Yes, I brought my camera to a Broadway show with the intention of using it. And I did.

Having read that the audience was invited on stage before the start of The Testament of Mary to gaze upon an assortment of props, as well as the leading lady Fiona Shaw, I brought my camera to document the event. I figured it would make for perfect art to accompany a blog post about the wisdom of a show exploiting audience curiosity in order to seed a social media marketing campaign.

Instead, I was converted.

No, not like that.

In the 36 hours since I saw the next-to-last Broadway performance, I have come to realize that the audience ambling and photobombing of Shaw was in fact an integral part of the show, and it reveals new layers to me even as I write.

Colm Toíbín’s revisionist view of the mother of Jesus, adapted by Shaw and director Deborah Warner, gave us a most ordinary Mary, who spent much of the show in a drab tunic and pants. She was remarkably modern in her speech, talked with an Irish accent, and dangled a cigarette from her lips. The set was strewn with anachronistic props: plastic chairs, a metal pail, a bird cage – a yard sale filled mostly with items from the Bethlehem Hope Depot.

Mary’s tale might be that of any Jewish mother whose son has fallen in with the wrong crowd, less disciples or worshippers than hooligans; her skepticism about her son’s miracles is hardly veiled. She spoke of the raising of Lazarus as if he had been buried alive, of the transformation of water into wine as a show-off’s trick, and wrenchingly of the crucifixion. She described those who urged her to recount her son’s life and death in specific ways, contrary to some of her own recollections; she talked about potential threats to her own safety resulting from her familial connection. She stripped bare and submerged herself completely in a pool of water for a second or two longer than might seem safe; an auto-baptism perhaps?

But that’s the play. Or so we’re meant to think.

In hindsight, the play – or at least the production – began the moment Fiona Shaw took her place, Madonna-like, behind plexiglass walls, at roughly 7:40 pm before the announced 8 pm curtain. While it’s perhaps unfortunate that this device was used so soon after the Tilda Swinton-in-a-box stunt at the Museum of Modern Art, we were clearly watching a tableau vivant of the Virgin Mary as seen in countless religious icons, not an Oscar winner feigning sleep.

The moment the play proper, or perhaps I should say “the action,” began, the audience was shooed to their seats, cautioned against further photos, the glass case lifted, and Shaw quickly shed the fine vestments for the costume described earlier.

As I had stood among the crowd on stage, and it was indeed a crowd, I thought, ‘Why isn’t this better managed? Everyone is going in a different direction. People could trip, people could slip off the stage itself, they could taunt the live vulture, they could foul up the preset props.’ Even after I wormed my way up to the plexiglass and was ready to retake my seat, I couldn’t, such was the flow of people coming and going from two small stairways on a suddenly tiny stage.

I have come to realize that we were the modern day rabble, gawking at the remnants of Jesus’ death. There was no corpse, but the barbed wire we tiptoed around would later be a crown of thorns, Shaw as the Madonna was indeed a gazed-upon icon, making her transformation to flesh and blood all the more striking minutes later. We weren’t looking upon any of this with reverence, but with the avid curiosity of onlookers at a tragedy. Our actions were the curtain raiser, we were our own cast in a sequence of immersive theatre within the confines of a proscenium theatre.  The vulture was gone after this prologue, since we had picked the bones of the production dry under our eager gaze; Mary was vividly alive, and therefore of no interest to a animal that feeds on carrion.

Yes, I tweeted photos of the motionless Shaw; I imagine others did the same. I tried to get a good shot of the vulture, but it wasn’t much for posing and its black feathers in low light made it even more difficult a subject. I wasn’t about to use a flash, lest it trouble the seemingly imperturbable bird; others had no such compunction.

I have seen many coups de théâtre in my years of theatergoing, but this was the first time I had been a part of one. Even my tweeting served the piece; I was spreading the classic image of Mary to others, tipping them to the ability to photograph her themselves, in order to have their own actions questioned and subverted for the subsequent 90 minutes. As I did it, I felt there was something cheap in my actions; only in hindsight do I realize that Shaw and Warner had expertly suckered me into their game, as the modern day equivalent of a gawking bystander in ancient times.

Unfortunately, only another 1,000 people may have had the opportunity to respond to my small, complicit role as I exploited images of the show on social media, in the public relations of religious and theatrical iconography, since The Testament of Mary closed after its next performance. Perhaps it ran too short a time to become the stuff of legend, but it was, for me, a memorable experience, one martyred by what Broadway seems to demand.  I hope it goes to countless better places.

all photos by Howard Sherman

Not a musical.

Let’s be honest.  If you didn’t follow documentary filmmaking or live and die by theatre news, Hands on a Hardbody would sound like something that might play late at night on Cinemax. Those of a certain age might think it was a belated sequel to the 1984 teen sexploitation comedy Hardbodies (think Porky’s, with less class). But the fact is, that title was very likely a deterrent to audiences, even with “a new musical” appended to it, which is seemingly de rigeur these days, despite having been brilliantly parodied years ago by The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!).

It’s not my habit to write critiques of shows, and I’m not about to break that practice, but with Hands on a Hardbody now closed, I feel a bit freer to engage in analysis of the show’s marketing. In my outsider assessment, it didn’t manage to sufficiently surmount the challenges inherent in the show, attested to by the consistently low grosses throughout previews and the four weeks of the regular run. Hardbody built up no head of steam, no significant name recognition and apparently no advance sales, despite the usual potpourri of discounts. Frankly, if it came up in any of my discussions, I couldn’t make it sound inherently appealing either.

“Hands on a Hardbody,” a new musical

If, as some suggest, the theatergoing audience is finite, and fragmented by the welter of openings each spring, then Hardbody was starting at a disadvantage. Though it was based on a well-received documentary, it didn’t come with name recognition, since the film is 17 years old and grossed less than a half-million dollars; though its creative credentials were impressive, how many new musicals are sold solely on the strength of their writing team nowadays; it had a talented cast with several names well-known to theatre audiences (particularly Keith Carradine and Hunter Foster), but there was no Tom Hanks, Bette Midler or Alec Baldwin to tap into the celebrity buzz machine.

Mind you, I don’t mention the foregoing to say that they are absolute necessities for Broadway success. How many people really knew Once the movie before the show opened (with the benefit of starting at New York Theatre Workshop)? Were Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele big names before Spring Awakening? Who on earth was Lin-Manuel Miranda or Quiara Alegria Hudes in the public imagination before In The Heights?

This could be looked at as Monday morning quarterbacking, but the title must have suggested a challenge to the creative and producing teams up front. There was a change made from the documentary name, merging what had been “Hard Body” into “Hardbody.” Perhaps this means something to those who are truck aficionados, but in the steep canyons of New York (and let’s remember that new Broadway shows don’t often reach the tourist market right away), I fear this ultrafine distinction was lost.

Going back to my earlier comparison to late-night cable, I’m not sure whether “hard body” or “hardbody” is an important distinction; I also wonder about some of the glistening bodybuilders who beckon from magazine covers on the newsstand when those words are deployed. In any event, the title didn’t bring any marketing recognition to the table; perhaps it deserved something that would have moved us into the realm of the mythic, rather than grounding us, enigmatically, in the truck at the center of the show. Sometimes, being too loyal to source material can be counterproductive.

TV ads I saw seemed to be on the right track, emphasizing the spirit of competition. To be sure, playing up to TV’s countless reality contests wasn’t a bad strategy. I just wonder whether they went far enough, or – once again – were clear enough. You could (pardon the expression) drive a truck through the space between winning a motor vehicle and a better life. The campaign needed to express something between a pickup with a foreign brand name and a nebulous American dream. Unfortunately, few shows could have mounted the series of ads that might have prompted audiences to feel they had a stake too.

Poster or infographic?

Where I really worried for the show was in its big three-sheet in Shubert Alley, long considered prime display space for Broadway shows, much sought after and fought over. I’ve reproduced it here so you can see exactly how eye-catching it wasn’t. Frankly, it could be compared to everything from a flow chart to a child’s board game to assembly instructions, and it required a close read for it to register at all. In trying to do everything, it did almost nothing, and even marred by amateur photography here, it sure remains one of the most confusing images I’ve ever seen put to use in advertising a Broadway show, or any form of entertainment, for that matter. If this was also used in print ads I can’t say, having shifted to almost exclusively digital readership; it might have worked if you were holding it in your hands, but it still would have been quite the jumble compared to the simplicity of The Phantom’s mask or the Jersey Boys in lights.

You can debate the pros and cons of the show among yourselves, but the failure for Hardbody to gain even initial traction is evidence of a communications strategy that couldn’t pump up any meaningful interest, leaving the show in the hands of the critics and an uninformed base of ticket buyers at the most Darwinian time of the year. Ironically, in preparing this piece, I found the cover of a home video release of the documentary and it had a rather intriguing tagline that might have been provocative and helpful to the show: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.” Turned around so that it didn’t harp on losing (negatives are, funny enough, not positive in advertising), there was still something there: a sense of mental toughness, of endurance, even of the potential for madness. And if reality TV has taught us nothing, those are qualities people like to watch.

So I mourn the closing of the possibly misunderstood Hands On A Hardbody both because it was a show that dared to not fit some standard Broadway formula and because its closing probably scared producers and investors for future projects that don’t fit the mold. I hope that’s not the case.

But I’ve found a great new opening night gift for the brave souls who dare to take on Broadway with new material in particular: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.”

I’m often asked by journalists for observations about trends, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, or about theatre in general. One recent call queried me about the prevalence of shirtless men on Broadway this season, a topic on which I had little to say.

Although I was taught in my press agent days that two similar items are a coincidence but that for journalistic purposes, three similar items make a trend and get covered as such, I still tend to look at confluences on Broadway in any given season as accidents. Shows come together (or not) at certain times for many reasons, without co-ordination. But it’s hard not to look at the spring Broadway crop of one-actor shows and let it go unremarked.

In a span of only eight weeks, four of Broadway’s 40 theatres will be home to new one-person shows – all genuine plays, not musical revues or autobiographical monodramas – representing four of the ten new plays due this spring. They tell the stories of three influential women, all deceased – Hollywood agent Sue Mengers (I’ll Eat You Last), Texas governor Ann Richards (Ann) and Jesus’ mother (The Testament of Mary) – and those Scottish social climbers, The Macbeths. Not having seen any of them as yet, I know that the Scottish play has a single actor (Alan Cumming) playing every role; whether there are multiple characters portrayed in the other shows is to be seen.

Is this confluence the result of ‘star casting’ run amok? Not really, since of the four actors involved– Cumming, Bette Midler, Fiona Shaw and Holland Taylor (in alphabetical order) – only Midler is a multi-generational ‘big name’ in the U.S. The other three are all accomplished and honoured actors, and Cumming’s star has risen sharply since he joined the cast of TV’s The Good Wife, but none is necessarily box office catnip. Taylor last appeared on Broadway three decades ago in the infamous Moose Murders, while Shaw’s only prior appearance was as Medea during a brief run 11 years ago. Midler, we hear, won’t be singing, the feature of her previous Broadway forays in the 1970s.

So what to make of this monomania? In all likelihood, it’s simply a quirk of fate, but it has potentially lasting effects. As new plays on Broadway are typically launched into long lives in regional and later amateur theatres, is the theatrical canon being expanded with this work? One only has to see how Red and The Mountaintop have flourished around the US to see the Broadway effect on plays’ future lives, perhaps due to their tiny casts helping to balance out large plays elsewhere in a theatre’s season. Will these solo plays make the same journey – or are they taking the place of larger pieces that need a marketing boost to make that leap?

One-person shows place a significant burden on one person’s shoulders. In any venue, there’s the risk of the actor becoming ill or being injured; while subsidised theatres in the US often don’t use understudies – they’ll carry them on shows like these. But  will any audience want to see a substitute for the person truly charged with the singular task of holding a stage by themselves?

If the shows are hits, and do spawn future productions, they could further diminish cast sizes nationally. The economic temptation will be there, and perhaps playwrights who worry now about writing shows that require even six or seven actors will start to think in a smaller scale, to the detriment of the dramatic canon. We can ill-afford a scenario in which God of Carnage is a theatre’s ‘big’ show.

I look forward to each of these plays, which promise a variety of subject and style. But if solo shows become Broadway’s dramatic bread and butter, they’re likely to be met with the sound of one hand clapping.

With U.S. theatre seasons being announced almost daily, things have been pretty lively around the old Twitter water cooler, with each successive announcement being immediately met with assessments at every level.  How many female playwrights or directors? Is there a range of race and ethnicity among the artists? Is the season safe and predictable or adventurous and enticing? How many new plays, or actual premieres? How many dead writers? How many American playwrights? Any new musicals? The same old Shakespeare plays?

Thanks to social media, what once might have incited some e-mails and calls among friends in the business is now grist for the national mill, and the conversations swing their focus from city to city as rapidly as a new announcement is made. While some of the critiques may strike a more strident tone than I would personally adopt, I have to say that this is evidence of the developing national theatre conscience, under which news of upcoming work is not merely relayed but considered, from a macro rather than micro viewpoint, and not only by artistic directors at conferences or journalists in major media. People are keeping score.

I find this heartening and useful; last year I wrote a column for The Stage in which I declared my belief that the work on U.S. stages must better reflect U.S. society. But even as I applaud every recounting of a season being graded on a variety of balances (gender, race, vintage, etc.), and hope that it informs not only a national conversation but action and change at the local level, I want to strike a note of caution about one of the criteria being applied, specifically: why are so many theatres doing the same plays?

It’s easy if one lives in a major metropolitan area that’s rich in theatre to wonder why certain plays are receiving 10, 15 even 20 productions in a single season, typically works that have been seen in New York, whether on Broadway or off.  We all see the list compiled each fall by TCG and American Theatre magazine; it generates stories about the most popular plays at U.S. theatres and usually mirrors the NYC fare of the past year or two. But at the same time, how many new plays remain unproduced, or receive a premiere and then don’t find their way to other stages?  Have U.S. theatres become ever more safe and New York-centric?

What seems like a herd mentality has a more practical basis. It has been some time since plays have toured the country with any regularity (before the current War Horse, the last significant non-musical tour I recall was Roundabout’s Twelve Angry Men); the days when a play would run a season on Broadway and then tour for a year are long over. So while not-for-profit theatres may have been born in part to offer an alternative to commercial fare that was once available throughout the country, the life of plays has fallen almost exclusively to institutional companies.

Those companies tend to be fairly hyperlocal, drawing the majority of their audience from a 30 to 45 mile radius. This holds true even for larger cities, although they may benefit from some portion of a tourist trade. Generally, only “destination theatres” like Oregon Shakespeare Festival or Canada’s Stratford and Shaw Festivals can lay claim to a wider geographic spread. So while our overview of production may be all inclusive, the communities being served are less transient and more insular than that view.

On top of that, we can’t deny that theatre in New York has a range of media platforms which, even in our online era, few other cities can match. Consequently, a success in New York, or merely a New York production, gets a boost in the eyes of all concerned – theatre staffs, freelance artists, funders, audiences. And as a result, companies which are the major – or only – theatre in their community may feel duty bound to offer those “name” works in their seasons, because their audiences may not have any other opportunity to see them and also because their artistic leadership believes in the quality and value of that work. Of course, in some markets, theatres may compete for these “name” works, especially if they’re accompanied by the name Tony or Pulitzer.

This was brought home to me years ago during my time as managing director of Geva Theatre in Rochester NY. Geva was by far the largest theatre in Rochester; its peers were the former Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, 60 miles to the west, and Syracuse Stage, some 80 miles to the east. Each city had its own theatrical microclimate, with only the smallest sliver of die-hard theatre fans traveling among all three, an effort hampered by a snowfall season that ran from November to April.

Having come from Connecticut theatre, where a daytrip to New York was commonplace for professionals and audience alike, I wasn’t used to working on “last year’s hits” (though Geva’s seasons were certainly much more varied than that). In Connecticut at that time, doing work recently available in NYC was redundant. Frankly, what had been a source of pride at the places I’d worked had become a sign of elitism in my new setting, and I had to adjust my thinking accordingly – a mindset that has stayed with me as I ventured back into Connecticut and then to Manhattan.

This year, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop has been one of those frequently produced plays; on the east coast alone I know of productions in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC without even looking at schedules; I could just look at the Amtrak Northeast Corridor schedule for that rundown. Some might call this copycatting, especially after its Broadway run the prior season, but based upon reviews and reports of sales, The Mountaintop has been meaningful at each venue where it has appeared, presumably without overlapping audiences. And on a personal note, I have to say that even in a production compromised by a labor dispute, I found the Philadelphia incarnation to be even more affecting than the Broadway one.

Even as I lobby for artistic directors to be ever more committed to a wide range of essential criteria, I acknowledge the difficulty of their task. Aside from taking into account the questions I highlighted in the first paragraph, they also have to consider issues like budget, educational commitments, work that might prove especially meaningful to their audience or their community. Many have to do that with only five or six shows in a given season and it may not be possible to hit every desired mark.

A national survey across a range of criteria will certainly show us trends in production at the country’s institutional theatres, and I avidly support such an effort. But as we look theatre by theatre, we might allow, slightly,  for what else could be happening at other theatres in the same city, and perhaps for how each theatre’s season does (or doesn’t) make improvements in diversity year over year. We also have to accept that in meeting one of many goals, a theatre might fall short on another; watching how they trend over time will be the most telling indicator. And while we need more and more platforms for truly new work, if a show with a New York imprimatur is a genuine part of a season striving towards meeting a range of goals, it is not necessarily a cop-out.

A final word for the theatres that face this new scrutiny, from playwright Stephen Spotswood during yesterday’s water cooler chat on Twitter: “Dear theatres whose seasons people are complaining about: This means we care and are invested in you. Start worrying when we stop.”

It is not, to my mind, a particularly current phrase. In fact, I think of it as something a couple of decades old, like “Where’s the beef?” or “Whasss-uuuup?” The decidedly selective Wikipedia entry for the saying traces it back to at least 1968, and the song “Time of the Season” by The Zombies, while citing widespread acceptance in the late 1980s. There is a 2004 direct to video comedy that took it as its name.

So when I walked by a subway poster emblazoned with the words “Who’s Your Daddy?” emblazoned over a photo of Annie star Anthony Warlow, sporting the trademark bald pate of Oliver Warbucks, I did a double take. For me, the association between “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Daddy” Warbucks was immediate, being a theatre guy, but there was also some immediate cognitive dissonance. This shopworn saying, which once had a slight modicum of hip attached to it, seemed out of place juxtaposed with a figure from a beloved family musical.

And I laughed.

Now I’ve already seen the new production of Annie that the poster advertised (my 10 year old niece and I had a lovely evening out for it), so I wasn’t moved to run to the box office, which happened to be just overhead. But I have to say that I admired the poster for breaking through the clutter of advertising that assaults us everyday. It was the rare theatre ad that didn’t take itself very seriously and I’m not likely to forget it soon. Naturally I wanted to analyze it.

So I turned to the expert focus group that is my pool of Twitter followers, linked a photo of the ad, and asked for opinions.  Some shared my surprise and described similar reactions to my own. They told me of other posters I hadn’t yet seen that were part of the same campaign. Others were more succinct in their reactions.

“Ick.” “Ugh.” “Oh, dear.” “Perverse.” “Terrible.”

I understand the response of this latter group. It flitted across my consciousness as well before I laughed. That’s the dissonance I spoke of. And for that reason, I’d like to take a closer look at the campaign.

Annie is now 37 years old, having premiered in 1976 at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut (where I was – full disclosure – general manager from 1994 to 1998 and where I still intermittently consult). Based on the venerable comic strip Little Orphan Annie, it remains a standard in the musical theatre catalogue. Though the strip is gone, the characters and story remain a part of children’s lives for successive generations thanks to the show. The current revival is Annie’s third Broadway stint.

With other family friendly shows on Broadway now (the new Cinderella and Matilda; the long-running The Lion King), many have questioned whether there’s actually too much available for families and whether the audience will be split up, in favor of what’s newest. Although the current Annie is a new production, that’s a distinction the average theatergoer might not make, and even though the show is from the 70s, it’s set in the 30s, replete with jokes about The New Deal and Harold Ickes.

So the new ads, which also feature the phrases “Best In Show” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” are an attempt to blow some dust off of this perennial middle school musical, but it’s worth noting that they’re not using references to the Kardashians or the Harlem Shake. Those would probably send potential ticket buyers, namely parents, fleeing. What they do is take phrases that are all too familiar to people in their 30s, 40s and 50s (I repeat: parents) and match them with images that will immediately be recognized by anyone who has ever read the Annie comic or seen the musical, on stage or in one of its two film versions. They push the envelope ever so slightly, because we don’t expect these phrases with the images deployed, but they don’t take such a wholehearted leap into pop culture – in my opinion – as to descend into complete incongruity or tackiness. They remind an earlier generation of their own love of Annie without playing directly upon nostalgia (even though foreknowledge is required). That’s what I like about them.

I do have some questions, though. If someone actually doesn’t know Annie, the ads are probably mystifying. Yes, I suspect it would be pretty hard to find Americans who don’t know the character or show, but not impossible, and I do wonder whether these ads leave out foreign tourists, who are an important slice of Broadway sales.  I also wonder about the diminution of the show logo itself, which is unusually small in relation to the image and slogan, and in subway ads, somewhere around waist level – or is this a brilliant scheme for tykes to read  the word “Annie” while the adults get their pop culture chuckle. Do those who immediately expressed a dislike of the ads when I shared them mirror a portion of the ticket buying audience, or are they musical theatre purists who dislike the co-opting of pop catchphrases – but weren’t going to buy tickets anyway? With a new musical from Cyndi Lauper opening shortly, will “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” actually serve to sell some tickets to Kinky Boots?

As someone who is constantly advocating for theatre communications to break out of boring patterns, I’m going to keep an eye on this campaign, to see how long it lasts, to see how the show fares at the box office in the coming weeks and months. I’m not suggesting this irreverent approach, even if successful, will become widespread, or can even be replicated by other shows. But it’s an interesting case study for the moment.

I’m curious to hear more reactions. But you’ll forgive me if I tell those who want to declaratively say I’m out of my gourd for my response to the Annie campaign to, if you please, talk to the hand.

*   *   *

Update: Less than an hour after I posted this piece, the press office for Annie provided me with original images for the ad campaign (replacing photos taken in the subway), which also showed me the fourth in the series. Regrettably, it has a much more standard slogan than the other three, and I can’t help but think of it as a missed opportunity. Any suggestions of a pop culture catchphrase, song lyric, or snippet of dialogue that might make the image to the left more fun?

“There is nothing quite as wonderful as money! There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash!”

I have made no secret of my disdain for the practice of announcing theatre grosses as if we were the movie industry. I grudgingly accept that on Broadway, it is a measure of a production’s health in the commercial marketplace, and a message to current and future investors. But no matter where they’re reported, I feel that grosses now overshadow critical or even popular opinion within different audience segments. A review runs but once, an outlet rarely does more than one feature piece; reports on weekly grosses can become weekly indicators that stretch on for years. If the grosses are an arbiter of what people choose to see, then theatre has jumped the marketing shark.

So it took only one tweet to get me back on my high horse yesterday. A major reporter in a large city (not New York), admirably beating the drum for a company in his area, announced on Twitter that, “[Play] is officially best-selling show in [theatre’s] history.” When I inquired as to whether that meant highest revenue or most tickets sold, the reporter said that is was highest gross, that they had reused the theatre’s own language, and that they would find out about the actual ticket numbers.” I have not yet seen a follow up, but Twitter can be funny that way.

As the weekly missives about box office records from Broadway prove, we are in an endless cycle of ever-higher grosses, thanks to steady price increases, and ever newer records. That does not necessarily mean that more people are seeing shows; in some cases, the higher revenues are often accompanied by a declining number of patrons. Simply put, even though fewer people may be paying more, the impression given is of overall health.

I’m particular troubled when not-for-profits fall prey to this mentality as part of the their press effort, and I think it’s a slippery slope. If not-for-profits are meant to serve their community, wouldn’t a truer picture of their success be how many patrons they serve? In fact, I’d be delighted to see arts organizations announcing that their attendance increased at a faster pace than their box office revenue, meaning that their work is becoming more accessible to more people, even if the shift is only marginal. If selling 500 tickets at $10 each to a youth organization drags down a production’s grosses, that’s good news, and should be framed as such, unless our commitment to the next generation of arts attendees is merely lip service.

From my earliest days in this business, I have advocated for not-for-profit arts groups to be recognized not only as artistic institutions, but local businesses as well. While I think that has come into sharper focus over the past 30 years, I’m concerned that the wrong metrics are being applied, largely in an effort to mirror the yardstick used for movies. It’s worth noting that for music sales or book sales, it’s the number of units sold, not the actual revenue, that is the primary indicator of success, at either the retail or wholesale level (although more sophisticated reporting methods are coming into play).

In a recent New York Times story about a drop in prices at the Metropolitan Opera, I was startled by the assertion that grosses were down in part because donor support for rush tickets had been reduced. Does that mean that fewer tickets were being offered because there wasn’t underwriting for the difference in price? Does it mean that the donor support was actually being recognized as ticket revenue, instead of contributed income? What does it mean for the future of the rush program if the money isn’t replaced – less low-price access? No matter how you slice it, something is amiss.

That said, the Met Opera example brings out an aspect of not-for-profit success that is, to my eyes, less reported upon, namely contributed revenue. Yes, we see stories when a group gets a $1 million gift (in larger cities, the threshold may be higher for media attention). But we don’t get updates on better indicators of a company’s success: the number of individual donors, for example, showing how many people are committing personal funds to a group. The aggregate dollar figure will come out in an annual report or tax filing, but is breadth of support ever trumpeted by organizations or featured in the media? I think it should be. I also can’t help but wonder whether proclaiming high dollar grosses repeatedly might serve to suppress small donations.

Not-for-profit arts organizations exist in order to pursue creative endeavors at least in part in a manner different from the commercial marketplace. Make no mistake, the effort to generate ticket sales for a NFP is equivalent to that of a commercial production, but the art on offer is (hopefully) not predicated on reaching the largest audience possible for the longest period possible. When NFP’s proclaim box office sales records, they are adopting a wholly commercial mindset. While it may appeal to the media, because it aligns with other reportage of other similar fields, it disrupts the perception of the company and their mission. And look out when grosses drop, as they inevitably will at some point.

We all love a hit, whether it’s the high school talent show or a new ballet. But if all we can use to demonstrate our achievements is how big a pile of money we’ve made, well then forgive me if I’m a bit grossed out.

If you are looking to read yet another blog post filled with snark for, or describing the “hate watching” of, the television series Smash, this is not the post you’re looking for. Move along.

With the second season of Smash now underway, to precipitously underwhelming ratings, I’d like to discuss for a moment how it has been received among the people I discuss it with most often, namely theatre professionals. There’s no shortage of criticism of the show from every angle , but I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone get at the overriding sentiment within the theatre community.

In a word: disappointment.

Just over a year ago, many theatre people were thrilled at the idea that a network television series would portray their lives on a weekly basis. Sure, it was loaded with the glitz and glamour that’s typically associated with commercial Broadway theatre, which is only a small portion of American theatrical production, but it was still theatre. Unlike cops, lawyers, private detectives, forensic analysts, doctors and many other professions, we don’t see shows focused the act of making theatre on American television. Maybe we’d finally get a chance for our stories to be told.

Yes, we’ve had a couple of “reality shows” about casting for actual theatre productions (Grease and Legally Blonde). There have been characters who work in theatre: Joey on Friends, Annie on Caroline in the City, Maxwell Sheffield on The Nanny. But Smash held the potential for being the U.S. counterpart to the Canadian series Slings and Arrows, little seen in its original U.S. airing but now a beloved touchstone for so many.

There are certainly many people in the business who are delighted to see Smash showcasing theatre talent and sharing it with the rest of the world (actors like Wesley Taylor, Krysta Rodriguez, Leslie Odom Jr., Jeremy Jordan and Savannah Wise; composers like Joe Iconis and Pasek & Paul) and people watch to cheer on friends and acquaintances. There’s also the frisson of recognition when real-life figures like Jordan Roth and Manny Azenberg turn up, in cameos meaningful to a very small number of potential viewers, but a treat for the insiders. Yet as the series has progressed, I’ve talked increasingly with the disaffected, who stopped watching, and the hopeful, who watch dubiously but religiously, with optimism that their dreamed of ideal may still appear.

There’s a recent corollary here, and that’s with the HBO series The Newsroom. When it debuted, I read scathing review after scathing review and one journalist friend even asked me if I had any idea why he hated it so much. “Because,” I explained, “You live the reality, and what’s on screen isn’t that.” I suspect that was the overriding sentiment behind so many of the Newsroom reviews, because  (of course) they were written by journalists. And that’s the same scenario for Smash among theatre people.

Let’s face it, scripted television programming isn’t documentary, and for that matter, neither is reality TV. It’s created, contrived, scripted, edited and so on in order to compress plots into rigid time constrictions, with the goal of entertaining as many people as possible. So it is with Smash.

I wonder what police officers make of, say, The Mentalist. Can they detach from reality and enjoy the fiction? Were doctors watching House for diagnostic refreshers? Was Sam Waterston giving a master class in prosecutorial technique all those years on Law and Order? I wouldn’t be surprised if professionals find something laughable every week, but those staples of TV drama have been around since the days of Dragnet, Ben Casey and Perry Mason, so they’re probably so much wallpaper by now.

Journalists at least had Lou Grant (the series) once upon a time, but to be fair, they’re most often seen on TV as plot devices, often portrayed as nuisances, or worse still amoral. Theatre people are typically portrayed as elitists or egotists for comic effect, so we don’t have TV icons they can point to very easily, outside of performances and great speeches on The Tony Awards. Anyone remember the laugh-fest when Law and Order: Criminal Intent did its version of Julie Taymor and Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark? That’s our usual lot.

However inaccurate TV series may be, there’s no denying the fact that a hit series can have profound real-world impact. Since the launch of the CSI franchise, forensic science programs have ballooned in popularity; it’s hard not to watch a series like Blue Bloods and feel that a sense of bravery, duty and honor pervades police work. In real life, Greg House would likely have been fired after episode two, but people were mesmerized by a talented diagnostician whose only solace in a screwed up life was to cure diseases, even if it usually meant making vast mistakes until the last 10 minutes – for the sake of drama. There’s no denying that the cops on Law and Order: SVU want to get justice for victims, or that the doctors on ER wanted to save lives; they may be flawed, but they have real commitment. What do the characters on Smash represent?

Smash has tantalized with the “show” part of show business, while the business part is startlingly underrepresented (I’ll never forget the first episode of Slings and Arrows, when a managing director had a meeting with a corporate sponsor and I saw my life’s work on screen for the very first time). More importantly, it hasn’t given us any heroes; I wonder whether the show will actually inspire anyone to go into the theatre.

And that, of course, is what I suspect we all hoped for, a mass media means of showing the world at large what an exciting, challenging, difficult, compelling, fulfilling life can be had in the theatre. Journalists surely long for a weekly platform that reinforces the necessity of properly funded investigative reporting, and I’d certainly like to see a show that reminds us why teachers are the cornerstone of this country’s future, a latter-day Room 222, in contrast to the way politicians now paint them.

We’re probably too emotionally invested in Smash. It was probably never going to be a recruiting tool for theatre or the arts, or finally explain to our families why we do what we do. That’s the stuff of public service announcements, not drama, not mass entertainment. But it’s in our nature to dream, isn’t it? And every so often in our line of work, we make dreams come true.

So, whatever comes of Smash this season, whether it runs or wraps up, whether you love it or loathe it, I leave you with this thought: here’s to season four of Slings and Arrows. May it come soon.

“What is the best that Broadway can be?” was the central question of the second TEDx Broadway conference, which continued to explore the query that fueled last year’s inaugural conference.

Presented, perhaps ironically, at off-Broadway’s New World Stages in Manhattan on Monday, the six-hour array of speakers struck similar notes: A better Broadway can be achieved through access for, engagement with and connection to the audience.

The conference mixed seasoned producers like Daryl Roth and Disney Theatrical Group’s Thomas Schumacher, artists such as playwright Kristoffer Diaz, actor George Takei and designer Christine Jones, and experts in other fields including Ellen Isaacs, the principal scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center; tech and media entrepreneur Randi Zuckerberg, and Susan Salgado, the founder with restaurateur Danny Meyer of Hospitality Quotient, consultants on the customer’s experience.

A capacity audience of 450 turned out to hear 17 speakers, watch thematically related videos from official TED Talks, and hear a performance by the all-female cello-driven band Rasputina. (TEDx conferences are independently organized events sanctioned by the official TED organization.)

Mixing pragmatism with imagination, Wall Street Journal critic and columnist Terry Teachout, who made his debut as a playwright in 2012, cited the oft-repeated figure that 75% of all Broadway shows fail financially. Then “why do people produce on Broadway?” Teachout asked. “Because it’s fun.”

He urged the attendees to take a chance on Broadway, “to do something that’s never been done … let the fact that most Broadway shows fail liberate you.”

He advised, “Don’t start settling for safe, gamble on great. If you’re not going to make money, make something beautiful, something that makes you proud. Who knows, you may even get rich.”

Takei, who plans to make his Broadway debut next season in the musical “Allegiance,” (which was produced at the Old Globe in San Diego last fall)  talked up the power of social media. He acknowledged that he has a base of “geeks and nerds” thank to his “Star Trek” days, but he didn’t address how less famous figures, or shows, might achieve similar success.

Schumacher related his ideal vision of Broadway and how it ran counter to what he felt one night sitting at a show, responses that he believes many in the business must conquer.

“Who are these jackasses?” he wondered of his fellow patrons. “My loathing for the people I was surrounded with was insurmountable.” He then talked about countering such “pretentious” instincts, saying, “Populism has its own manifest destiny and we must embrace that.”

Jones, the designer, is also artistic director of Theatre for One, which creates intimate theatrical experiences between a single artist and a single audience member in a retooled peep-show booth. She spoke of her desire to “distill the space” between performer and artist. She then explained her efforts to connect every audience member in every seat with the work on a Broadway stage.

“I wish we all had the same ability to make choices about how the audience is seated as I do with what’s on stage,” she said.

Jones alluded to Lewis Hyde’s book “The Gift,” which was also taken up by Adam Thurman, marketing director of Chicago’s Court Theatre, who proposed, “Marketing, fully realized, is a gift. I am in the gift-giving business and so are all of you.”

But he cautioned about preaching only to the converted, those who already attend the arts, saying, “We need more people who love us.”

Diaz and Zuckerberg offered lists of ideas for Broadway. Diaz’s random yet passionate litany included a contrary notion to many.

“Having playwrights working in television is a good thing,” Diaz said. “But we need to get them back and bring with them everything they learned and evolve the stories we tell.”

He enthused over the works of Lynn Nottage, described the theater community as being made up of “nerds and misfits who didn’t fit in,” and declared, “We’re living in a post-“Book of Mormon” society.”

Zuckerberg spoke of her original plans to pursue a career in theater, then shifted to a list of “10 Ideas to Open Broadway to the World,” including open auditions on YouTube, crowd-sourcing costume designs, creating online viewing options and offering social media walk-on roles.

“Instead of having a small sliver of the world come to Broadway,” she asked, “why not bring Broadway to the entire world?”

Other speakers included “The Millionaire’s Magician,” Steve Cohen; David Sabel, head of digital media for the National Theatre of Great Britain, and Seth Pinsky, president of New York City’s Economic Development Corp.

The TEDx Broadway conference was organized by Damian Bazadona, president of Situation Interactive; theatrical producer Ken Davenport; and Jim McCarthy, CEO of Goldstar Events.

See the story as it appeared at the Los Angeles Times here.

As I write late in the evening prior to the second TEDx Broadway conference, I find myself wondering how much the presentations tomorrow will focus on plays, which have become the poor stepchild of The Great White Way.

Over the summer, I wrote about Narrow Chances For New Broadway Musicals and considered Do Revivals Inhibit Broadway Musicals? I counted the most produced playwrights in recent years in The Broadway Scorecard: Two Decades of Drama and, responding to what I saw at a glance as some misguided copy in the promotion of tomorrow’s event, I spoke out strongly with the declaration False Equivalency: Broadway Is Not The American Theatre.  Embedded in these posts were data, analysis — and my opinion — depicting Broadway as it is, not as some might perhaps wish it would be. As I noted in these posts, musicals dominate Broadway, both new and revivals, with roughly 80% of all Broadway grosses coming from musicals, even if the number of plays produced in most seasons outnumber new musical productions. Plays are admired, but when it comes to defining Broadway, the musicals by and large grab the lion’s share of money and attention.

That said, there’s one more, rather simple, data set that’s worth having in mind as tweets, blogs and news reports slice and dice tomorrow’s event (and I’ll be among those doing so). Here’s a listing of the Pulitzer Prizes for Drama and the Tony Award winners for Best Play, from 1984 to the present. I’m not suggesting that these awards are the final word on plays of quality, and awards success hardly guarantees box office success, but the two prizes provide a manageable universe for study. Why 1984? It’s an arbitrary choice, to be sure; it’s also the year I graduated college and went to work in the professional theatre, a microcosm of the celebrated plays of my theatrical career.

The honored plays above, shorn of duplicates as well as the years the Pulitzers honored musicals, make up a total of 43 different works that were recognized for achievements in playwriting in 29 years. Only nine works appear on both lists and The Pulitzers are only for American plays, which helps to reduce duplication.

Now here’s the key question: how many of those works actually had their world premieres on Broadway? The answer: only five. Those plays were Rabbit Hole, Lost In Yonkers, The Goat, The Last Night Of Ballyhoo and M. Butterfly. The others all began in not for profit U.S. venues, as close as Off-Broadway or as far as Seattle, or in subsidized or commercial venues in Ireland, England, and Europe. That’s not to say that there weren’t worthy plays that weren’t recognized which may have been produced directly on Broadway, but the ones that reaped the conventionally accepted big awards didn’t begin there. In the Pulitzer list, there are many that never played Broadway, at least in their original incarnations, as I discussed in At Long Last Broadway.

So as the future of Broadway is a subject on many minds in the next 24 to 36 hours, it’s worth remembering that strikingly few new plays debut there, as they commonly did in the days before the resident theatre movement really bloomed. If plays are to make their marks in Broadway history under the existing models of production, they need to be discovered, birthed and nourished elsewhere. National and international recognition may still be New York-centric, but the most honored works start overwhelmingly just about everywhere other than Broadway. Could that ever change? Should it? And if the answer is yes, then how?

Those who follow my Twitter feed know that I almost never tweet out reviews; I figure that there are plenty of others, including critics themselves, who do, so why be redundant. I focus my energies on highlighting material which may not have had the same kind of exposure.

For the second year in a row, I’m breaking that moratorium on my blog, because “Best Of” and “Top Ten” lists are affirmative summaries of the year in theatre. They represent what critics found most compelling or enjoyable, and even though some decide to toss brickbats with “Worst Of” lists, I’ve avoided linking to those unless they’re appended directly to the “Best Of” praise.

It’s worth noting that all of these lists should be taken with a grain of salt; that is to say, except in all but the smallest markets, they are almost inevitably incomplete, as critics do not have the time (or are not compensated) to see every last production in the area. These are perhaps better considered “favorites,” but that is no doubt insufficiently declarative for many editors, and if 10 Commandments could be selected out of a pool of 617, then surely critics can do likewise. But it’s worth noting that the critic for Time, a national magazine, has restricted his selection to New York; is this because that is where he saw the best work, or because that is the only city in which he went to the theatre this year?

Other than scanning my most cursory summary of each list, I urge you to use the links to look more carefully at what critics had to say about the works they selected, and in particular to do so to learn more about those plays that are unfamiliar to you. Also, as there were multiple Uncle Vanyas, for example, it may not be clear which production is being praised.

Finally, I should say that this is a work in progress and inevitably incomplete, but I urge you to tweet to me at @hesherman with links to lists that don’t appear here, and I’ll keep updating until after the new year.

*   *   *

America: Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal 

St. Joan, A Little Night Music, Nobody Loves You; also a number of other notable productions and artists.

Atlanta: Wendell Brock, Atlanta Journal Constitution

Clyde ‘n Bonnie: A Folktale, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, Apples And Oranges, Next To Normal, Wolves.

Baltimore: multiple critics, City Paper

The Iceman Cometh, The Whipping Man, The Brothers Size, Into The Woods, Office Ladies, Breaking The Code, This Bird’s Flown: A Tragedy Of Antiquity, A Skull In Connemara, Drunk Enough To Say I Love You, Ages Of Man.

Berkshire County MA: Jeffrey Borak, The Berkshire Eagle

A Chorus Line, Parasite Drag, Tryst, Tomorrow The Battle, Far From Heaven, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Cassandra Speaks, Edith, Pride @ Prejudice, Dr. Ruth All The Way.

Boston: Carolyn Clay, The Phoenix

Red, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Avenue Q, Billy Elliott, Master Harold…and the boys, The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, Marie Antoinette, Ted Hughes’ Tales From Ovid, Betrayal, Our Town.

California: Lisa Millegan Renner, The Modesto Bee

Time Stands Still, The Grapes of Wrath, Carousel, Metamorphoses, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Three Days Of Rain, Gypsy, The Shape Of Things, The Mikado, Mamma Mia!.

Cleveland: Andrea Simakis, Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Whipping Man, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Anything Goes, Bust, Avenue Q, The Mousetrap, In The Next Room, The Secret Social, The Texas Chainsaw Musical!.

Chicago: Catey Sullivan, Chicago Magazine

Angels In America, Cascabel, Dark Play, The Doyle And Debbie Show, Hamlet, Hit The Wall, The Iceman Cometh, Jitney, A Little Night Music, Sunday In The Park With George.

Chicago: Bob Bullen, Chicago Theatre Addict

Camino Real, Angels In America, Immediate Family, Superior Donuts, The Light In The Piazza, A Little Night Music, Eastland, Hit The Wall, Good People, Sunday In The Park With George.

Chicago: Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

Sunday In The Park With George, Good People, The Iceman Cometh, Hit The Wall, Metamorphoses, Les Misérables, Time Stands Still, The Invisible Man, The Light In The Piazza, A Little Night Music; also Annie, Beauty And The Beast, Death And Harry Houdini, Kinky Boots, The Letters, The Mikado, Moment, Oedipus El Rey, Sweet Bird Of Youth, When The Rain Stops Falling.

Chicago: Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Good People, Hit The Wall, The Iceman Cometh, Idomeneus, Invisible Man, Metamorphoses, Oedipus El Rey, Romeo Juliet, Sunday In The Park With George.

Columbus: David Ades, The Other Paper

Age Of Bees, Long Way Home, King Lear, The Irish Curse, La Boheme, Memphis.

Dallas: Elaine Liner, Dallas Observer

Essay,  “The Year in Dallas Theatre.”

Dallas: Arnold Wayne Jones, Dallas Voice

Ruth, The Most Happy Fella, The Night Of The Iguana, The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, The Farnsworth Invention, Becky Shaw, Oklahoma!, The Producers, Superior Donuts, On The Eve.

Halifax, Nova Scotia: Kate Watson, The Coast

Lysistrata Temptress Of The South, Titus Andronicus, Hawk, Twelve Angry Men, Arsenic And Old Lace, The Drowsy Chaperone, Inherit The Wind, Same Time Next Year, Pageant, Bone Boy, Bare, Whale Riding Weather, The Monument, The Men, Who Killed Me, Kill Shakespeare.

Hartford: Frank Rizzo, The Hartford Courant

The Realistic Joneses, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Marie Antoinette, Into The Woods, Carousel, A Raisin In The Sun, Sty Of The Blind Pig, A Winter’s Tale, Les Misérables; also, Satchmo At The Waldorf, The Tempest, Bell Book & Candle, Metamorphosis, Harbor, I’ll Fly Away.

Kansas City: Robert Trussell, Kansas City Star

The Kentucky Cycle, Titus Andronicus, The Whipping Man, The Mystery Of Irma Vep, Time Stands Still, The Motherfucker With The Hat, Antony And Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Moustrap, The Real Inspector Hound, Inspecting Carol, The Importance Of Being Earnest, Making God Laugh, Game Show, Hairspray, Lucky Duck, Spring Awakening, Shrek, The Seagull, Sex Drugs Rock & Roll, The Addams Family, Memphis, An Eveneing With Patti LuPone & Mandy Patinkin, Next To Normal, Master Class, The Fantasticks.

Las Vegas: staff writers, Las Vegas Weekly

Nurture, Measure For Pleasure, Crazy For You, Golda’s Balcony.

Lehigh Valley, PA: Myra Yellin Outwater, The Morning Call

On The Town, I Love A Piano, Anything Goes, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Doubt, Arsenic and Old Lace, A View From The Bridge, The Tempest, Eleanor Handley in Much Ado About Nothing & Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Parfumerie, The Miracle of Christmas.

London, Matt Wolf, The Arts Desk

Brimstone And Treacle, Cornelius, A Doll’s House, The Effect, In The Republic Of Happiness, Julius Caesar, Merrily We Roll Along, The River, Sweeney Todd, The Taming Of The Shrew.

London, multiple critics, The Guardian

Ten Billion, You Me Bum Bum Train, Gatz, Ganesh Versus The Third Reich, Noises Off, Mies Julie, Three Kingdoms, Three Sisters, Posh, In Basildon.

London: Susannah Clapp, The Observer

The Boys Of Foley Street, Coriolan/us, Love And Information, Timon Of Athens, Sea Odyssey, Constellations, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Red Velvet, Julius Caesar (x2).

Los Angeles and New York: Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times

Clybourne Park, Death Of A Salesman, Follies, In The Red And Brown Water, Ivanov, Jitney, Krapp’s Last Tape, Our Town, Waiting For Godot, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.

Miami: John Thomason, Miami New Times

Winter and Happy, Becky’s New Car, The Turn Of The Screw, A Man Puts On A Play, Venus IN Fur, I Am My Own Wife, The Motherfucker With The Hat, Death And Harry Houdini, Next To Normal, Ruined.

Milwaukee: Mike Fischer, Journal Sentinel

Musicals: Avenue Q, Big, Blues In The Night, A Cudahy Caroler Christmas, Daddy Long Legs, The Sound Of Music, Sunday In The Park With George, Tick Tick…BOOM, Victory Farm, West Side Story; Plays: A Thousand Words, Cartoon, The Chosen, Honour, Love Stories, Microcrisis, Othello, Richard III, Skylight, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Minneapolis: Rohan Preston and Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

• Rohan Preston: Untitled Feminist Show, The Brothers Size, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been, Dirtday!, Buzzer, In The Next Room, Swimming With My Mother, The Origin(s) Project, A Behanding In Spokane, Fela!
• Graydon Royce: Flesh And The Desert, Ragtime, Spring Awakening, Sea Marks, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Cherry Orchard, Waiting For Good, Measure For Measure, In The Next Room, Buzzer

New Jersey: Bill Canacci, Courier Post

Once, Falling, The Piano Lesson, The Whale, Tribes, End Of The Rainbow, The Best Man, Clybourne Park, Merrily We Roll Along, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking.

New Jersey: Ronni Reich, Newark Star Ledger

Dog Days, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Death Of A Salesman, The Convert, Henry V, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The Best Of Enemies, Once, No Place To Go.

New York: Matt Windman, AM New York

Once, Merrily We Roll Along, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, Clybourne Park, Closer Than Ever, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Porgy And Bess, Harvey, Bring It On.

New York: Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Top 10 Theatre Moments: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Once, Clybourne Park, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Spacey as Richard III, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, the death of Marvin Hamlisch, A Christmas Story: The Musical, the return of Forbidden Broadway.

New York: Robert Feldberg, The Bergen Record

Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, One Man Two Guvnors, Once, Annie, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The Best Man, Wit, Grace.

New York, Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News

Death Of A Salesman, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Disgraced, Sorry, February House, Slowgirl, Uncle Vanya (x 2), the Fugard season, One Man Two Guvnors, Detroit; also The Lady From Dubuque, Annie, Vaya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, A Streetcar Named Desire, Newsies, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.

New York, Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly

Once, The Heiress, Porgy And Bess, Rapture Blister Burn, Newsies, Tribes, Death Of A Salesman, One Man Two Guvnors, Giant, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.

New York: David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

As You Like It, Clybourne Park, Death Of A Salesman, Disgraced, 4000 Miles, Porgy And Bess, Golden Boy, One Man Two Guvnors, The Piano Lesson, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.

New York: T. Michelle Murphy, Metro

Venus In Fur, Once, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Death Of A Salesman, Then She Fell, Triassic Parq, Bare: The Musical, Peter And The Starcatcher, As You Like It, Helen And Edgar.

New York: Joe Dziemanowicz, New York Daily News

20 stage moments to remember: Assistance, Bad Jews, Claire Tow Theatre, Clybourne Park, Delacorte Theatres 50th, Einstein On The Beach, Feinstein’s, 54 Below, Marvin Hamlisch, Newsies, Nina Arianda, Norbert Leo Butz, Once, One Man Two Guvnors, The Piano Lesson, Rebecca, Sorry, Uncle Vanya, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Yvonne Strahovski.

New York, Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post

Assistance, Detroit, Gob Squad’s Kitchen, Natasha Pieere and The Great Comet Of 1812, One Man Two Guvnors, 3C, Tribes, Uncle Vanya, We Are Proud To Present A Presentation…, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.

New York: John Lahr, The New Yorker

Golden Boy, Death Of A Salesman, Peter And The Starcatcher, Title And Deed, Timon Of Athens, Tribes, Richard III, Clybourne Park, The Whale, The Piano Lesson.

New York, Scott Brown, New York magazine

Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Tribes, Sorry, Death Of A Salesman, Cock, the black box conjurations, Detroit, Uncle Vanya, the unmusicals, One Man Two Guvnors.

New York, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

• Ben Brantley: Cock, Harper Regan, Mies Julie, Neutral Hero, Once, One Man Two Guvnors, Peter And The Starcatcher, Sorry, Then She Fell, Uncle Vanya.
• Charles Isherwood: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Detroit, The Piano Lesson, Title And Deed/The Realistic Joneses, The Iceman Cometh, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Golden Boy, Disgraced, Uncle Vanya, One Man Two Guvnors.

New York: Jesse Oxfeld, The New York Observer

Death Of A Salesman, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolff?, 4000 Miles, Clybourne Park, Hurt Village, Detroit, The Whale, Disgraced, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Cock, The Twenty-Seventh Man, A Civil War Christmas, Assistance, The Great God Pan, The Bog Meal, Rapture Blister Burn.

New York: Richard Zoglin, Time magazine

Annie, Detroit, One Man Two Guvnors, A Christmas Story: The Musical, Grace, Louis CK on tour, End Of The Rainbow, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, 4000 Miles.

New York: David Cote and Adam Feldman, Time Out New York

• David Cote: Golden Boy, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Death Of A Salesman, One Man Two Guvnors, Uncle Vanya, Glengarry Glen Ross, Detroit, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet of 1812, A Map Of Virtue, If The Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.
• Adam Feldman: Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet Of 1812, The Piano Lesson, Tribes, Golden Boy, The Material World, A Map Of Virtue, Hurt Village, The Twenty-Seventh Man, 3C.

Orange County CA: Paul Hodgins, Orange County Register

Topdog/Underdog, Car Plays, Elemeno Pea, The Jacksonian, Sight Unseen, American Idiot, Sight Unseen, Waiting For Godot, Jitney, War Horse, Red, The Book Of Mormon, Krapp’s Last Tape, Other Desert Cities.

Philadelphia: J. Cooper Robb, Philadelphia Weekly

Body Awareness, Spring Awakening, The Music Man, Clybourne Park, The Liar, Slip/Shot, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Next To Normal, A Behanding In Spokane, The Scottsboro Boys.

Portland ME: Megan Grumbling, The Portland Pheonix

Aquitania, The Birthday Party, Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights, Eurydice, Faith Healer, Ghosts, Henry IV.

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina: multiple staff, Indy Week

Original Scripts & Adaptations: What Every Girl Should Know, Jude The Obscure, Shape, Children IN The Dark, Donald, From F To M To Octopus, Sketches Of A Man, Perfect, I Love My Hair When It’s Good: And Then Again When It Looks Defiant and Impressive, The Men In Me; Productions: Acts of Witness: Blood Knot, The Brothers Size, Donald, I Love My Hair When It’s Good: And Then Again When It Looks Defiant and Impressive, Let Them Be Heard, New Music: August Snow, Night Dance, Better Days, The Paper Hat Game, Penelope, Radio Golf, Red, Richie, What Every Girl Should Know.

San Antonio: Deborah Martin and Michael E. Barrett, San Antonio Express-News

August: Osage County, Superior Donuts, Killer Joe, King Lear, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, íCarpa, Open Sesame, Firebugs, A View From The Bridge, Macbeth, God Of Carnage, I-DJ, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Les Misérables, An Adult Evening Of Shel Silverstein, Hello Dolly!, My Fair Lady, American Buffalo.

San Diego: David L. Coddon, San Diego City Beat

Blood And Gifts, Allegiance, Kita Y Fernanda, A Raisin In The Sun, Harmony Kansas, The Scottsboro Boys, The Car Plays, Parade, Topdog/Underdog, Zoot Suit; also, Visiting Mr. Green, American Night: The Ballad Of Juan Jose, Fiddler On The Roof, Good of Carnage, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.

San Jose: Karen D’Souza, The Mercury News

Becky Shaw, Humor Abuse, The Aliens, The Caretaker, Any Given Day, War Horse, An Iliad, The White Snake, Woyzeck.

St Louis: Dennis Brown and Paul Friswold, Riverfront Times

Sunday In The Park With George, No Child…, Angels In America, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sweeney Todd, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged), The Children’s Hour, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Eleemosynary, This Wide Night, The Foreigner.

Toronto: J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe And Mail

Top 10 Shows (via personal blog):  Maybe If You Choreograph Me You’ll Feel Better, The Iceman Cometh, The Matchmaker, Terminus, Home, An Enemy Of The People, The Golden Dragon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, War Horse, Enron; also Top 10 Theatre Picks.

Toronto: Jon Kaplan and Glenn Sumi, Now Toronto

Terminus, Proud, The Little Years, Caroline or Change, Kim’s Convenience, The Small Room At The Top Of The Stairs, Miss Caledonia, War Horse, The Penelopiad, Tear The Curtain.

Toronto: Toronto Star

Actress Maev Beatty, War Horse, opera as theatre, Cymbeline, The Small Room At The Top Of The Stairs.

Washington DC: Peter Marks, The Washington Post

Mr Burns a Post-Electric Play, Astro Boy And The God Of Comics, Beertown, Really Really, The Strange Undoing Of Prudencia Hart, The Normal Heart, haute puppetry, locally grown theatre, The Servant Of Two Masters, fine old musicals.

as of 12/30/12  11:00 am