I have never seen Mike Daisey perform. However, I have been to The Public Theatre many times, I have read many reviews of and features about Daisey’s The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (and his other monologues) and have discussed it with people who have seen it and were, indeed, quite enthusiastic about it. Apparently, by the standards of non-fiction that Mr. Daisey followed, at least until this past Friday, I could have claimed to have seen his show. Yet I never would have thought to do so.

As someone whose primary interests have long been the arts and journalism, “The Daisey Affair” is a train wreck, media circus, artistic bombshell and teaching moment all bound up with a bright big bow of schadenfreude. After declaring to all who would listen, both free and paid, that he was an honest messenger about deplorable conditions, Daisey got his comeuppance when, after repurposing portions of his stage piece for radio’s “This American Life,” someone sought to fully fact-check his claims and found them wanting, insofar as Daisey’s own first-hand experiences went. There have been independent reports of the working conditions at Apple’s China-based supplier Foxconn; Daisey himself did not witness all of the effects and abuses at those plants, and had wholly fabricated certain anecdotes.

Perhaps it is fitting that Daisey was caught out by public radio itself, since the excerpt that ran on their stations was no doubt heard by more people than had actually seen Daisey perform the piece at The Public Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company as a whole (this is a guess, not a fact). Frankly, had it not been for the “This American Life” airing and its tragic sequel, “Retraction,” theatergoers may well have gone on indefinitely believing everything Daisey said to be true as objective fact. So while public radio may well loom larger, proportionally, in overall impact, I would like to focus solely on the theatrical presentation, since that is the world in which I travel.

Am I angry at Daisey? Yes, I am. Not because I feel personally duped, since I never saw the show. But I’m upset for all of the people I know, and those I don’t, who were completely taken in by Daisey’s account, which he declared to be a work of non-fiction, a phrase that with every passing day, accelerated by people like James Frey and Daisey, becomes ever more suspect. Yes, theatre is primarily a world of artifice, but it is also a world in which “truth” is valued, be it literal truth, emotional truth, what have you. In a place where we are normally are asked to suspend our disbelief, where that is an essential principle, we are also ready to believe wholeheartedly in fiction, where we willingly trust artists – and therefore, we do so even more when we’re presented with something represented as fact.

Theatres are not in the habit of fact-checking the work they present; they operate on a good faith basis with the artists with whom they work and unless something seems egregiously out-of-whack, the work of artists like Daisey, Spalding Gray, Anna Deavere Smith, Eve Ensler and others are accepted as art and as theatricalized documentary. Now, of course, Daisey has spoiled the fun for the rest of the class, and artists who traffic in “true stories” may well have to provide footnotes to be printed in the programs or on the websites of the theatres that produce or present such work, or even open their notes for scrutiny, as if every production was a libel suit waiting to happen. It’s interesting to note that Smith makes her original tapes available online already, although this was intended as a guide for those who would attempt to mimic her subjects as she does, but they certainly provide the ability to verify her faithfulness to their words – or indeed to examine how her artistry has taken their words and melded them into a work of theatre.

I am angry with Mike Daisey because he made people I know, respect and like complicit in his fabrication. While both The Public and Woolly Mammoth have appropriately remained rather silent in the first 72 hours of the revelation beyond short prepared statements, I have no doubt (but again, I am guessing) that the people who worked to promote the engagements of Agony and Ecstasy, those who chose to present it, those who helped to mount the production, are feeling betrayed because, so far as we know, they had taken Daisey at his word. The only insight we have thus far are tweets from Alli Houseworth, who was the marketing director at Woolly Mammoth when the show ran there and she is, to say the least, profoundly unhappy. She is also, I imagine, only one of many feeling this way, but the rest must keep silent, be it by employer edict or professional decorum. [Addendum: subsequent to my posting of this piece, Alli wrote her own post expressing her thoughts in detail.]

In addition to theatres’ staffs, those who reported on and reviewed Daisey, and indeed praised him (people I also know, respect and like), feel they have been ill-used; one major critic wrote to me that he felt like he had egg on his face, others have publicly questioned their role in facilitating Daisey’s untruths, as if they had given glowing coverage to Bernard Madoff which caused people to lose their savings (I exaggerate here for effect, and the metaphor is wholly mine). Some have pointed out that they had noted uncertainty about Daisey’s veracity; no doubt like all arts writers, they were too overworked and underpaid to attempt to verify the story independently, or simply felt that by questioning it, they had sufficiently addressed the ambiguity they perceived, because, after all, it’s only theatre.

Mike Daisey failed me, and everyone who attends the theatre, because he has contributed to the degradation of the word “theatre.” Some time ago, I wrote about the fact that, in modern parlance, theatre can either mean the presentation of dramatic and musical works as well as the venue in which that work is presented – but an can also mean any act from which true meaning has been dissociated from visible action. We most often hear this applied to ploys by those who govern, or seek to govern us; “political theatre” is a constant refrain. But now, by attempting to convince us that his work was factually true ,only to be revealed as partially false, Daisey has further eroded anyone’s belief in theatre. Even plays which do not pretend to be “documentary theatre,” but which utilize real-world events as the setting for stories either invented or amalgamated from research, will be called into question. Could audiences value Ruined or Blood and Gifts less in the wake of “Daiseygate”? I fear they might, and that is a shame both for the artists who created them and for the real world situations that they brought into focus in a way that the evening news perhaps never had. The same holds true for the working conditions in China that Daisey sought to bring to light, until the spotlight shifted from message to messenger. Daisey had shown with Agony and Ecstasy, as some often wonder, that political theatre does have a place in American discourse, only to undermine his own platform.

Movies have long ago degraded the phrase “based on a true story” as a catch-all to exploit tales which may have their roots in real world events, but which take creative liberties with the historical record. Must theatre now apply very specific disclaimers – or claims – to any production which seeks to be perceived a something more than pure fiction? I have already seen a real world application of such efforts, in the London program for the play with music Backbeat, about the very earliest days of The Beatles, and it remains one of my favorite program notes ever. In order to assure the audience of what was true and where they had strayed from fact, they went so far as to excuse a small flaw in their casting by noting that, “And, of course, Paul was left-handed,” lest everything else be discounted. Interestingly, Claude Lanzmann, who made Shoah, which many consider the definitive documentary of the Holocaust, refuses to use the term; because he staged moments with some of the survivors he interviewed, he prefers to call his epic document “a fiction of the real.” If only Daisey had done so as well.

Finally, I’m upset with Mike Daisey because he has provided a theatrical scandal for the media to feast upon once again. Theatre is, beyond those specifically charged with and invested in reporting upon it, rarely able to break beyond the ghetto of the arts page into the larger consciousness: the electronic media, new media, the front page. We only find ourselves there when something goes spectacularly wrong, and though you may think this an unfair comparison, the Daisey brouhaha is the biggest “beyond just the arts” theatre story since Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark began its troubled journey to the stage.  Just as the Daisey story broke on Friday, I wrote a post musing on the attention that George Clooney’s arrest might focus on the Sudan and wondered whether some celebrity might be willing to get arrested to promote the arts, since that appears to be the only way to get attention these days. Daisey wasn’t a celebrity, nor is he a criminal, but he has achieved his greatest fame to date for engaging in actions which are ethically questionable. He has made theatre relevant to more than just those who love it, but in the worst way possible.

Let me return to my opening sentence, the fact that I have never seen Mike Daisey perform, because there’s a tremendous irony. I never chose to see him because, based on what I had read, and despite the glowing remarks of those who knew his work, I conceived a bias about the work, however unfair it may have been to do so. I did not wish to spend my money to go to a lecture, no matter how artfully presented. Just as I tired quickly of Michael Moore, I assumed that an evening with Mike Daisey would be somewhere between a profoundly biased 60 Minutes segment and a partisan polemic – and that’s not why I go to the theatre. I go to see and hear the world transformed by an artist into something that is, indeed, emotionally true but filtered through a creative sensibility. Fiction may be a lie, but it is a lie I willingly participate in, whereas I mostly leave my fact consumption for other media. If only I had known what Daisey was really doing, I might have been more willing to see him, not less. Now, I look forward to his next play.

“Got a grievance to air about the Washington arts scene? Is complaining your favorite form of catharsis? Our Sunday Arts section is seeking critics like yourself, who are interested in giving our local and cultural scene some tough love.”

– From the February 23, 2012 Washington Post online

Dear Washington Post:

You want a rant, Washington Post? Yeah? I’ll give you a rant! I’ll rant like you wouldn’t believe!

[Breathe, Howard, breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth.]

Look, I appreciate that you’re being urged to find new ways for old-line media such as yourself to interact and engage with your readership. I’m all for it. But at what point do you starting ceding your authority? After all, you have a strong staff of arts critics and reporters, and barely two months ago you produced perhaps the single most comprehensive look at a city’s theatre scene that I’ve seen in some 30 years of poring over arts coverage. I don’t think you’re lacking for skills, ideas or perspectives.

So I can’t fathom why you have taken the tack of offering a weekly platform to anyone with, as you explicitly request, a grievance with some aspect the arts community. Isn’t that what your staff is there to do – discover, observe, opine and inform? I know some of your folks and I can say they do not lack for opinion, positive or negative.

If you want to open the floodgates I understand it and on one level, I applaud it, since it begins to model on social media, in the sense that it allows many more voices into the conversations you can start (or end).  It’s not a dialogue, which would be healthier, but it is a step away from the monolithic stance that newspapers once cultivated.

My real complaint, however, is that you are only calling for negative citizen journalism. You want to know what people are cranky about, what gets their goat. Is this remotely fair? What about all of the people who want to shout from the rooftops (or the arts pages) about the good they see in the arts community? Surely the city is not a bubbling cauldron of disregard for every artistic endeavor. But if you only solicit that which harps upon the flaws, that’s the picture you’ll paint – especially since this is not an unmediated comments board, but a virtual essay contest, where you’ll reproduce the submissions you like, some in print, others online — so you’re already preparing a hierarchy of complaint as well. What will meet your criteria for worthiness: the best writing or those cavils which your editorial staff deems most valid (i.e. in line with their own)?

Has the paper sought the same kind of input in the sports pages? Are people now going to be able to vent their spleen about local businesses outside of the arts? If you can truthfully tell me this same approach is being adopted throughout the paper, then I can’t really complain, because it would demonstrate editorial consistency. But I have this nagging suspicion that only the arts are being offered up in this manner, either as test case or sacrifice.

Those of us who make our lives in the arts often struggle to make our peace with the criticisms the media applies to our work, but we do — partly because we stand with you in defense of freedom of speech, partly because you support our work by making audiences and potential audiences more aware of what we do, and partly because we know there’s little we can do about it. But we have to draw the line, and you should too. That line should stop at your offering exposure only to those who want to kvetch, unless you also provide room for those who would kvell.  Put some balance into this plan before it’s underway, or you will undermine not only the arts in Washington DC and the surrounding area, but your own credibility as well.

Rant over. For now.

P.S. I dare you to print this rant.

I have just used Google News to see how many times the odd little word ‘snub’ has been used in the past 24 hours. I came up with 2,020 articles that fit the bill (I wish I’d checked a week earlier as well, for comparison; this number will surely grow for several more hours). The articles are, based on my cursory review, almost all about the Oscars. If I were to read each of these articles, I am fairly certain they would annoy me equally in their use of this word. I believe this vocabulary choice would hold true for radio and TV coverage as well.

I have a particular disdain of ‘snub.’ My antipathy to it was honed to a fine point during my eight-year tenure as executive director of the American Theatre Wing, where my responsibilities included shared oversight of The Tony Awards. Every May and June, I was deluged with press clippings about the awards and, just as with the Oscars (and the Grammys, and the Emmys, and the Globes, and, and, and), ‘snub’ would appear with startling regularity in press coverage of every possible stripe, from before nominations until after the awards were handed out. I took it pretty personally, because while I was not a Tony nominator and only one voter among hundreds, I was one of the public faces of the Tonys. I was uncomfortable with the fact that a process meant to honor people was being subverted into one in which people were supposedly being rebuffed or insulted, as ‘snub’ implies. In some cases, friends of mine were among the ostensibly snubbed.

‘Snub’ does not mean simply to leave out, as some might have it. Let me quote two dictionaries on the word, as both my beloved Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and Dictionary.com offer the same definition: “1. To treat with contempt or disdain, especially by ignoring; slight. 2. To rebuke or check with a cutting remark.” It is, first, a verb; it can also be a noun, but there is foremost an action indicated. When you snub, it is with hurtful intent.

Now we can all list the many flaws we might find in awards processes, and surely none is perfect; you may even wish to rail against their existence. But for the purpose of this post, please accept them as a given, since I am not examining awards themselves today, but how this particular word has become so insidiously ingrained in discourse about them.

To my knowledge, all cultural awards are affirmative, in the sense that at each level, there is a process of selecting the top or best examples of the category or genre being awarded. There is no organized effort to explicitly blackball anyone or anything; by dint of rules which limit nominees and winners to certain numbers, not all in contention can pass each threshold (this is not nursery school where everyone gets a ribbon for showing up). But at no time does any group, like grown-up versions of high school jocks or mean girls, develop a consensus about who to exclude or berate. The process is about favorites to be sure; even the Golden Raspberry Awards choose films that are the best exemplars of bad films; they don’t, I suspect, spend time saying, “The Descendants? Nah, it’s a bad example of a bad film, so it’s out.”

Consequently, why is ‘snub’ so prevalent? I believe it’s because in both popular and high culture, feuds and insults are infinitely more interesting to report on than praise and achievement. We have long heard that local news broadcasts tend towards the “if it bleeds, it leads” strategy; when it comes to reporting on awards and prizes, the operant methodology appears to be, “those who lose are news.” Awards prognostication is almost its own industry, and so those who cover this aspect of the entertainment world opt to hyperbolize their reportage in order to add to the drama, essentially creating conflict for a better story. Select current examples: in The New York Times’ main story on this year’s Oscar nominations, ‘snub’ appears four times, and a separate story on their Carpetbagger blog has it in a headline.  The Hollywood Reporter headlined, “Oscar Snubs for Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton Spark British Frenzy” (was there rioting?). Hollywood news maven Nikki Finke headlined an article, “OSCARS – Who Got Snubbed By The Academy.” Snub is the go-to weapon of choice and it was deployed in every direction, seemingly by reporters firing on automatic.

I can’t possibly think that my little blog post is going to change the ingrained habits of the cultural media. But if you’re reading this, I urge you when you consume information about awards, substitute the correct words in place of snub: “left out,” “didn’t make the cut,” “missed their chance.” They are perhaps only marginally less negative about those who aren’t nominees or winners, but they are facts, not commentary (or representative of invented affronts). Don’t buy in to the not-so-subtle sense of insult that is deployed so often around awards, not because the awards are so pristine or perfect, but because the people who give awards aren’t doing it to demean people in the fields they recognize, only to elevate and reward through whatever means they have.

Am I naive? No. I just wish the press would do better. I was a kid who grew up being picked last at recess, eventually finding comfort, affirmation and purpose through performance. I’d like to think that those who entertain us (and those who follow their careers) shouldn’t have salt rubbed in their psychic wounds, in public, when they – fairly or unfairly – aren’t picked for the all-star team.

On Monday evening, I posted the first transcript of a Twitter conversation between Peter Marks (@petermarksdrama) of The Washington Post and me and, as the title indicated with “Part 1,” there would be a “Part 2.” This conversation took place 10 days after the one shared in my previous post, on November 11. It began with Peter throwing some snark in my direction, by merging Hugh Jackman’s Broadway show, which had officially opened the night before, and my blog post of last week, on showing our emotions when we attend the theatre.

In prepping this transcript for posting, I have to say I found it even more rewarding a read than the first, because so many more voices joined the conversation, and because we didn’t focus so much on the role of the critic, but rather on everyone’s shared reaction to theatre, which transcends boundaries such as professional and amateur.

As before, the transcript is in reverse chronological order, so you must go to the bottom of this post and scroll upwards to track the conversation as it happened. I have taken the liberty of cleaning up a few typos and replacing some Twitter shorthand with complete words, for ease of reading.

Peter and I will finally meet face to face in four days at Arena Stage; I’m eager to see how our conversation flows, freed from the strictures of Twitter. It will irrevocably alter our Twitter conversation thereafter, since we will have met corporeally; maybe it’ll lead to yet more conversations for us all, both online and off.

With that: go to the bottom of this post and start scrolling. Enjoy.

*   *   *

reduced  12:36pm   @petermarksdrama @HESherman Also (again, IMHO) critics should use 1st person more in reviews. You ARE the story – it’s your opinion.

reduced  12:36pm   @petermarksdrama @HESherman IMHO, critics in an audience ARE part of the community. Leaving early during bows, screams ‘Look at me!’

petermarksdrama  12:13pm   @GwydionS @HESherman Agreed

GwydionS  12:12pm   @petermarksdrama @HESherman I think a critic needs to be both “of” and “outside” the audience.

MariselaTOrta  12:11pm   @dloehr @HESherman at my last reading the girlfriend of the actors couldn’t stop crying. Not quite my aim, but I want aud. to feel

petermarksdrama  12:11pm   @HESherman Since I only know you by tweets and tv guest starring roles, looking forward to meeting you next week, Howard.

petermarksdrama  12:09pm   YABBA DABBA DO @MT @HESherman You are not Fred Flintstone

MariselaTOrta  12:09pm   @petermarksdrama Thank you. I mainly write, well tragedies, I think there’s something to the crucible of pain, reveals our humanity

HESherman  12:07pm   @petermarksdrama You are not Fred Flintstone sliding down the back of the dino when the whistle blows. You’re part of audience.

HESherman12:07pm   @petermarksdrama That’s often apparent. But respect for those on stage? They see people running for the doors.

petermarksdrama  12:06pm  @HESherman You leave with that swipe about critics running out? We can’t even be the first out at quittin’ time?????

HESherman  12:06pm   @petermarksdrama I wonder what kind of crowd they thought was right specifically for you and that show. Very amused

Theatreontario  12:06pm   @petermarksdrama I guess it seems to me to be an effective journalist, you would have to be a member of the community

petermarksdrama  12:05pm   Howard–we r not there to send back waves of love. MT @HESherman I watched major critics rush out during applause for Hugh. Rude

HESherman  12:05pm   I’ve gotta sign off. Have a lunch in the wilds of Park Slope. If u don’t know, @petermarksdrama meet live next Sat @arenastage

Theatreontario  12:05pm   @petermarksdrama Not a member of the community? That idea surprises me – a different obligation doesn’t negate “membership”

petermarksdrama  12:04pm   @HESherman (They’d bussed in a group and comped them, clearly were expected to LOVE it for me.)

monicabyrne13  12:04pm   @ATPvporteous I disagree. I don’t write to get emotional reactions out of people. I write my truth; how they react is up to them.

petermarksdrama  12:03pm    @HESherman Another time, I left Promenade Theater during ovation. Guy w/head mike stopped me at door & said, “Get back up there and applaud”!

ATPvporteous  12:02pm   … & all we do is try 2 elicit specific emots/reacts from receivers. RT @monicabyrne13: …whether it gets an emotional reaction, up 2 receiver.

BrookeM1109  12:01pm    @HESherman hah I know! But I wouldn’t whisper anything into critics ears as @petermarksdrama said!

HESherman  12:01pm   @petermarksdrama SOUPY SALES!! Really? How subtle. Presumably for an O’Neill play.

petermarksdrama  12:01pm    @HESherman It was a Johnny Mercer revue, called DREAM. It was pretty awful.

HESherman  12:00pm   @brookem1109 Now you’ve blown it. You’re going to have to go to @woollymammothtc press nights in disguise! 😉

petermarksdrama  12:00pm   Most enthralling theater I’ve ever experienced was just watching her. MT @HESherman So your theatre was watching your child.

Sueyellen  11:59am    @HESherman @petermarksdrama @HughOnBroadway was 1 of the best theater experiences my 8 yr old has had in her short B’way life. Gr8 memory!!

monicabyrne13  11:59am   @HESherman Tell me about it. My emotions startle people. I try to warn them!

MrSamuelFrench  11:59am     Magic of the Theatre RT @petermarksdrama: Took my 6 year old daughter to Cathy Rigby’s PETER PAN & cried, just watching her watch the show

petermarksdrama  11:59am    @BrookeM1109 @HESherman On Bway, occasionally planted people next 2 me. Soupy Sales, once. Kept whispering 2 me isn’t this great?

HESherman  11:59am   @petermarksdrama So your theatre was watching your child. Cathy Rigby didn’t enter into your experience, except thru daughter.

sophieGG  11:58am  @petermarksdrama @HESherman I cried so hard in Ruined I couldn’t speak to my husband for an hour. That’s theater.

MrSamuelFrench  11:58am   @hesherman & so we call it “Cheesy” to guard against our true reaction? (Also I think I know the coffee commercial of which you speak.)

monicabyrne13  11:58am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman Last time I cried in theater: last line in VIBRATOR PLAY, woman to man, “You’re so beautiful.”

MrSamuelFrench  11:58am     @HESherman & so we call it “Cheesy” to guard against our true reaction? (Also I think I know the coffee comm. of which you speak.)

HESherman  11:58am   @monicabyrne13 That’s what I was told in my unsuccessfully dating days. But too much emotion can startle people.

KirstinFranko  11:58am  @HESherman @petermarksdrama I have to throw in a play like RUINED. It so strongly sent me on a roller coaster of emotions. Up & down

BrookeM1109  11:57am    @HESherman @petermarksdrama I sit a few rows back from critics to watch responses & also 2 c what rest of audience vibe is on press night

ATPvporteous  11:56am   I think opposite: ’emotionality’ not primary characteristic RT @monicabyrne13: I think it’s designed to BE an emotional expression…

HESherman  11:56am   @petermarksdrama Leadership thought that was the case. I quickly learned that a smile could mean thinking of a nasty phrase.

petermarksdrama  11:56am  @monicabyrne13 @HESherman Took my 6 year old daughter to Cathy Rigby’s PETER PAN year ago and cried, just watching her watch the show.

HESherman  11:56am   @mrsamuelfrench Or are we simply afraid to admit to others that we can be so affected by “entertainment”?

Bflood28  11:56am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman I’m still against that. I was still shocked when Bway theatres started doing that. Nederlander yes?

monicabyrne13  11:55am  @petermarksdrama @HESherman I think showing vulnerability is always wonderful. 🙂 Be proud.

MrSamuelFrench  11:55am   @HESherman @petermarksdrama Maybe we perceive it “cheesy” because it’s familiar. Universality & ability 2 relate drives emotion, no?

HESherman  11:55am   @petermarksdrama I watched Frank Rich be very moved by FALSETTOS @hartfordstage. He later wrote what show meant to him him.

petermarksdrama  11:55am  @HESherman Wait–watch 4 laughing or crying crix? And what would u report back: “She’s doubled over–we’re home free!”? @pmdhes

ArtHennessey  11:54am    RT @petermarksdrama: @HESherman @monicabyrne13 Always odd as critic to be crying as lights come up. Sometimes embarrassed; sometimes proud.

KirstinFranko  11:54am  @HESherman @petermarksdrama I know exactly that coffee commercial! It gets me too! But I’m a real emotional giver, so no surprise

HESherman  11:54am   @petermarksdrama In my p.r. days, I was sometimes assigned to watch important critics for emotional reaction.

petermarksdrama  11:54am    @HESherman Jackman belong on Bway? You bet. He’s earned his solo act. wish he’d taken more risks w/ it. He’s got wattage 2 do that

HESherman  11:53am   @petermarksdrama Going back to your opening salvo, did you think Hugh doesn’t belong on Broadway?

petermarksdrama  11:52am  @HESherman @monicabyrne13 Always odd as critic to be crying as lights come up. Sometimes embarrassed; sometimes proud.

Bflood28  11:52am  @HESherman @Cirque isn’t that part of equation however? Successful Vegas shows must be flashy/sexy/relatively brief

monicabyrne13  11:51am   @petermarksdrama @HESherman @GratuitousV In my opinion, no, but response is highly variable among individual recipients. I.e. “taste.”

HESherman  11:51am   @bflood28 We were speaking more of classic 60s Vegas and current @Cirque shows, not Broadway going to Vegas.

petermarksdrama  11:51am  @Bflood28 @HESherman And used to be only in Vegas you brought your drinks to your seat! (Theaters even have cup holders!) Bway nxt?

ATPvporteous  11:50am   Could think v nothing else 4 months. Interesting: saw it on TV. @kanessie Wept at RSC’s NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. Smike. Still choke up.

HESherman  11:50am   @petermarksdrama I was thinking about Richard Maxwell’s work, but I’ve only read about, never seen (though I adore Jan).

Bflood28  11:50am  @HESherman @petermarksdrama true, but most broadway transfers to Vegas must be severely cut & shortened due to attention span deficit

petermarksdrama  11:49am    @monicabyrne13 @HESherman @GratuitousV Without emotional response, can piece be considered successful?

HESherman  11:49am   @petermarksdrama But if it hits something primal, why is it cheesy? There’s a coffee commercial every Xmas that gets to me.

petermarksdrama  11:49am   @HESherman Yes re draining emotion. And that can be effective, witty. See works of Richard Maxwell (brother of Jan)

iamJoePapp  11:48am   Boy, I hated the critics. I could have killed each and every one of them.

HESherman  11:48am   @petermarksdrama Aren’t there artists who drain emotion from work intentionally? Tho guess even that provokes emotion in auds

petermarksdrama  11:47am  @HESherman I write sparingly in first person. I think people think you’re making yourself the story.

monicabyrne13  11:47am  @HESherman @GratuitousV I think it’s designed to BE an emotional expression; whether it gets an emotional reaction is up to the receiver.

HESherman  11:46am   @petermarksdrama Do you ever speak of yourself in the first person when reviewing, and admit direct emotional impact?

petermarksdrama  11:46am  @HESherman One of hardest aspects of reviewing is examining own response: “Jeez, why am I crying? This scene is so cheesy!”

petermarksdrama  11:44am  @GratuitousV @dloehr @HESherman re all art manip. emotions. It’s not whole experience without.

petermarksdrama  11:44am   @HESherman @kanessie Wept at end of RSC’s NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. Smike. Still choke up.

HESherman  11:43am   @petermarksdrama I do wonder how show developed. Hugh spoke of how quickly it was put together for San Francisco.

Kanessie  11:42am   @petermarksdrama @HESherman Six Years by Shar White, wept openly and remembered why I love theatre.

HESherman  11:42am   @petermarksdrama I thought NEXT TO NORMAL grew enormously and I loved it when it returned to NYC, post @arenastage. But no tears.

Petermarksdrama  11:41am   @HESherman And I did see O. Fantastic.

HESherman  11:41am   @petermarksdrama When I 1st saw NEXT TO NORMAL in NY, thought about leaving at intermission. At that point, some was offensive

GratuitousV  11:41am   @petermarksdrama @dloehr @HESherman I think all art is manipulative, designed to provoke an emotional reaction. That’s the point, IMHO.

MrSamuelFrench  11:40am   @petermarksdrama But do you also enjoy those plays that aim to make you laugh and not wrench the old heart strings?

Petermarksdrama  11:40am   @HESherman Invoked Vegas cuz he resorts to such obvious material. “Over The Rainbow”? “Mack the Knife”? “Luck be a Lady” Come on!

HESherman  11:40am   @moorejohn Another critic joins us. John, can you convey to readers why they might value a difficult emotional experience?

Calindrome  11:40am   I am dead serious when I say @petermarksdrama and @HESherman should have their own show. They’re in fine form today. Follow

Petermarksdrama  11:39am   @HESherman sob every time I see NEXT TO NORMAL. Hits me in sensitive places. cry @ 110 IN SHADE ’cause I have daughter named Lizzie

HESherman  11:38am   @petermarksdrama Why did you invoke Vegas re Hugh Jackman. Even Vegas has great art now. Have u seen O or LOVE?

Moorejohn 11:38am   Makes me sad. RT @HESherman I think theaters are afraid of, and challenged by, deeply moving pieces. “Who wants to buy a ticket to be sad?”

HESherman  11:37am   @petermarksdrama It becomes a fine distinction. You must realize we’re try to “turn” you.

dloehr  11:37am   @HESherman Indeed. And pumped into the home, it can be revisited on demand. A life lived in the moment, in the room, not so much.

Petermarksdrama  11:36am   @HESherman re: presence on Twitter. No, don’t want to join community. Want to enjoy engaging with community.

HESherman  11:36am   @dloehr Emotion that comes into your living room free in very different than paying to go out in order to be shattered.

SMLois  11:36am   RT @petermarksdrama: God, they’re practically all that’s worth living for MT @HESherman I think theaters are afraid of deeply moving pieces.

Petermarksdrama  11:35am  God, they’re practically all that’s worth living for MT @HESherman I think theaters are afraid of deeply moving pieces.

HESherman  11:35am   @petermarksdrama Doesn’t your presence on Twitter suggest you want to be part of the theatre community? Isn’t isolation ending?

dloehr  11:34am   @HESherman There’s a quiet moment in the Twilight Zone episode, “In Praise of Pip,” where Jack Klugman rips my heart out.

HESherman  11:34am   @petermarksdrama I think theaters are afraid of, and challenged by, deeply moving pieces. “Who wants to buy a ticket to be sad?”

dloehr  11:33am   @HESherman Very much so. (Up till then, only Snoopy Came Home & Jim Henson’s memorial had such a powerful effect on me.)

HESherman  11:33am   @petermarksdrama You think the comedy and tragedy masks have currency today? Not vestigial?

Petermarksdrama  11:33am  @HESherman Ah because when the seams show, you feel compelled to point them out. We’re journalists, not members of theater community

dloehr  11:32am   @petermarksdrama @HESherman Plot involved the Joker kidnapping baby boys & threatening to kill them. Suddenly, that was high stakes for me.

HESherman  11:31am   @petermarksdrama Then why do critics focus on intellectual response or picking on “tribute to aboriginal culture” and just enjoy?

Petermarksdrama  11:31am    @HESherman “Play me didgeridoo, Lou…”

dloehr  11:31am   @petermarksdrama @HESherman Though, after my 1st son was born, I did start crying reading a Batman novel. I kid you not. (cont’d)

HESherman  11:30am   @dloehr I teared up writing my blog. The question is not what we evoke in ourselves, but in others.

dloehr  11:30am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman Absolutely. It’s rare for other media to affect me like that. I think it’s the shared moment in the room.

Petermarksdrama  11:30am    @HESherman But I was unclear what you were saying to theaters–that they don’t market the “emotion” in their productions?

HESherman  11:29am    @petermarksdrama You’ll laugh, but during that segment, I was hoping he’d cover “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.”

Petermarksdrama  11:28am   @dloehr @HESherman I think emotional content is whole point of theater–that’s why it’s represented by masks of laughter and grief

HESherman  11:28am   @petermarksdrama Yes I assess content, but I see my role in theatre ecosystem as evangelist, not critic

dloehr  11:27am   @petermarksdrama @HESherman There’s a scene in one of my scripts that always gets me, a story nearly verbatim from my grandfather.

Petermarksdrama  11:27am   @HESherman But don’t you assess the content? You bought the whole tribute to aboriginal culture?

HESherman  11:27am   @petermarksdrama I wasn’t writing advocacy piece for emotional epiphanies. But I do think profound emotion isn’t spoken of often

Petermarksdrama  11:26am    @HESherman Listen, I take your point–I cry more at theater than I do at weddings.

HESherman  11:25am   @petermarksdrama I’m not critic, so re @realhughjackman, I thought it was a terrif piece of entertainment, whatever the venue

HESherman  11:24am   @petermarksdrama I knew you would start in with me about the crying blog post, but isn’t cynicism where crix & auds diverge?

Petermarksdrama  11:23am  @HESherman So Howard — did you cry during Hugh Jackman’s show? The man’s irresistible, but wasn’t the whole thing a little bit Vegas?

Since you’re reading this blog post, you may be aware that over the past few months, Peter Marks of The Washington Post and I have struck up a series of impromptu, friendly debates on Twitter on a variety of theatrical topics, all in the limited forum that Twitter provides to explore any idea at length or in depth. I think these discussions take on a greater meaning in light of a Huffington Post blog from earlier today by Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser, in which he bemoaned the fate of the professional critic and confessed to being scared of the cacophony of individual voices making their opinions known online.

I happen to think what has sprung up between Peter and me — and the various people who follow or join our conversation — is almost an ideal of what social media can achieve and proof that the barrier between critic and audience, amateur and professional need not be stringently maintained — as if it could be. Both sides benefit from the interaction, and I applaud not only @petermarksdrama, but also @terryteachout, @davidcote, @wendyrosenfield, @krisvire, @moorejohn, @jimhebert and other critics for their willingness to step off what once once a vigilantly guarded pedestal and enter the fray of theatrical discussion with working professionals and the general public alike.

While Peter and I will finally meet in person this weekend (at Arena Stage in Washington, and also online live at 5 pm eastern time via New Play TV), I thought more of the public — and with a little luck, Mr. Kaiser — might enjoy reading what has emerged on Twitter. I don’t suggest it’s an easy read, since there are frequent time lags between questions and answers, delays between thrusts and parries, but in this online improv, I think some worthwhile ideas emerge out of engagement, not Balkanization. This conversation, which revolved largely around the role of the critic, took place on November 1 (I will be posting a second transcript shortly).

Tips on reading this: the transcription is imperfect, so the occasional comment may have been lost; typos are endemic to this kind of typed rapid-fire conversation, and most importantly, you must start at the bottom of this post and scroll upward for the proper chronology. For those unused to Twitter, the convention is that the name in bold is the person “speaking”; names that follow are efforts to address specific people in the conversation. And in case you can’t guess, I am @hesherman. My thanks to those who joined the conversation and whose input is included here. Now go to the end and work backwards!

*   *   *

LMDAmericas  12:50pm    @Dramaturgs @HESherman @seanjbryan Agreed. Difference between work in a journal and work on Page Six.

HESherman  12:50pm    @Dramaturgs Has that role changed? is it same as classic European model? Lloyd Richards said he introduced dramaturgy to US in the 60s.

seanjbryan  12:48pm    @Dramaturgs @HESherman yes that’s very true too. Should ‘critics’ thus now be referred to simply as ‘reviewers’ unless it’s true criticism?

LMDAmericas  12:48pm    @Dramaturgs @HESherman @petermarksdrama Love the conversation! don’t know how to join in… crix as tastemakers or prof. audience members?

Dramaturgs  12:47pm    @HESherman @seanjbryan There can be a substantial divide between #dramaturgical criticism (essentially analysis) & the typical connotation.

seanjbryan  12:45pm   @HESherman If now the critics role is only for the public, what’s the point? Listings and editorials could probably sell as many tix.

seanjbryan  12:43pm    @HESherman Ahh I see. Shame really. All should be working together to create better art. We all have our parts to play.

Dramaturgs  12:41pm    @LMDAmericas Doing quite well, thank you! There’s a lively discussion between @HESherman and @petermarksdrama you might want to check out.

seanjbryan  12:41pm    @HESherman or at least did, at some point in time.

HESherman  12:41pm    @seanjbryan Crix observe and do their own work based on what they see, but their writing is completely private from artists. Or was.

seanjbryan  12:39pm    @HESherman Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the O’Neill Centre bring in critics to assist the development process of new works?

petermarksdrama  12:39pm    @dloehr @HESherman It will ever be thus. I should start wearing an opera cape and a monocle.

dloehr  12:38pm    @petermarksdrama Great. @HESherman has me doubting my toys come to life when I’m not here. Thanks a lot.

petermarksdrama  12:38pm    @BurlingameT @HESherman Haha, I fell right into that one.

dloehr  12:37pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman I wonder if that caricature made it more effective or less? Or if it was ok, ala shorthand of Wicked Witch, etc.

petermarksdrama  12:37pm    @HESherman @dloehr What a cynic!

dloehr  12:35pm    @HESherman Next thing, you’re going to tell me Bambi’s mother was asking for it…

petermarksdrama  12:35pm    @dloehr @HESherman Me, too, even if the cartoon figure of critic was caricature everyone carries around. (But O’Toole’s voice made up 4 it)

HESherman  12:32pm    @dloehr Two words: Fiction. Cartoon. (Just being glib after 45 minutes of furious typing.)

dloehr  12:31pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman One thing I loved about “Ratatouille” was the end, w/ the critic’s rave, the joy & wonder in sharing like that.

BurlingameT  12:30pm    many of us do. 😉 “@petermarksdrama: @HESherman We should make this a regular gathering place.”

BurlingameT  12:30pm    Thank you @HESherman for engaging such an interesting convo and @petermarksdrama for such candor. #theatre

petermarksdrama  12:29pm    @HESherman  We should make this a regular gathering place.

HESherman  12:29pm   @petermarksdrama Yes, practice not blinking for 5-10 seconds at a time, so you don’t miss me. That’s going to be key. Thanks for the convo.

seanjbryan  12:29pm    Love opinionated theatrical discussion! (Like that with @HESherman and @petermarksdrama I just had) This is what the arts are all about!

petermarksdrama  12:28pm    @HESherman (And the good ones CAN be fun.)

TOFUCHITLINS  12:28pm    @Dramaturgs @HESherman Thanks! This was interesting.

corteseatwork  12:27pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman @dloehr I’ll admit to enjoying a well-written pan of a piece that isn’t stage-worthy…provided I’m not in it…

HESherman  12:27pm    @petermarksdrama It’s the idea that pans can be fun that always worries me. Why can’t the good ones be fun?

petermarksdrama  12:27pm    @HESherman We’ll discuss this further, HS. In meantime, I’ve got LAW ORDER SVU-watching preparations to make.

dloehr  12:26pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman @corteseatwork I can imagine.

HESherman  12:26pm    @petermarksdrama I think you can express displeasure without making it an attack. I’m not naive and I have my own strong opinions.

HESherman  12:25pm   @petermarksdrama Vile is in the eye of the beholder. Critical opinion and public opinion often wildly divergent.

petermarksdrama  12:25pm    @HESherman @corteseatwork @dloehr Just for record, some pans — Dance of the Vampires, e.g.–are fun to write. Others disturb your sleep.

HESherman  12:24pm    @petermarksdrama I’m going to have to wrap up. Didn’t mean to provoke dissection of critics. Wish more were open to this discussion like u.

T_Gibby  12:23pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama THAT I’d buy a ticket to.

petermarksdrama  12:23pm    @HESherman No, not attack when you can. But when something is vile, many–not you, apparently–want you to tell it like it is.

petermarksdrama  12:22pm    @HESherman re monolithic of outlet like WP. I think that’s absolutely true. No one remembers which critic at a paper wrote review.

corteseatwork  12:22pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama Believe me, I always give it a good “Yale stretch” before I open my mouth…

HESherman  12:22pm    @T_Gibby @petermarksdrama That’s another whole area. Want to save that for when Peter and I are face to face.

HESherman  12:22pm    @petermarksdrama Who demands? And so do you intentionally attack when you can? Is the writing more important than reasoned judgment?

petermarksdrama  12:21pm    @corteseatwork @HESherman Ahaha. In vino veritas!

petermarksdrama  12:20pm    @HESherman And you are a serious Kool Aid drinker if you think everyone doesn’t demand from you a delicious pan now and again

HESherman  12:20pm    @corteseatwork @petermarksdrama I take it you don’t observe the “three-block rule”? You never know who’ll overhear you

HESherman  12:20pm    @petermarksdrama But crix aren’t seen as “one person.” Seen more as “The Washington Post” for example, not a byline…

seanjbryan  12:19pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama when you create you’re in a bubble, sometimes for years, you grow attached to a piece, you don’t see it’s faults

T_Gibby  12:19pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman I agree but I think that moves into ticket price. “If Isherwood likes it……”

corteseatwork  12:18pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman I was always under the impression that what we say at the bar, post-show, was off-the-record!

petermarksdrama  12:18pm    @HESherman I’ve always said that if they let actors review plays, there’d be no theater left.

HESherman  12:18pm    @seanjbryan @petermarksdrama Criticism is part of creative process? Perhaps in classical dramaturg role, but why must artists accept crix?

dloehr  12:17pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama It’s not different from other audience, only in that their opinion will be broadcast more loudly.

petermarksdrama  12:17pm    @HESherman Oh, come on! Have you ever heard a playwright or actor discuss another’s work? Would make Simon blush!

petermarksdrama  12:16pm    @HESherman @T_Gibby re imo: isn’t that self evident? I’m ALWAYS amazed people make their theater choices on basis of what one person says

T_Gibby  12:16pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama exactly.

HESherman  12:16pm    @petermarksdrama Using a word like bullets, even as metaphor, is why many theatre artists so dislike critics.

HESherman  12:16pm    @T_Gibby @petermarksdrama Crix scoff at this, but most newspaper readers can’t distinguish between reportage and criticism.

HESherman  12:15pm    @T_Gibby @petermarksdrama I used to dream that all criticism would be legally required to begin, “In my opinion.”

seanjbryan  12:14pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman criticism should definitely be part of that creative process, that’s what I was taught in theatre school.

T_Gibby  12:14pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama I agree re. strong opinions if presented as opinion.

HESherman  12:14pm    @petermarksdrama Or use sufficiently short words. He is a many of many syllables.

petermarksdrama  12:13pm    @HESherman re tempering opinion. Times crop up when you want to, in Frank Rich’s great advice, save your bullets.

HESherman 12:13pm    @dloehr @petermarksdrama How is that different from any audience member. Notion of critical impartiality, dispassion is a myth.

petermarksdrama  12:12pm    @HESherman And Simon would no doubt be hoot on Twitter. If he could take the heat.

dloehr  12:12pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman …and it came out in her review. But I do see ways to improve that script that incidentally address it a bit.

HESherman  12:12pm    @petermarksdrama That’s one of the more unique positions about downside of awards I’ve ever heard – that they draw too much attention

dloehr  12:11pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman Full story when I’m in town, but I’d overheard the critic pre-show, knew she was in the wrong mood/mindset…

HESherman  12:11pm    @petermarksdrama I took course in criticism from late Philly critic, C. Lee. He said critics 1st responsibility was 2 b interesting read.

petermarksdrama  12:11pm    @corteseatwork @HESherman Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame writers for earning decent living. Just sayin’ awards don’t keep ’em in theater

petermarksdrama  12:09pm    @HESherman But the issue was arrogance, a sense that the critic held some secret, special knowledge. Usually best crix just write well.

HESherman  12:09pm    @petermarksdrama Most people didn’t like John’s harshest words, for good reason, but his praise sent them running to buy tix

HESherman  12:09pm    @petermarksdrama Per my earlier comment, you could read John and decide whether or not his opinion was worthy of your attention.

HESherman  12:08pm    @petermarksdrama I know many critics who temper their personal opinions, because public might not find them palatable.

HESherman  12:08pm    @petermarksdrama I’ll put in a word on John Simon’s behalf. Say what you will, but what he writes is exactly what he thinks.

corteseatwork  12:08pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama on one level, it’s simple math…I have classmates that make more $ for 1 episode of TV than I make in a year…

petermarksdrama  12:07pm    @dloehr @HESherman I’ve heard that before, that really harsh reviews do get metabolized in a diff way.

HESherman  12:07pm    @T_Gibby @petermarksdrama Arrogance a very strong word. I’ve worked with many crix & like most. Strong opinions necessary, not superiority.

petermarksdrama  12:06pm   @HESherman The recognition that awards confer is not only noted in theater world. The renown gets leveraged, esp for TV.

petermarksdrama  12:05pm    @T_Gibby @HESherman re arrogance: You’d think, but it really ain’t so. In past gens, the Simonses might fit template, but no more.

HESherman  12:05pm   @petermarksdrama You really think cash awards to artists causes them to shift to other media? Isn’t whole point to keep them in theatre?

petermarksdrama  12:04pm    @HESherman Great questions, Mr. S! As a rule, I don’t read reviews be4. Afraid someone else’s thought will stick in my head inadvertently

T_Gibby  12:04pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama Critics who make themselves available are by nature more open, but arrogance seems like a job requirement.

dloehr  12:03pm    @petermarksdrama @HESherman That said, I’ll admit, I did get something out of the worst, most scathing, most dismissable review I’ve gotten.

petermarksdrama  12:03pm    @HESherman re prizes. The more money given to playwrights, the better! Downside: Inevitably tho award winners migrate to other forms.

petermarksdrama  12:02pm    @seanjbryan @HESherman That’s heartening observation, Sean. I guess my perspective is hope I’m not breaking down someone’s creative process

HESherman  12:02pm    @petermarksdrama Do you read reviews from other cities, esp. if play is coming to DC?

HESherman  12:01pm    @petermarksdrama Whats your opinion of theatrical prizes (vs. awards), say the Steinberg Awards for playwriting?

petermarksdrama  12:00pm    @T_Gibby @HESherman I do think crix are often too defensive. U get a lot of nasty sent ur way Twitter has helped me greatly in this regard.

HESherman  12:00pm    @petermarksdrama But he was careful to praise value of critics in helping art. Maybe you have a fan.

seanjbryan  12:00pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama critics have a place in the art world. I think if you have the ego to not listen to criticism you’re a fool.

dloehr  12:00pm    @HESherman @petermarksdrama I’m only talking about critics in relation to my own work. In general, I do have voices I trust.

_plainKate_  12:00pm    @dloehr @petermarksdrama @HESherman I love that it is becoming more of a dialogue.

dloehr  11:59am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman Exactly. It’s more of an “even playing field” in a sense. You know where I’m coming from & vice-versa.

HESherman  11:59am    @T_Gibby @petermarksdrama Broad statement, but not necessarily to pervading truth. Do you feel differently with folks online like Peter?

petermarksdrama  11:59am    @_plainKate_ @HESherman & that is y crix in place like Chi and SF ARE influential–they’re canaries in the mines.

_plainKate_  11:59am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman I would concur that praise is more impactful, unless it is a pan in the Times, for instance.

_plainKate_  11:58am    @HESherman Because Artistic Directors cannot always see work first-hand, they may look to reviews to be surrogate. / @petermarksdrama

HESherman  11:58am    @dloehr @petermarksdrama Most people never meet or communicate with crix. But for film, I’ve grown to appreciate certain critical voices.

petermarksdrama  11:58am    @dloehr @HESherman That makes a lot of sense from artist’s pov. Someone whose voice you trust enuf to let it affect your work in some way

dloehr  11:58am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman Have. Have interacted with.

T_Gibby  11:57am    @HESherman @petermarksdrama Except critics don’t like their opinions challenged and dismiss as uninformed any dissent.

dloehr  11:57am    @HESherman @petermarksdrama I will say, the only critics I pay attention to with my own work are the ones I know & interacted with.

HESherman  11:56am    @petermarksdrama Could influence be restored by more critics entering into dialogue and not handing down judgments? It couldn’t hurt.

petermarksdrama  11:56am    @HESherman @_plainKate_ I think the praise by critics has more impact on a director’s career, e.g. than does negative assessment.

petermarksdrama  11:55am    @HESherman @seanjbryan Maybe sean is being ironic.

HESherman  11:55am    @seanjbryan “instant perfection” from @petermarksdrama? You genuinely feel that way?

HESherman  11:54am    @petermarksdrama I share your distrust of praise, and extremism in all forms ticks me off, but constructive criticism…

seanjbryan  11:53am    @HESherman I only wish I could achieve the instant perfection in my work that @petermarksdrama must have. Criticism helps art grow.

HESherman  11:53am    @_plainKate_ @petermarksdrama So here we have an example of how reviews directly impact artists livelihoods.

petermarksdrama  11:53am    @HESherman And at the same time, “influence” of crix is waning. Is there a connection?

_plainKate_  11:52am    @petermarksdrama @HESherman (And yet, as a director, I am dependent upon those reviews to open doors to future gigs.)

HESherman  11:52am    @petermarksdrama Or should I say…accountable?

HESherman  11:52am    @petermarksdrama Conversation ”with” is fairly new. Used to be one-way street. And many critics are still not accessible to artists, public

HESherman  11:51am    I ask about “top lists” because journos create them, yet are quick to bash awards processes. Have been on receiving end of this.

petermarksdrama  11:51am    @HESherman Do you like reading about yourself? I sure don’t. Harsh words depress me and praise makes me suspicious!

petermarksdrama  11:50am    @HESherman There are a few things crix can help with — too long, e.g. By and large, we are writing for conversation with everyone else

HESherman  11:49am    @petermarksdrama So are you writing solely for audience? So many crix seem to want to speak directly to artists, esp. when they don’t enjoy

HESherman  11:48am    You heard it here 1st, folks! RT @petermarksdrama: Artists are well advised to ignore crix. Reviews are for everyone else. #2amt

petermarksdrama  11:48am    @HESherman Artists are well advised to ignore crix. Reviews are for everyone else.

HESherman  11:47am    @petermarksdrama What’s the internal rationale, not that’s it’s in any way unique to @awshingtonpost. Is this just “same old, same old”?

HESherman  11:47am    @petermarksdrama But the question is who is influenced. Public, perhaps? But do we know that artists are influenced most by major outlets?

petermarksdrama  11:46am    @HESherman Yup, we do the top 10 DC productions or whatever. I loathe list-making.

HESherman  11:46am    @petermarksdrama What is the journalistic fascination with lists? Everything is the top 10 this, the top 25 that. Do u do this at year end?

petermarksdrama  11:46am    @HESherman People read that as something to be congratulated for. I thought list was pretty self evident w/ one or two omissions

petermarksdrama  11:45am    @HESherman Haha. I think actually @DavidCote was id’ing most influential crix in the entire solar system. It was vehicle for making list

HESherman  11:44am    @petermarksdrama However, if you’d like to be set upon by fighting dogs, I’m sure it could be arranged (if it weren’t illegal)

HESherman  11:44am    @petermarksdrama I didn’t say baiting, I was merely speaking of rousing you from critical torpor, since Mondays are usually dark nights

HESherman  11:42am    @petermarksdrama So now that you’ve been named one of the country’s most influential critics, should we all be more impressed by you?

HESherman  11:10am    If you’ve never read @petermarksdrama & me debating on twitter, I’m planning to “poke the bear with a stick” soon. Follow him as well to see

And such a wall, as I would have you think,

That had in it a crannied hole or chink…

– A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 I would like to state unequivocally that I believe in a well-funded, independent press/media and that in order to insure it remains as a check against those in power who would like to control or alter the information we learn or receive, we must pay for it. The end.

Now I will proceed to, essentially, contradict my first paragraph. But as media evolves, it’s all very tricky.

I’ve been around long enough to remember the days when, if something was written in a local newspaper or broadcast on local media in a community in which you did not reside, you either had to get someone to send you a clipping or, beginning in the 1980s, send you a tape of a broadcast. That was, of course, the dark ages compared to today, when Google News, You Tube and online media outlets around the world make it possible to access the vast majority of what is said or written of note, no matter where you are. Indeed, using websites, companies can now create and disseminate their own media, freed from the arbiters of the mass media, although with something less than its reach.

The advent of social media only accelerated this process, since you could now send friends, followers, and the like a link that would give them immediate access to the same material you uncovered. Local material could quickly become amplified, with the most compelling, absurd, or amusing going viral in a matter of days or even hours.

This has altered the playing field for arts organizations considerably. Throughout my career, I have had conversations with peers at other arts groups who are seeking “national press,” specifically coverage which would be readily accessible to a readership or viewership across the country, far beyond the scope of local media. This was true of virtually every organization outside of New York, which as a media capital offered an access that wasn’t equaled elsewhere. Sure, if you were in Chicago you had Oprah dreams, and those in Washington DC had an easier time attraction NPR and CPB, but however powerful those outlets were, they stood relatively alone.

After a few years, I began to speak, emphatically, about what I called “the myth of national press.” I was referring to the fact that, as media outlets consolidated and arts reporting shrank, there were only a handful of outlets that were truly national, in either ambition or reach. Time and Newsweek weren’t traveling the country, USA Today was a national paper with east coast-centric arts coverage (not the case for film, sports, or music, of course), The New York Times seemed to travel less and onlyThe Wall Street Journal bucked the trend by expanding national arts coverage in recent years. I coached organizations to measure their expectations, since the opportunities were becoming ever rarer.

That’s why I’ve been such a proponent of social media: because it restores and even enhances a national conversation on the arts, often prompted by the established media but sustained on Facebook, Twitter and other sites and services. In fact, it allows for conversations far beyond what had occurred even when there was more of a national arts media, because everyone had a voice, but it is still based in the major media.

But now we’re hitting a wall. More precisely, a paywall.

More and more newspapers are making their content accessible only to those who pay a fee, be it monthly, weekly or per article. I have a hard time arguing against this strategy, for the very reasons stated in my first paragraph. Yet I regret it enormously, because it will have the effect of once again narrowing the national conversation about the arts if we can’t read what’s being written in other communities as fodder for our own conversations, tweets and blogs.  While I might not miss either of these particular conversations, imagine if paywalls had prevented us from reading Stephen Sondheim’s letter about the new production of Porgy and Bess back in August, or if the argument over Shakespeare’s authorship prompted by the film Anonymous hadn’t elicited so many different views? What if reviews couldn’t be aggregated and linked, so that we were truly restricted to a handful of opinions? Even as we mourn for the decline of newspapers, it’s impossible now to think of being blocked from access to any news outlet we like, whenever we like. For those of us who have become curators of coverage, the vistas we pass on to our readers and followers will become ever narrower.

Yes, there are chinks in the wall, as Shakespeare provided for his comic lovers Pyramus and Thisbe. The adept can clear histories, remove cookies and avail themselves of relatively easy workarounds, but many more will stop dead when told they need to enter their credit card number to read on.

I love engaging in conversation with both professionals and amateurs over issues in the arts and I applaud how the internet has democratized access to media, giving us all the possibility of becoming broadcasters. But I worry about losing the most powerful voices after having had them for less than a generation. Perhaps there could be an internet version of the sports blackout, where local games cannot be seen for free in local markets, in order not to undermine live attendance? Surely the technology exists. After all, the Minneapolis Star Tribune loses no business by letting me read it for free online, since I wouldn’t be buying it in the first place, even if it were available to me. Perhaps foundations dedicated to the arts could pay newspapers to keep those portions of their websites free? It’s a long shot, but not impossible. Maybe some papers, like The Washington Post, will master monetizing their websites without charging users for access.

Against all odds, there is still terrific arts writing, both critical and feature, in this country, and its has been a privilege for the past 15 years to read more of it than I ever had before. But we now have the quandary of our horizons shrinking in order to save the very media that we want to access, making conversation ever more local once again. I will read as much as I can for as long as I can, but every day, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Star-Tribune and their brethren…they place another brick in the wall. And the walls are closing in.

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

Tweets, blogs and other manners of Internet posting have been aflame since this morning, when Charles Isherwood of The New York Times declared online that he wished to forego having to review any further plays by Adam Rapp.  In the ensuing hours, Isherwood has been chastised for the tone of his piece and for seemingly abandoning his post as a major theatre critic with regard to this particular playwright.  I have a number of reactions and would like to tease out the separate strands of this decidedly inside-theatre story.

First, I would like to praise Charles for his honesty. He is willing to admit that he  simply does not connect with Adam’s work after seeing a great deal of it. He wishes to recuse himself from offering his opinion publicly any longer, believing that it would be better for him and, he suspects, for Adam. I praise Charles in this because he could continue to bash the prolific Rapp endlessly, which does them both a disservice. Christopher Durang has spoken of how he could never get a good review from Frank Rich during the latter’s tenure. While I take Chris at his word and have not done my own assessment of those reviews, it’s pretty clear that Durang would have welcomed such a recusal all those years ago.

I might feel differently about this if New York was a one-newspaper town, or if Charles were the Times’ only theatre critic. Especially if the latter case prevailed, such a recusal could be tantamount to ignoring the work of a playwright and the theatres that produce him, but The Times does have the resources, either staff or freelance, to insure that Adam’s work will still be covered.

That said, I don’t believe that Charles should be relieved of the responsibility of seeing Adam’s plays. If he is to remain an authoritative voice on theatre in this city, or nationally, he cannot be excused from remaining knowledgeable about any playwright who so many feel is talented and worthy. When working critics get to selectively cease learning about and understanding new work, they are not recusing themselves, but abdicating. Whether they write about it is another story, no pun intended.

I have no idea what Adam may feel about today’s piece by Charles, although others have been quick to cite his own  past comments and writing about critics, both pro and con. I doubt that any of those statements precipitated this action, and frankly value the idea that artists can speak freely about the impact of critics upon their work. Too many shy away, ceding the conversation wholly to the media, and theatre is, after all, about dialogue. Unfortunately, personal reactions to being reviewed  negatively often makes it impossible for any such dialogue to be productive.

What does trouble me greatly about today’s “Theater Talkback” is the way in which The Times has milked this issue for attention. What should have been an internal discussion between journalist and editor(s) has been instead brought out in public precisely to generate the kind of brouhaha that quickly ensued in admittedly narrow circles (and to which I now add my own voice sustaining it, dammit). Having just panned Adam’s newest play, the most recent in a long line of negative reviews, why did Charles feel the need – and why was he afforded the opportunity – to air his negative opinions yet again, especially when he suggests his editor will not necessarily allow him to do as he wishes? Why, if permitted, couldn’t he have simply stopped reviewing Adam’s shows and, if some overzealous press agent questioned it in the future, been told that theTimes’ assignment policies are its own business (as I so often was told in my press agent days).

In the wake of the Porgy and Bess imbroglio, which the paper exploited by releasing Stephen Sondheim’s letter to them days before it saw print, has the Times decided that this level of debate should be promoted, in order to drive readership, whether online or off? Must they be sending tweets repeatedly urging people to read not only Charles’ piece, as well as the many responses to it? I cannot help but feel that this is a form of intellectual hucksterism that ill suits the Times and does the theatre no good.  At the core of the issue is a worthwhile discussion, but so long as it comes at the potential expense of a specific artist’s reputation, it is a case of power being wielded unfairly. Names did not need to be named, and people could have inferred what they wished, guessing at the artist or artists in question.

In smaller towns, or one newspaper cities, theatres can be subject to the singular opinion of a particular critics writing for the only major media outlet that covers theatre. That influence can be wielded for decades at a time, outlasting playwrights and artistic leadership. Energies should be expended addressing how to remedy that monopolization, not debating the pros and cons of one critic at an outlet with multiple voices, in a city with many critics, who admits he just doesn’t share one playwright’s aesthetic.

P.S. Since it’s on my mind, for further debate about criticism unrelated to the specifics of the above, let’s also focus our energies on the ongoing issue of why theatre criticism remains dominated by white males, when gender and racial diversity would give rise, presumably, to more diverse theatre. To be continued.

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

“Everyone,” I wrote in a tweet to promote my previous blog post, “enjoys a good blurbing now and again.” Although I didn’t mind if someone read some perverse double entendre into “blurbing,” it was neither euphemism nor metaphor. I was referring to the time-honored and oft-criticized practice of skillfully extracting positive phrases from arts reportage or critique in order to employ them in service of marketing a show. As a former “flack” (if we’re going with slang, I’m going all the way), I gave good blurb; it was part of my job. When I left Hartford Stage, the graphic designer who did our print ads presented me with a framed “Ellipsis Award,” for the most skillful use of those three dots, which could cover a multitude of sins and through which one could, if they chose, drive a figurative truck.

I have not personally practiced the dark arts of blurbing, nor craftily employed the ellipsis, professionally for almost 20 years. Yet just as many came before me, others have followed, and publicists and marketers still employ “pull quotes” for press releases, ads, brochures, and the like with skill and abandon, all to pull in the rubes (that’s carny slang for marketing).

I have watched the quotes themselves grow larger as attributions grow smaller; in some cases ads are designed to appear as if the uniformly glowing words at the top are quotes, when in fact they carry neither the necessary punctuation or any source. The pinnacle (or nadir) of this practice came when a Hollywood studio was revealed to have invented both a critic and a press outlet solely for the purpose of manufacturing positive blurbs.

Several decades ago, those of us inside Hartford Stage would have philosophical discussions about the use of blurbs, as well as my artful insertion of ellipses that turned positive words into enthusiastic ones. Wouldn’t the people who saw the ads realize the quote had been subtly manipulated? No, we decided, since no one was likely to have saved the original copy  (remember, pre-internet). Wasn’t the ellipsis itself tipping people off? No, because frankly most people didn’t study them them as we did (and besides, to use an excuse popular in so many situations, everyone else was doing it). Wasn’t using quotes reinforcing the importance of critics, when we wanted audiences to decide for themselves?

To that last question, the answer, to our own chagrin, was yes. We were emphasizing critical opinion for our marketing needs. We had to. Why? Well here it is again: because everyone else was. Blurbs, pull quotes, what have you – they were a necessity. We believed that if a show had opened and we couldn’t feature at last one positive quote from a prominent media outlet in our advertising, the audience would be convinced the show was a dog. Even after the show had closed, we used those blurbs again: in subscription brochures, in grant applications, in annual reports. Blurbs were crack and we were hooked.

25 years later, little has changed, even if the media has. Despite the ability of anyone with a computer to locate a complete review, blurbs, be they accurate or artful, proliferate. The brevity of Twitter facilitates such practice. Even though the original context can be quickly recalled on Google, we still cling to quotes in our marketing, embracing reviews even as (and thus was also always the case) we often vilify the source, namely the critic.

This paradox is at the center of arts marketing. We do everything we can to make our productions critic-proof, yet we throw our arms wide open the moment a critic, any critic, praises the work.  If we bitch about critical power, why do we reinforce it? In brainstorming sessions, over drinks, we dream of cutting the cord, going cold turkey and abandoning quotes in our ads, but we can’t do it. We need our fix and seem convinced that our audiences do as well. As subscription rates have, overall, declined, blurb-laden ads are perhaps more needed (we think) than ever, since single ticket sales have reasserted themselves in our economic models (as they have always done in the case of commercial work).

I will paraphrase the producer Kevin McCollum here, only because I’m not positive I recall this comment precisely: “We are the only business that decides what to do tomorrow based on how we did it yesterday.” And indeed, we in the age of the internet deploy blurbs just as they were used by hucksters a century ago, locked in a perpetual cycle of believing that outside affirmation is the best, and perhaps only, means of assigning value to our work in order to lure audiences.

I’m not raising the paradox to pan critics; in fact I think we must do all we can to insure that full-length reviews written with intelligence and care remain part of the arts landscape. However, the attention span of both editors and consumers seem to favor ever briefer consideration of the arts – which are then further reduced to a ranking of so many stars on a scale, or a subjective, simplistic thumbs up/thumbs down summary by third party aggregators. Arts writing is coming to us pre-blurbed.

In a world of new and ever-evolving media, we are mired in an archaic marketing technique which has, to my knowledge, no empirical proof that it even works. Blurb if you must, but can’t we do better? Or are we just a …. bunch of … addicts?

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

Alright, I’ve had it and I’m not keeping it to myself anymore.

It seems that not a day goes by that a news item appears one place or another announcing that someone famous is considering/acquiring rights/contemplating/dreaming about creating a Broadway show or being on Broadway. Yesterday it was Kara DioGuardi saying she was thinking about writing a musical. Today it’s the manager of The Eagles saying that they’re exploring creating a musical out of the band’s catalogue. I have little doubt that you can supply your own example of this type of evanescent project with about five seconds of not-so-deep thought.

Perhaps I should be happy about this development. After all, it suggests that well known figures in the entertainment industry see a connection to Broadway as something valuable, a charm they can embrace to legitimize their efforts in other fields. I mention Broadway specifically in this case because I do not hear people saying that they dream of writing a show for their local regional theatre.

Ironically, there are famous people who have done or are doing just that, modestly and earnestly. Jeff Daniels founded his own theatre, The Purple Rose in Michigan, and regularly writes plays for production there, despite his Hollywood fame. Bruce Hornsby wrote a musical called SCKBSTD that premiered at Virginia Stage. The estimable team of Stephen King and John Mellencamp will see their musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County materialize at The Alliance Theatre this spring. I’m excited about these.

But it’s the unfounded announcements that worry me. Someone goes on a TV show to promote some project or product and suddenly they’re accumulating theatre cred merely for thinking about joining our community. As if that’s not bad enough, their utterance is amplified by the media, who already think putting on a show is about as tough as mounting the high school musical (abetted by Glee, where every rehearsal is pretty  much a polished performance).

There used to be a corollary to this, which a former boss of mine referred to as “producing in the column.” This referred to the practice of less-than-top-line producers announcing projects in hope of making it into the once essential, now long-gone, Friday New York Times theatre column. But many of these productions didn’t yet exist; the producer planted the item to see if people would call expressing interest, and only go forward if their call sheet was sufficiently filled. Back then, the item appeared for a day, and sank out of sight. Today, these items are endlessly repeated, and archived, via the Internet. They spread like a hardy weed, even after they’re abandoned.

I’d like to issue a simple challenge to the media, both theatre-oriented and mass appeal: every time you feel compelled to elevate a musing into a production, you must take the responsibility of checking up on that show at six month intervals. If it comes to pass, terrific, keep on covering it. But when it fades into the woodwork, write something equally as prominent as that very first mention making clear that the project is off, and in many cases, never really was. I’d also add a penance for falling for these largely transparent p.r. stunts: each time you’re gulled, write about a show by a playwright or composer you’ve never written about before, or a theatre company that has never been able to get space from you. And I’m including every outlet that simply regurgitates wire service copy.

You see, there are countless theatres and writers who are actually working at the task of making theatre every day, and they can’t get any attention for their efforts – which exist in the corporeal world. A friend just told me the tale of working at a theatre where the artistic director was nearly in tears of joy over the appearance of a local news crew, for the very first time in memory. But why were they there? Because in the recent storm Irene, a large tree had fallen and blocked entrance to the venue.

I don’t wish to seem harsh to my journalist friends, who likely resent those occasions when they are thusly ill-used. I understand that celebrity sells and that you’re often being pushed, against your own wishes, to report on those who have achieved fame, be it through talent or outrageousness. All I’m asking is that you don’t play into their p.r. machines just because they utter the words “Broadway,” “theatre,” “musical” or “play.” Wait until they write one or are cast in one. Then I don’t really begrudge them the attention. I know what sells. But don’t let these Harold Hills sell you instruments and lessons until they know how to play theselves. Write about the people who are serious about making theatre.

Trust me, there are so many stories to tell.

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

“You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends.”

Though I rarely seek it out, I frequently find myself watching the television sports report during the 11 pm news, typically after Jon Stewart completes his guest interview and before Letterman begins. Not being a sports enthusiast, I marvel at, and on behalf of the arts, envy, the nightly recounting of all of the day’s games, interspersed with chats with the players. The interviews amuse me, because they say – and I don’t think I’m exaggerating here – absolutely nothing. Either someone is saying that they’re going up against or have just gone up against a tough team and either the speaker’s team did the best they could or pulled together and showed the other guys what for. Screenwriter Ron Shelton suggested that this speaking without saying a thing is something players are taught, resulting in the quote above from the film Bull Durham.

Arts organizations don’t have it so lucky. There’s no arts slot on the nightly news that has to be filled, regardless of how little news there may be. While most newspapers retain arts coverage, the “news hole” continues to shrink and pop culture is now lumped with the unfortunately named high culture, so the competition for space only increases. Even when we’re the home team, we’re competing for space with every other home team in our community, as well as with national stories about everything from a new avant-garde musical composition to Japanese manga compilations.

As a result, the arts always have to have “a hook” to get journalists interested, and simply doing a good play or ballet, having a good conductor or director, isn’t enough. Often, the media looks to arts publicists to find the hook in order to pique their interest, and that’s certainly the job of any good press rep. But we don’t have it handed to us like sports, or like funny/cute animal videos from anywhere in the world.

Assuming the baited hook has been taken, our artists then have to participate in an interview and often have to be observed (and recorded or photographed) at work. But unlike sports, where the photos are taken from many yards away, or the interviews conducted in locker room haste, arts subjects often sit cheek by jowl with their chroniclers, and may talk for 20, 30, 60 minutes or more, depending upon the reporter’s needs. There is a forced intimacy that immediately influences the experience.

Now I don’t want to suggest that this is bad for the arts, since we need all the attention we can get. But it does force our artists into a situation where they have to make statements and claims about their work, typically in advance of the work’s completion. Let’s not forget: an actor or director might do six shows in a year, an author a new play every year or every other year, while in baseball there are 162 games a season. So for the interview subject in the arts, each interview carries much higher stakes, and the desire to please the reporter and to prove interesting and worthy of their attention is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword.

On the plus side is the attention and space given to an articulate subject, which grows even greater if a dash of controversy is tossed in, intentionally or not. The downside is that in the case of major coverage, everyone who subsequently chooses to see that work has the artists’ words echoing in their heads, and the audience then gets to judge whether the artists succeeded or failed at their own goals, rather than viewing and processing the work discretely, with only one’s own reactions at play.

For those who follow theatre, there is no greater example of this than the recent New York Times story on the new production of Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory Theater, which featured several members of the creative team candidly spelling out what they hope to achieve and why in a reworked version of the classic piece. Given splashy play by the paper in the Sunday Arts section, still the holy grail of arts publicists in a diminished print universe, the story surely set the phones ringing up in Boston where the show debuts. But as we know, it also set keys a-tapping here in New York, where four days later, the Times released a letter from Stephen Sondheim which took the interviewed artists to task for their perspective and their approach. The phones may well have rung even more thereafter, but there is now no question that a significant portion of the audience for the show will view it through the prism of both the creative team and Mr. Sondheim’s criticisms.

I don’t want to enter into that fray, especially because the team at A.R.T., Mr. Sondheim and the Times reporter are all people I know, respect and like. I use this only as an example of the actual dangers of arts coverage, the risk when claims are made and innovations detailed, but also of the perceived necessity to sell art by revealing its secrets, even when that may work to a piece’s ultimate detriment.

Since the arts cannot get coverage without a strong hook, we must be careful how we bait it and what happens once we catch something. We don’t have the luxury of speaking in cliché, but at times it pays to tantalize rather than reveal, and let the work speak for itself, so our own words don’t become tools by which we are filleted.

P.S. Thanks to Eric Grode for surfacing the Bull Durham quote.

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.