Free The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future by Matt Windman Page A
Authors: Matt Windman
was both movies and theater. I’ve always been an addict. I started writing early on for my high school newspaper. Then I went to Columbia University and wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator , and it proceeded from there. It was a way to spend every day going to the movies and the theater, make a living at it, and not have to do anything else. Nothing else ever really interested me.
Like everybody else, I went through the process of starting at smaller places and moving on up by getting breaks. After I graduated college, my first job was for an independent theater magazine called STAGES , which was run by a doctor in New Jersey who decided to become a magazine publisher. I started out as a reviewer, then I became the editor, and I ultimately wound up co-publishing it with him for several years until economic realities finally took hold. While that was going on, I did freelance writing for a variety of publications. I got my first real break when I became the theater critic for the Christian Science Monitor . A couple of years later, I wound up also writing for the Hollywood Reporter as a film critic. Eventually, I segued over to theater and music as well, which led to a gig at the New York Post .
Helen Shaw: I have an MFA in drama from the A.R.T. Institute at Harvard, which leaves you qualified for literary positions and dramaturgical work, and I was doing that kind of stuff in New York. A friend of mine from undergrad, Jeremy McCarter, was the theater critic at the then-existing New York Sun . During the Fringe Festival, they got pretty desperate. He was trying to cover as much of it as possible, but it was too much for one man, so he was reaching out to everyone he knew who stayed with the theater and was possibly interested in criticism. I wrote a couple of Fringe reviews for the Sun and then became the second-string critic under Jeremy. I was very happy there. It was a very conservative paper, but it had some of the best arts coverage in the city. They were interested in weird, experimental work, which is my focus. I then went on to freelance at Time Out . Unfortunately, the Sun shut down, but I’ve been with Time Out ever since.
Howard Shapiro: I had been at the Philadelphia Inquirer in many positions before I became its theater critic. In the 1990s, I was the arts editor. Then I became the travel editor. At some point, both of the paper’s full-time theater critics took buyouts, so the arts editor asked me to do some theater reviewing. It never occurred to me to be a theater critic. My first review was in April 2002. When I sat down to write it, I realized how little I knew about being a critic, even after having been an arts editor, but I liked it. I did one or two pieces a month, which very rapidly turned into at least two pieces a week. And at some point thereafter, I become a full-time theater critic.
Jesse Oxfeld: I grew up as a stereotypical Jewish kid from the New York suburbs. I’d always been a theater fan and a theatergoer. By the time I ended up at New York magazine, I had already written for several different outlets while continuing to go to the theater. When I left New York magazine, a friend of mine became the editor of the New York Observer . At the time, they were remaking the paper in response to imperatives coming primarily from its owner, Jared Kushner, and the realities of the newspaper business. John Heilpern, who was their theater critic, only wrote infrequently.
This was soon after the New York Sun closed, and there was a theory at the time that advertisers were looking for a smart publication that was less expensive than the New York Times . There was this idea that theaters, museums, and cultural things like that wanted to reach an affluent, educated New York audience, so the Observer was looking to beef up its cultural pages and have regular theater criticism in order to sell theater advertising. It didn’t matter if the reviews were good or bad. They just needed someone who could
Like everybody else, I went through the process of starting at smaller places and moving on up by getting breaks. After I graduated college, my first job was for an independent theater magazine called STAGES , which was run by a doctor in New Jersey who decided to become a magazine publisher. I started out as a reviewer, then I became the editor, and I ultimately wound up co-publishing it with him for several years until economic realities finally took hold. While that was going on, I did freelance writing for a variety of publications. I got my first real break when I became the theater critic for the Christian Science Monitor . A couple of years later, I wound up also writing for the Hollywood Reporter as a film critic. Eventually, I segued over to theater and music as well, which led to a gig at the New York Post .
Helen Shaw: I have an MFA in drama from the A.R.T. Institute at Harvard, which leaves you qualified for literary positions and dramaturgical work, and I was doing that kind of stuff in New York. A friend of mine from undergrad, Jeremy McCarter, was the theater critic at the then-existing New York Sun . During the Fringe Festival, they got pretty desperate. He was trying to cover as much of it as possible, but it was too much for one man, so he was reaching out to everyone he knew who stayed with the theater and was possibly interested in criticism. I wrote a couple of Fringe reviews for the Sun and then became the second-string critic under Jeremy. I was very happy there. It was a very conservative paper, but it had some of the best arts coverage in the city. They were interested in weird, experimental work, which is my focus. I then went on to freelance at Time Out . Unfortunately, the Sun shut down, but I’ve been with Time Out ever since.
Howard Shapiro: I had been at the Philadelphia Inquirer in many positions before I became its theater critic. In the 1990s, I was the arts editor. Then I became the travel editor. At some point, both of the paper’s full-time theater critics took buyouts, so the arts editor asked me to do some theater reviewing. It never occurred to me to be a theater critic. My first review was in April 2002. When I sat down to write it, I realized how little I knew about being a critic, even after having been an arts editor, but I liked it. I did one or two pieces a month, which very rapidly turned into at least two pieces a week. And at some point thereafter, I become a full-time theater critic.
Jesse Oxfeld: I grew up as a stereotypical Jewish kid from the New York suburbs. I’d always been a theater fan and a theatergoer. By the time I ended up at New York magazine, I had already written for several different outlets while continuing to go to the theater. When I left New York magazine, a friend of mine became the editor of the New York Observer . At the time, they were remaking the paper in response to imperatives coming primarily from its owner, Jared Kushner, and the realities of the newspaper business. John Heilpern, who was their theater critic, only wrote infrequently.
This was soon after the New York Sun closed, and there was a theory at the time that advertisers were looking for a smart publication that was less expensive than the New York Times . There was this idea that theaters, museums, and cultural things like that wanted to reach an affluent, educated New York audience, so the Observer was looking to beef up its cultural pages and have regular theater criticism in order to sell theater advertising. It didn’t matter if the reviews were good or bad. They just needed someone who could
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