Opinion: Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser on Changes in Arts Criticsm, Huffington Post, November 14

Since his brief commentary (ironically, in the Internet newspaper www.huffingtonpost.com) has roused so many hackles, here it is, entire:

The Death of Criticism or Everyone Is a Critic

November 14, 2011

One of the substantial changes in the arts environment that has happened with astonishing speed is that arts criticism has become a participatory activity rather than a spectator sport.

Every artist, producer or arts organization used to wait for a handful of reviews to determine the critical response to a particular project. And while very few critics for a small set of news outlets still wield great power to make or break a project (usually a for-profit theater project which runs longer and therefore needs to sell far more tickets than any other arts project), a larger portion of arts projects have become somewhat immune to the opinions of any one journalist.

This has happened for three reasons.

First, far fewer people are getting their news from print media. There is a reason the newspaper industry is in trouble. Advertisers are spending less in print media because fewer people are reading hard copy newspapers. And for those arts projects aimed at younger audiences, hard copy newspapers are no longer a central element of a marketing strategy. Younger people get virtually all of their information online, through news web sites, social media and chat rooms. And older people are increasingly getting their information online as well.

Second, because serious arts coverage has been deemed an unnecessary expense by many news media outlets looking to pare costs, there are fewer critics and less space devoted to serious arts criticism. Even the New York Times' arts section is dominated now by features and reviews of popular entertainment -- television, movies and pop music -- rather than serious opera, dance, music or theater.

And third, the growing influence of blogs, chat rooms and message boards devoted to the arts has given the local professional critic a slew of competitors. In theater circles alone one can visit talkingbroadway.com, broadwayworld.com, theatermania.com, playbill.com and numerous other sites. Many arts institutions even allow their audience members to write their own critiques on the organizational website.

This is a scary trend.

While I have had my differences with one critic or another, I have great respect for the field as a whole. Most serious arts critics know a great deal about the field they cover and can evaluate a given work or production based on many years of serious study and experience. These critics have been vetted by their employers.

Anyone can write a blog or leave a review in a chat room. The fact that someone writes about theater or ballet or music does not mean they have expert judgment.

But it is difficult to distinguish the professional critic from the amateur as one reads on-line reviews and critiques.

No one critic should be deemed the arbiter of good taste in any market and it is wonderful that people now have an opportunity to express their feelings about a work of art. But great art must not be measured by a popularity contest. Otherwise the art that appeals to the lowest common denominator will always be deemed the best.

Click to view at Huffington Post (comments accepted there)

The Death of Criticism or Everyone Is a Critic

One of the substantial changes in the arts environment that has happened with astonishing speed is that arts criticism has become a participatory activity rather than a spectator sport.

Every artist, producer or arts organization used to wait for a handful of reviews to determine the critical response to a particular project. And while very few critics for a small set of news outlets still wield great power to make or break a project (usually a for-profit theater project which runs longer and therefore needs to sell far more tickets than any other arts project), a larger portion of arts projects have become somewhat immune to the opinions of any one journalist.

This has happened for three reasons.

First, far fewer people are getting their news from print media. There is a reason the newspaper industry is in trouble. Advertisers are spending less in print media because fewer people are reading hard copy newspapers. And for those arts projects aimed at younger audiences, hard copy newspapers are no longer a central element of a marketing strategy. Younger people get virtually all of their information online, through news web sites, social media and chat rooms. And older people are increasingly getting their information online as well.

Second, because serious arts coverage has been deemed an unnecessary expense by many news media outlets looking to pare costs, there are fewer critics and less space devoted to serious arts criticism. Even the New York Times' arts section is dominated now by features and reviews of popular entertainment -- television, movies and pop music -- rather than serious opera, dance, music or theater.

And third, the growing influence of blogs, chat rooms and message boards devoted to the arts has given the local professional critic a slew of competitors. In theater circles alone one can visit talkingbroadway.com, broadwayworld.com, theatermania.com, playbill.com and numerous other sites. Many arts institutions even allow their audience members to write their own critiques on the organizational website.

This is a scary trend.

While I have had my differences with one critic or another, I have great respect for the field as a whole. Most serious arts critics know a great deal about the field they cover and can evaluate a given work or production based on many years of serious study and experience. These critics have been vetted by their employers.

Anyone can write a blog or leave a review in a chat room. The fact that someone writes about theater or ballet or music does not mean they have expert judgment.

But it is difficult to distinguish the professional critic from the amateur as one reads on-line reviews and critiques.

No one critic should be deemed the arbiter of good taste in any market and it is wonderful that people now have an opportunity to express their feelings about a work of art. But great art must not be measured by a popularity contest. Otherwise the art that appeals to the lowest common denominator will always be deemed the best.

Theatre Coverage: How the Denver Post Does It

Profiled by David Cote as one of the country's twelve most influential theatre critics, theatre reporter John Moore of the Denver Post describes in his blog Running Lines the paper's multifaceted coverage of theatre in the state:

I’m just a little surprised (but not at all ungrateful) that the reason I was told I pretty much made the list isn’t reflected in the article [. . . .] I’m no dummy. I didn’t make it because I produce reviews you might mistake for the New Yorker’s. What I will own is a work ethic that has allowed our Denver Post team to cover an average of 160 to 180 plays a year for the past decade.

But the real reason I was included, I was told, is the multimedia innovations we have implemented on The Denver Post’s online theater page that have advanced the ways in which major metropolitan newspapers can cover theater in the age of social media. Some people have this misguided impression that the “legacy” (old school) media is dying, and I say it’s only dying if you stubbornly go down with the Santa Maria, instead of taking the wheel of a modern ocean liner.

At The Denver Post, we cover theater in print as much as any paper of our size could be possibly expected to in this era of shrinking news holes – we average three reviews, one advance, one issue story and one news roundup every week. But it’s been five years since we fully embraced the amazing possibilities that social media provide for us to expand our reach. In doing so, we’ve been able to both reach new audiences, and exponentially expand the ways in which we can get word out about what’s going on in local theater. Much more so than we were ever able to do with print alone.

Off the top of my head, I am thinking about our:

*Running Lines video podcasts (more than 200 episodes now, including audio segments)

*Standing O – our full-service web site dedicated exclusively to high-school theater in Colorado.

*Our “Running Lines” theater blog – home to breaking news, cast lists, spotlight on college theater and whatever else comes up during the day. This summer, when a visiting New York actor went missing on the streets of Denver, “Running Lines” had record traffic by giving the concerned a place to virtually gather, and helped (I think) coordinate efforts to bring the mystery to a quick and positive close.

*New Play Sampling Series – These are 5-to-10-page excerpts from new plays being performed in the area. This helps both theaters reach readers who have no prior knowledge of an unfamiliar title.

*Interactive presence on Facebook and Twitter.

*Our commitment to maintaining comprehensive online listings of every scheduled production, by opening date, by company, or by all current offerings.

*Our 24-7 online photo gallery that includes one production shot from every currently running production, which we embed in several places including our home page, so that readers can get a visual sense of their theatergoing options all in one place.

I think, too, that the comments that are already showing up at the bottom of David’s American Theatre story are worth an ongoing conversation. The list centers on legacy media, but there’s no doubt of the impact that new critics whose distribution is solely through the internet are having.

Click to read John Moore's full blog posting at the Denver Post

View 25-minute interview of John Moore by Eden Lang on her web program 'In Focus' of June 25, 2011 (especially recommended for his discussion of the role of the reviewer) (27 min. on YouTube -- the version without the initial advertising)

Opinion: Drama Critics Are Your Friends

Thoughts from Simon Ogden in Vancouver, B.C., on the role of those of us who write about your productions, published at his blog The Next Stage at Wordpress:


I know, I know, we’ve still got a real love/hate thing going on with the critics, don’t we? it’s terrifying having them somewhere out there in the house (Is that him? The one in the back row? How does he look, happy? Pissy? Bored? I think he looks bored, I’m going to kill myself now), lurking in the dark hunkered over their little pads, judging us, probably hating us…god, why do we even need them at all? Seriously, why do we even invite them? This piece is about the art. The art, dammit!

It is so past due for us to get over this. It’s time to get real perspective on these people and what they are doing. It’s time to talk about them, and to them – to engage with them. Professional criticism is not a one way street, it’s one half of a conversation that you start with your play. We need them. We really do, if we want to ever make money through theatre work, anyway.

The critics don’t work for us. Sure, it’s nice for our progressive marketing if they say some nice things in print about the show, but this can’t be the only reason we care about them, can it? Is their worth to us measured merely as a potential sound bite? Seems a bit mercenary, doesn’t it?

The critics don’t work for our audience either (we do), they are the audience, and what’s more, they know a lot about theatre, and they love it. And they can write, and they like to talk, so people listen. Everybody else at the show is talking to people about you too, but you don’t get to hear what they’re really saying. Now, I know that this is just fine for some of us. There are a lot of theatre artists out there right now who are delicate and sensitive and quite happy making their art for themselves and don’t want to hear what people thought about the work, because they think that it will have an effect on future work. And they’re right, it will. Is that such a bad thing? I guess it depends on what part you want to play in the bigger picture.

Remember, critics don’t make culture, artists do. Critics report on it. Let’s just be clear on our respective jobs. The critics, simply put, work for the theatre. They exist to maintain a conversation about something bigger than all of us individually, something that we all want: a popular, sustainable, trendy theatre. They keep the ball of public awareness in the air, and so we could use more of them, many more, getting the idea of theatre into the heads of more people.

Click to read more at The Next Stage on WordPress. . . .