Chicago Dramatists New Page Conference Critics Panel

At the beginning of this month (on Saturday, October 1) I attended Chicago Dramatists' New Page Conference, an event intended to launch Chicago Dramatists as a new play development center (rather than a producing organization). It was a very enjoyable day, and I meant to type up these notes much earlier and post them. I attended several great sessions throughout the day, including a discussion on incorporating Designers into New Play Development; a workshop on Directing Staged Readings; and a conversation with Lydia R. Diamond. But I took extensive notes on the critics panel and wanted to share those here.

The morning began with a roundtable discussion featuring several Chicago theatre critics: Chris Jones, Jonathan Abarbanel, Kerry Reid, and Kelly Kleiman. Meghan Beals moderated this discussion and asked helpful questions that led to interesting answers. She asked each of the speakers to describe their entry into theatre criticism. Jonathan Abarbanel referred to his work on the college newspaper as an undergraduate at Tufts University; he covered Broadway tryouts in Boston as the Arts editor. Kerry Reid was a journalism major in college who came to theatre criticism after seeing Judi Dench as Mother Courage. Chris Jones completed a PhD at Ohio State University before moving to Chicago. And Kelly Kleiman got into theatre after law school, inspired by Lifeline's production of Vanity Fair (1994).

Beals asked the panel about the role/duty of the critic with regard to new plays. Abarbanel made a distinction between the critic and the reviewer, suggesting that the shortened length of reviews in most platforms has turned many critics into reviewers. Reid worries about plagiarizing herself, but tends to ask the overarching question, "What are playwrights writing about now?" Jones claims that seeing lots of musicals gives him a sense of the trajectory of the American musical. He noted that critics tend to see change as incremental, where people who go to theatre less often might see change as radical. His goal in writing is to get the reader's attention. Disagreeing with some others on the panel, Jones acknowledged that readers trust him not to send them to a bad show, and said he thinks of this as saving them from the humiliation of bringing a date to a bad play. Kleiman said that her role varies from day to day, platform to platform. At the Reader she wanted to write something that would be interesting to read even if you didn't see the show. She would like to speak in a useful way to people who make theatre, and does not believe in saying nice things about dumb playwrights. Abarbanel noted that he finds it important to be an investigative reporter and an arts business reporter, and lamented the number of obituaries Chris Jones has had to write in recent years. Claudia Cassidy's review of The Glass Menagerie was cited as an example of the influence of theatre critics on the development of new work.

This discussion led Beals to ask about critical influence on the life of a new play. According to Kleiman, things that impede the development of a new play are so multifaceted and so nefarious, "I am the least of your problems." Abarbanel jokingly cited a maxim: "Greater than the need for food or sex is the desire to rewrite someone else's play." There was a discussion about the difficulty of getting a second production due to limited slots, and structural/financial concerns. The significance of a Trib review to building audiences at smaller companies was also raised. Jones indicated that being read in New York is important to him. He stated that nothing is achieved by liking everything. He tries to look at every play freshly and does not intentionally construct narratives about individual artists. Reid noted that some artists have suggested that she see plays twice (no time for this) or attend rehearsals (not the critic's role). Kleiman said she does lose sleep over the fact that all the critics on this panel look alike; even when she and Abarbanel disagree: "We are middle-aged Jewish people distinguished by the fact that I'm Ashkenazi and he's Sephardic." Kleiman and Reid praised the Goodman's Cindy Bandle young women's critics program that has existed since 2007.  Abarbanel noted that ATCA has changed rules about who can join in an effort to recruit critics of color. Jones suggested that he spends half of every day deciding what to see and that sometimes he makes wrong choices. His philosophy is that critics should always be on the side of creative freedom.

Beals asked the panelists to circle back to access: what are we doing to support new voices in theatre criticism? Reid mentioned supporting writers who aren't necessarily theatre writers. Jones pointed out that critics are now competing with PR because everyone is their own media representative. He cited Ike Holter's piece on The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window as the best piece of theatre criticism in Chicago he has read this year. Kleiman pointed out that increasingly journalism requires patronage, and said that if we want criticism to be more than a hobby, people need to get paid. Criticism will never be the same profession it was when there were many more daily newspapers than there are now.