states, “…that presentation succeeds thanks to magnificent music and viewers’ familiarity with the characters and storyline.” None of those elements are absent from Synetic productions as audiences at Synetic are just as familiar with Shakespeare’s characters and story lines…

On reading Bovard’s piece, it was unclear to me as well as to whether he had actually seen the work itself (incidentally, I haven’t, which is why I offer no opinion of it). To that point, it’s worth noting that while Bovard took to his blog to write about the responses to his piece, and to take on certain points in Synetic’s response, he was mum on the issue of whether he has ever attended a show by the company.

Synetic Theater’s Much Ado About Nothing

As always, I believe critics are entitled to their opinion. However, if the editors at the Journal have given Bovard a platform to opine about the idea of Synetic’s work, rather than the work itself, they have abdicated basic journalism tenets, even for opinion pieces. That Bovard fails to understand that in decrying “wordless Shakespeare,” yet appreciating Shakespearean ballet, he’s really just taking issue with nomenclature, not art form, rather amuses me, as it should anyone taking him too seriously.

On his blog, Bovard even tries to take apart Synetic’s response, as if his broadside in the Journal was insufficient. I wonder, however, if in calling Synetic’s mention of their work’s accessibility to the Deaf and hard of hearing “patronizing,” he understands that while sign language interpretation has indeed been provided for theatrical productions for years, American Sign Language is not English, but its own language with its own unique syntax. This means that ASL has already shifted Shakespeare’s language into a new form, altered from the words that Bovard holds dear – and that ASL is in and of itself a visually based form, one with a particular beauty of its own, even to those who don’t know it.

If it is becoming the Journal’s policy to allow contributors to randomly allow contributors to slam the work of art, artists and companies they don’t like, I trust they will also begin publishing pieces on work that contributors particularly enjoy, even if both seem to supersede the purview of their own critics. That said, I suspect the WSJ critics and arts writers might have their own feeling about such usurpers, and the editors might reconsider such pieces in the future.

From this single essay, which serves as my introduction to Bovard’s writing and thinking, I make the assumption that he is a Shakespeare purist. He’s welcome to that view of works which I too enjoy enormously, though I happen to think they can be performed, interpreted, altered and reconstructed in countless worthwhile ways while never harming the original texts, remaining available to all who seek them or stage them. In fact, just last night I saw the Druid Theatre’s radically cut versions of Richard II and Henry IV, Part i, in which both Henry IV and Prince Hal were played by women, which might also make Bovard apoplectic.

In Bovard’s slash and burn approach to Synetic, I can only imagine that, metaphorically, the theater company somehow killed his father and married his mother, and after interminable dithering, he decided to seek revenge. As we all know, that doesn’t work out too well for all concerned.

“You can’t draw sweet water from a foul well,” critic Brooks Atkinson wrote of his initial reaction to the musical Pal Joey. I don’t know whether Christopher Hart of The Sunday Times in London knows this famous quote, but it certainly seems to summarize his approach to reviewing the London premiere of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherfucker With The Hat, which one can safely say is light years more profane than the Rodgers and Hart musical.

Alec Newman, Ricardo Chavira & Yul Vázquez in The Motherfucker With The Hat at the National Theatre

“A desperately boring play,” “an absolute stinker of a play,” “untrammelled by such boring bourgeois virtues as self-restraint or good manners,” “turgid tripe,” and “a pile of steaming offal,” are among the phrases Hart deploys about Guirgis’s Hat. While I happen to not agree with him (and admittedly I saw the Broadway production, not the one on at the National Theatre), he is entitled to these opinions. It may not be particularly nuanced criticism, but it’s his reaction. There are other British critics with opposing views (The Guardian and The Independent), and some who agree (Daily Mail), so there’s no consensus among his colleagues. But within his flaying of the play, Hart reveals classist, racist and nationalist sentiments that, however honestly he may be expressing them, prove why he is unable to assess the play on its own terms, empathizing with its flawed characters, as any good critic should endeavor to do.

Take this example: “Like the white working class in this country, the PRs in America have picked up a lot of black patois.” Even allowing for differences in language between England and the U.S., referring to residents of Puerto Rico and “the PRs” is patently offensive, and also hopelessly out of date, all at once. The statement also suggests that Puerto Ricans are in some way foreign, when the island itself has been part of America for more than a century; it’s perhaps akin to saying “the Welsh in Great Britain” as if they’re alien. When he parses “black patois” as the difference between saying “ax instead of ask,” Hart presents himself as Henry Higgins of American pronunciations, which I strongly suspect he picked up from watching American television and film, without any real understanding of racial culture or linguistics here – and he generalizes condescendingly about a huge swath of the British populace for good measure.

Hart also refers to the “very brief entertainment to be had in trying to work out” the ethnic background of the character Veronica, first musing that she might be “mixed race African American” but acknowledging her as Puerto Rican “when her boyfriend calls her his ‘little taino mamacita’.” I don’t know why he was fixated on this issue, presumably based on a parsing of the skin color of the actress in the role, especially since the play provided him with the answer (though the same problem has afflicted U.S. critics encountering Puerto Rican characters as well). Would that he were more focused on the character and story. He briefly describes the plot as being about “one Veronica, who lives in a scuzzy apartment off Times Square, snorts coke and sleeps around. Oh, and she shouts a lot.” In point of the fact, the play is an ensemble piece, and if any one character dominates, it’s Jackie, the ex-con struggling to fight his addictions and set his life straight.

After going off on a tear about the play’s profanity, Hart makes a comment about the play’s dialogue, saying, “A lot of it is ass-centred, in that distinctive American way.” As an American, I have to say that I’m unfamiliar with our bum-centric obsession, outside of certain pop and rap songs, even if Meghan Trainor is all about that bass. But hey, I’ve only lived here my whole life, and spent 13 of those years living and working in New York, a melting pot of culture and idiom. What do I know?

I don’t happen to read Hart with any regularity, but my colleague at The Stage, Mark Shenton, has noted his tendency to antagonistic hyperbole in the past, having called Hart out for separate reviews of Cabaret and Bent which both seem puritanical and, in the latter case, homophobic. While I peruse a number of UK papers online, both via subscription and free access, even my limited exposure to Hart’s rhetoric suggests that The Sunday Times is an outlet whose paywall I shall happily leave unbreached.

I was actually going to shrug off the ugliness of the Hat review, but only about an hour after I read it, I came across some letters to the editor in The Boston Globe, responding to a review of A. Rey Pamatmat’s Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them at Company One Theatre. While I don’t think the critic in this case, Jeffrey Gantz, was trying to be inflammatory (as I’m fairly certain Hart was), he revealed his own biases in seemingly casual remarks. Noting that two of the characters are Filipino-American, he wrote:

They make the occasional reference to their favorite Filipino dishes, but I wish more of their culture was on display, and it seems odd that they have no racial problems at school.

Maria Jan Carreon and Gideon Bautista in Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them at Company One Theatre

Not every character with a specific racial or ethnic origin need demonstrate it for our consumption on stage; it may not be germane to the play or perhaps the characters created by Pamatmat are more steeped in American culture than Filipino. The statement is the equivalent of saying about me, were I a character, that though I mention matzoh ball soup and pastrami, it would be nice if I spoke more Yiddish, wore a yarmulke, or waxed rhapsodic about my bar mitzvah. My grandparents were all immigrants to the U.S., so I’m only second generation American, not so far removed from another culture and schooled at length in my religion, but I don’t constantly remind people of those facts.

As for not experiencing intolerance at school, Gantz must have a singular idea of what every young person who is not white experiences on a daily basis. That’s not to say that there isn’t ugliness and ignorance directed at people of color far too regularly at every level of American life, but perhaps that isn’t germane to the story Pamatmat wants to tell or part of the personal experience he draws upon (he’s from Michigan, incidentally). It’s not as if “racial problems” for students of color are an absolute rule of dramaturgy that must be obeyed.

That said, it’s ironic that Gantz criticizes the play for taking on “easy targets, notably bigotry and bad parents.” The fraught relationship between parents and children has been the fodder of drama since the Greeks, and it seems an endlessly revelatory subject; as for bigotry, if it is perceived as an “easy” subject, then perhaps Gantz, despite wishing “racial problems” on the characters, has no real understanding of the complexity of race in America and the many forms bigotry can take, enough to fuel 1,000 plays and playwrights or more. But he’s complaining that Pamatmat hasn’t written the play that Gantz wants to see, rather than assessing the one that was written.

I can’t speak to the general editorial slant of The Sunday Times, so while Hart’s recent rant may be in keeping with the paper’s character, I don’t think the implicit racial commentary of Gantz’s review is consistent with the social perspective of The Boston Globe. That leads me to wonder, as I have before, what role editors play when racial bias appears in reviews, such as in a Chicago Sun-Times review that appeared to endorse racial profiling. Yes, these reviews are each expressions of one person’s opinion, but they are also, by default, opinions which are tacitly endorsed by the paper itself. Reading these reviews just after following reports from the Americans in the Arts and Theatre Communications Group conferences, which demonstrated a genuine desire on the part of arts institutions to address diversity and inclusion, I worry that if the arbiters of art continue to judge work based on retrograde social views, it will only slow progress in the field that, as it is, has already been too long in coming.

 Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts School of Drama and senior strategy consultant at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

If you’re like me, someone deeply committed to the arts – in practice, in education, in media coverage, in every aspect of life – you’ve probably had the same fantasy I’ve had over the years. What, I often wonder, would the scenario for the arts be like if they had the same attention and resources as those afforded to sports, especially in high schools and colleges?

That scenario can be played out with serious thought, especially as we watch school arts programs being cut – just last week the Atlanta school system cut music teachers at the elementary level. But it can also lead to some laugh-worthy imaginings  – performance enhancing drugs for actors, anyone?

In the most sustained flight of fantasy I’ve seen surrounding this daydream, comedian Owen Weber has just released a video imagining The “thESPiaN” Network, covering theatre as if it was sports television. It’s executed with striking verisimilitude and real professionalism. That’s right, guys in suits at a desk saying things like, “You can’t blow opening night – the critics don’t give redos,” mentioning that a drama program gave up a “sixth round Fortinbras,” and declaring, “We’re getting wild now – Oscar Wilde!” I’m very amused.

Remarkably, Weber has released the video in four and eight minute version, and the it’s the long version that has my favorite sight gag, regarding a production of the Scottish play.

There are a couple of small things that bothered me as I watched the videos. Now I don’t know Weber’s other work (though clearly I’ll be checking it out), so I have no idea whether these are characteristic or anomalies. One is very likely intentional, and it’s a moment when an actress being discussed is briefly, fleetingly objectified not for her talent but for her looks. It’s very likely that this was meant to emphasize the “bro” culture of sports, even though, let’s face it, even ESPN has female sportscasters who would be very quick to shut down that sort of conversation about a female athlete.

My second observation is that the video is completely cast with Caucasians, and while everyone may have worked for nothing and Weber’s friends who were available for the shoot on any given day may have left him few options, I do wish that a video that will surely be making the rounds of theatre programs and theatre offices everywhere – and I’m contributing to that dissemination – better represented the diversity and inclusiveness of the arts. Quoting Jeanine Tesori at the Tony Awards, though she was speaking specifically to women at that moment, “You have to see it to be it.” Look, I know: comedy is no fun when it’s picked apart, but I can’t share these without mentioning that.

I wouldn’t be sharing these videos if they weren’t well-executed, consistently clever and at a few moments, laugh out loud funny. And the bottom line is, if there was a “Stage Center” on TV every night, I’d be watching it. And maybe some new ways of talking about the arts wouldn’t be such a bad idea at all.

‘You give us $150 dollars and we’ll review your show.’ It sounds like a bizarro-world version of ‘You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.’

But that is, boiled to its essence, what the Los Angeles theatre website Bitter Lemons has just proposed to the southern California theatre community. Citing the general reduction in theatre reviews both nationally and locally, the site has laid out a plan whereby theatres (or individuals) can pay $150 and be assured of a review of at least 300 words, but one which is wholly independent and will be solely the opinion of the site’s critics, not a pandering paean to whatever show or patron has ponied up the bucks.

While I’m prepared to take Bitter Lemons at their word about protecting the independence of their critics [full disclosure: I know one of their critics, Katie Buenneke, largely from Twitter], the optics of this proposal, as well as many practical elements, seem hugely problematic. The moment money changes hands between a producer (or producing organization) and a media outlet (be it vast or grass-roots), the necessary divide between both parties starts to break down. No matter how strong any “walls” may be, when editorial choices are determined by outside dollars, and when the economic viability of a media outlet may be dependent upon those covered, the opportunities for ethical compromise are rife.

Bitter Lemons became almost compulsory reading for me this year as the site was a central disseminator of information, inquiry and invective during the heated debate over Actors Equity Association’s promulgation of new guidelines for the 99 seat and under plan that had been used in Los Angeles over the past 25 years. In passionate and at times exhaustive detail, Bitter Lemons has been a champion of retaining the 99-seat plan as is, and I fully expect the site to continue to fight for that cause so long as supporters in the Los Angeles AEA community seek to make their case.

That’s why I bring up the optics: here is a theatre site, arguing for the right of union actors to work for notably less than AEA actors elsewhere in the country, that is saying their theatre coverage is dependent on being paid to cover that same community. To be sure, there are some apples to oranges issues in this comparison, but as I say, I’m referring simply to how it looks, not the particulars.

So let’s go to practical issues. “The Bitter Lemons Imperative,” as it’s called, suggests that it’s easy for companies to shoulder the expense. “Most producing companies already have it in their budgets, if they have any budget at all.” While I cannot be definitive, I strongly doubt that’s an accurate statement; I’m unfamiliar with any theatre company that has a budget line for reviews. What they may have, as the policy statement on Bitter Lemons sets out a bit further on, is “thousands of dollars for mailings, postcards, advertising, many companies even pay anywhere from $500 to $2k for a publicist.” But equating marketing with criticism is a comparison with which I suspect few critics would feel comfortable. When a company pays for an ad or a brochure, it explicitly controls the content; when it pays for a publicist, it’s engaging someone to work with the media, but in a manner where there’s no quid pro quo, explicit or implied.

I find myself wondering about where this plan might leave the very newest theatre companies in Los Angeles, which may have budgets so low that the $150 fee to Bitter Lemons is beyond thinly stretched means, and which are already providing (presumably) a pair of complimentary tickets as well, which have their own dollar value. Does this mean that they will go unnoticed by Bitter Lemons? I fear this will only reinforce an economic stratification insofar as the site’s coverage goes, where only companies with sufficient means become worthy of the site’s attention, instead of decisions being made according to editorial choices and interests. If Bitter Lemons learns of an intriguing show that doesn’t write a check, will that show in essence be the proverbial tree falling in an empty lemon grove?

There’s no question that theatre coverage, arts coverage and frankly all manner of paid journalism are under vast pressure right now (take note of an impending newswriters’ strike in Philadelphia or the new round of buyouts at The Denver Post). But those who have set out to offer independent arts coverage have done so by soliciting general support that isn’t tied to an editorial imperative (you pay us, we cover you). Their efforts are more akin to public radio and television campaigns; offhand I think of campaigns by The Arts Fuse in Boston and New York’s The Clyde Fitch Report. Ad sales, already in evidence on Bitter Lemons, are another revenue source; if the site incorporates as a not-for-profit (if it isn’t already), contributions may be further advantaged, particularly with foundations that support new media journalism and the arts, separately or together.

I’ll say again that I’ve found Bitter Lemons invaluable in my education about the 99 seat debate. I am also repeatedly on record as arguing on behalf of paying arts writers and reporters for their work and I applaud new models for sustaining them (and worry about others). But linking coverage to cash on the barrelhead smacks too much of payola, of pay for play, even if it’s out in the open. I think it can only serve to diminish the site’s credibility, and may well, in the long run, result in a diminished Bitter Lemons, which would be a shame. After all, can this model hold up if paying companies start receiving blistering pans, or simply indifference?

As someone who believes deeply in theatre and in theatre journalism, I have to say that if I had to choose where to allocate $150 in the Los Angeles theatre community right now, I’d probably use it to pay an actor before a critic. No bitterness intended or implied.

Update: June 5, 4:45 pm: In writing this post early this morning, I hadn’t yet seen a corollary piece by Colin Mitchell of Bitter Lemons about the early response to the Bitter Lemons Imperative. It reads, in part:

“On the eve of opening night for previews at the 2015 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Bitter Lemons has over 30 exclusive Bitter Lemons Reviews ordered and purchased – that’s right pre-purchased – and those top quality works of theater criticism will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks. . .

We offered a deeply discounted 50% off our regular price of $150 just because we love the Fringe community so much and understand how important it is for them to get quality coverage from a truly experienced, savvy, historian of the ephemeral arts, plus we saw this as the perfect opportunity to introduce the Los Angeles Theater Community to our new business model for theater criticism.”

Is this an arts journalism post or a post about Bitter Lemons’s own business acumen, one that that also essentially functions as a sales tool? The lines seems to be blurring very fast.

Update: June 6, 5:15 pm: In expressing my concerns about the “pay for review” practice at Bitter Lemons, I attempted to address the issue with respect for the site and and shared concern over the dire economic models for arts journalism. Some responded saying it should be given a chance, and time will tell. So now that I’ve seen one of the “paid for” reviews on the site, I want to share with you a bit of what one fringe production has gotten for their $150:

I don’t know about the rest of you people, but if someone pays me to write about them, I suck them off with such vigor that their ejaculate explodes into the back of my skull with such force that I feel like the bells of Notre Dame pounded by Quasimodo on a Keith Moon bender.

So, since I’m only in this for the money, and the bloodthirsty mercenary in me trumps any pretense of integrity and balance, the rest of what follows in this review of Scott Claus’ “Sin: A Pop Opera,” at the iconic Three Clubs bar—a review he or someone else associated with him paid for—will be a bunch of positive, compromised hokum.

Perhaps this is merely showing off in the wake of comments and blog posts about the new policy, or perhaps as Isaac Butler posited in his post “Startling Chutzpah In The 99-Seat Arena,” we’re all just being punked. But regardless of Bitter Lemons’s motivation and intent, I think they’re doing serious damage to their credibility. I would really urge all makers of theatre in Los Angeles to put their money back in their pockets and, if they paid by check, they might want to stop payment now.

Update: June 12, 6:00 pm: The American Theatre Critics Association has issued a statement regarding the Bitter Lemons review policy. It reads:

The American Theatre Critics’ Association, the only national organization of professional theater critics, is concerned with the model started by Bitter Lemons. While it does not guarantee a favorable review or allow theater companies to choose the reviewer, this pay-for-play arrangement creates a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. That appearance, even if spurious, undermines the crucial credibility of not only Bitter Lemons’ critics, but all critics.

Our profession has fought for decades to preserve the image of independence. When our work is put out for sale to those we cover, we are concerned not just for the criticism itself but for the bypassing of editorial judgment in deciding what to cover and what not to cover.

Additionally, Steven Leigh Morris, editor of Stage Raw, another significant Los Angeles theatre site, made the following statement to me regarding his site’s selection of critics in the wake of the Bitter Lemons Imperative:

It is Stage Raw’s policy that any  reviewer who has accepted remuneration from a theater as quid pro quo for a review of that theater is ineligible to write reviews for Stage Raw.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School for Drama.

“You know, if we all agreed to stop putting critics’ quotes in our ads, they’d lose their power over us, and we could just sell our shows on what we think is best about them.”

I will confess to having made that statement, or something along those lines, more than once when I was the public relations director at Hartford Stage. Thinking back on it now, I can attribute it to a) youth, b) feistiness and c) naïveté. Remember, of course, that this was the pre-internet era, when reviews didn’t linger forever online, but genuinely became inaccessible 24 hours after they appeared in print. And of course, there was no persuading absolutely every  other theatre in the area that this was viable, and without unanimity, it would fail.

No one took me terribly seriously (though at the time, I certainly did). At the same time that I was attempting to jumpstart my radical approach to arts marketing, I was also guilty of some exceptionally creative “Frankensteining” of words from reviews for the express purpose of trumpeting them in ads. Because that was what was expected, I freely engaged in hypocritical acts because, well…paycheck.

More than two decades later, it seems that Broadway marketers may be moving towards my way of thinking after all. As evidence, I give you three screen captures from video advertising for three current Broadway shows:

Finding Neverland ad on Times Square video screen

Screen grab of Curious Incident tv ad

Screen grab of Something Rotten! tv ad

Look, ma, no quotes! Apparently it’s now enough simply to plaster the logos of media outlets on an ad to suggest that their critics have been positively disposed towards the show being sold. I’d say the truth is more variable.

Without going back and rereading the coverage in every outlet represented in these images, I’m willing to give The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time the benefit of the doubt, because the reviews were, as I recall, pretty terrific, and because the show has given equal weight to each outlet it represents. There’s a certain understatement at work.

I give the Something Rotten! ad credit for some subtle humor, because while it offers up The New York Times logo, a bit of animation that lobs a tomato at it, and obscures it, because the Times wasn’t actually all that keen on the show.

The Finding Neverland logo parade seems fairly disingenuous, because its New York Times review wasn’t positive, yet it dominates to screen. Did the Times write about the show? It certainly did. Does the screen say that they liked the show? In point of fact no. But I suspect that they’re trading on the fact that the presence of the Times logo might fool some people into thinking the show was endorsed by the paper, which may not be an absolute ethical lapse, but it’s certainly willfully misleading.

This isn’t to say that quotes have disappeared from ads, and even the examples above pull out some specific quotes on their own, separate from these logo parades. In the case of Fun Home, their ad is almost entirely glowing and attributed review quotes, with some award nominations thrown in as well. What they’re avoiding is any mention of what the show is actually about, which is a shame, but a sign of our still unenlightened times, in which the content of the show may be perceived as possibly limiting its commercial appeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlpNv60eGyU

I know of critics who will on occasion, when they think their writing has been inaccurately represented in ads, reach out to productions and make their feelings known. In such cases, especially with major critics, I would imagine those concerns receive due attention, since no one wants to be party to a souring relationship with a critic. But in these cases, the question is whether the folks who police trademark usage for each outlet have noticed these examples, and whether they are concerned enough to suggest – or enforce – that, in some cases, their logos may be getting used to imply an endorsement which doesn’t necessarily exist.

For those who decry the shrinking space for arts reviews, or who find star rating systems too reductive, it seems we’re in the process of moving on to the next iteration – exploring how to dispense with opinion entirely, in favor of implied endorsement, warranted or not. My youthful activism has come around to a more mature realism: we need as much writing as possible about the theatre, and that doesn’t mean just feature coverage, but criticism as well. If we work to marginalize critics through marketing, we may boost a show here or there, but at the end of the day we’ll be worse off for having done so.

If you have any interest in the subject of diversity in entertainment, no doubt you’re aware of the firestorm kicked off last week by TV editor and co-editor-in-chief of the entertainment website Deadline, Nellie Andreeva. An article/op-ed under the headline “Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings – About Time Or Too Much Of A Good Thing” was taken by many (myself included) as an insensitive response to a greater commitment by TV networks to casting new shows with actors representing a wide swath of racial diversity.

What you may have missed was Deadline’s apology for the article, and most specifically the headline, which was altered the next day in response to the criticism leveled at the site. In his weekly colloquy with his former Variety colleague Peter Bart on the site, Andreeva’s co-editor-in-chief Mike Fleming Jr. stated the following:

“I wanted to say a few things to our core readers who felt betrayed. That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color. The missteps were dealt with internally; we will do our best to make sure that kind of insensitivity doesn’t surface again here. As co-editors in chief, Nellie and I apologize deeply and sincerely to those who’ve been hurt by this. There is no excuse. It is important to us that Deadline readers know we understand why you felt betrayed, and that our hearts are heavy with regret. We will move forward determined to do better.”

That’s a clear statement, and admirable, but I have lingering questions, about both the form and the content of the apology itself.

1. If Andreeva and Fleming recognized the problems quickly, why did they wait five days before apologizing, and only then via comments in a piece headlined, “Bart & Fleming: A Mea Culpa; Frank Sinatra Re-Cast; Tent Pole Assembly Line”? If they feel so strongly, why wasn’t this a standalone statement signed by both editors-in-chief, clearly marked as such, rather than included in a tete-a-tete that discussed other, irrelevant matters?

2. If Andreeva apologizes for the handling of the subject, why hasn’t she linked to the Bart & Fleming piece with the apology from her Twitter feed (for a start), where a link to the original piece, under its original headline remains if you scroll back a few days? Why hasn’t she taken any ownership of “her” apology? By not doing so, it’s easy to wonder about the sincerity, and even the source, of the apology.

3. Fleming responds to a question from Bart about why the piece wasn’t taken down, saying:

“It was 12 hours before I awoke to numerous e-mails, some by people of color who are sources, who trust us, who were rightfully incensed. At that point, the damage was done. I don’t believe you can make an unwise story disappear and pretend it didn’t happen.”

However, while Fleming acknowledges the change of headline, he fails to comment on internal edits to the piece, which included moving the third and fourth paragraphs much deeper in the article, perhaps putting them in better context. I also noted the addition of a phrase about “a young Latina juggling her dreams and her heritage” which I hadn’t spotted in the original. Why aren’t those changes made clear in the note on the bottom of the original piece? It seems an effort to say that all that was wrong was the original headline.

4. While it’s commendable of Fleming to not pretend that the original article never happened, I’m surprised that if you read the piece online now, there’s no evident link to the apology. To leave the article standing without that context, given how it is supposedly perceived internally at the site per Fleming’s own account, once again suggests that the apology is something less than thorough.

I have no doubt that people will be scrutinizing Deadline’s coverage of diversity, especially when Andreeva writes about it, for some time to come. Giving Fleming the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions, he needs to take a few more steps to demonstrate the depth of his commitment – and Andreeva needs to stand up and take responsibility for what she wrote and acknowledge the flaws. Otherwise, she’s left her partner to clean up her mess, and we’re all still wondering where her heart really lies.

Howard Sherman is senior strategy director at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama.