The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future by Matt Windman
Authors: Matt Windman
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TheaterWeek . He said, “You don’t want to write for us because we don’t pay enough.” I said, “The money isn’t important. I just want to get my name out there.” I truly believe that if you do what you love, eventually, the money will come. Of course, the free tickets were nice, too. I got an assignment, and then I kept getting them. The people who succeeded the original editor-in-chief kept me on, one of whom was Michael Riedel. It was Michael who asked me if I wanted to write a column, and I kept doing a column until the paper went out of business in 1996.
In 1993, the position of New Jersey theater critic opened up at the Star-Ledger . Michael Sommers, who had been the New Jersey theater critic, was being promoted to the New York spot. When I went in for the interview to be the New Jersey critic, they said, “The reason we want you is because you are positive. We want the arts to grow in New Jersey. We don’t want a mean critic. We want somebody who is really interested in seeing theater flourish in this state.”
Richard Ouzounian: I was born and raised in New York. I’m 64 years old, so I was a kid during the days when there were still seven daily papers in New York. My dad, who ran a bar, would bring home the four morning papers when he came in every night. We also got the three afternoon papers. Somewhere along the way, I started reading theater reviews in the papers, and I realized that someone got paid to see plays.
I wrote reviews in high school and college. At the time, there was a very reputable television critic, Leonard Harris, who taught a course in arts criticism at Fordham University, where I went to college, and I took it. I realized that no one was going to hire a 20-year-old theater critic, so I became a theater practitioner. For roughly the next 20-odd years, I worked as a director-writer-actor across Canada. I was very lucky. I got a lot of jobs as an artistic director when I was very young, and I wound up running five major theaters.
By the time I was 40 years old, I had two kids and had discovered that my younger son was developmentally challenged, so I thought I should get a permanent job. I didn’t immediately go over to the dark side, but I started doing work in TV and radio. I did a weekly radio show that was broadcast across Canada where I would play musical theater songs, set them in context, and talk about them. It’s what inspired Bob Martin to create the character of Man in Chair in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone . Then I got a weekly theater critic slot in Toronto on CBC, our equivalent to NPR, and it became very popular and powerful. I realized that when Garth Drabinsky opened his first production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond. The major daily newspapers in Toronto all hated it, but I liked it. And the next week, a full-page ad appeared with my quote across the top. I thought, This is pretty good: a brand-new career in my forties.
In 2000, as I turned 50, the theater critic of the Toronto Star , the country’s largest paper, walked in one day and said, “I’m tired of this. I want out.” It was the same day that my department at TVOntario, my major employer, got slashed, and I was without a job. The arts editor of the Toronto Star called me up and said, “I listen to you on the radio. Have you ever thought of doing it in the newspaper?” And I said, “That was actually my childhood dream.” So at the age of 50, I became a daily newspaper critic.
John Simon: If you like to write (which I obviously do), and if you like theater (which I obviously do), and if you put those two things together, they spell theater critic. I was taken to the theater when I was a very small boy, and I fell in love with it. At any rate, I fell in fondness for it. So given my critical nature and my wanting to be closer to the theater, this is what came out of it.
The first publication I wrote for—if you can call it that—was a little pamphlet
In 1993, the position of New Jersey theater critic opened up at the Star-Ledger . Michael Sommers, who had been the New Jersey theater critic, was being promoted to the New York spot. When I went in for the interview to be the New Jersey critic, they said, “The reason we want you is because you are positive. We want the arts to grow in New Jersey. We don’t want a mean critic. We want somebody who is really interested in seeing theater flourish in this state.”
Richard Ouzounian: I was born and raised in New York. I’m 64 years old, so I was a kid during the days when there were still seven daily papers in New York. My dad, who ran a bar, would bring home the four morning papers when he came in every night. We also got the three afternoon papers. Somewhere along the way, I started reading theater reviews in the papers, and I realized that someone got paid to see plays.
I wrote reviews in high school and college. At the time, there was a very reputable television critic, Leonard Harris, who taught a course in arts criticism at Fordham University, where I went to college, and I took it. I realized that no one was going to hire a 20-year-old theater critic, so I became a theater practitioner. For roughly the next 20-odd years, I worked as a director-writer-actor across Canada. I was very lucky. I got a lot of jobs as an artistic director when I was very young, and I wound up running five major theaters.
By the time I was 40 years old, I had two kids and had discovered that my younger son was developmentally challenged, so I thought I should get a permanent job. I didn’t immediately go over to the dark side, but I started doing work in TV and radio. I did a weekly radio show that was broadcast across Canada where I would play musical theater songs, set them in context, and talk about them. It’s what inspired Bob Martin to create the character of Man in Chair in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone . Then I got a weekly theater critic slot in Toronto on CBC, our equivalent to NPR, and it became very popular and powerful. I realized that when Garth Drabinsky opened his first production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond. The major daily newspapers in Toronto all hated it, but I liked it. And the next week, a full-page ad appeared with my quote across the top. I thought, This is pretty good: a brand-new career in my forties.
In 2000, as I turned 50, the theater critic of the Toronto Star , the country’s largest paper, walked in one day and said, “I’m tired of this. I want out.” It was the same day that my department at TVOntario, my major employer, got slashed, and I was without a job. The arts editor of the Toronto Star called me up and said, “I listen to you on the radio. Have you ever thought of doing it in the newspaper?” And I said, “That was actually my childhood dream.” So at the age of 50, I became a daily newspaper critic.
John Simon: If you like to write (which I obviously do), and if you like theater (which I obviously do), and if you put those two things together, they spell theater critic. I was taken to the theater when I was a very small boy, and I fell in love with it. At any rate, I fell in fondness for it. So given my critical nature and my wanting to be closer to the theater, this is what came out of it.
The first publication I wrote for—if you can call it that—was a little pamphlet
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