Tag Archive | Arts criticism
Theatre Criticism Part 2: Accountability
In my first post about theatre criticism, I tackled the notion of the critic, my personal biases against them, and how criticism can (and should!) intersect with dramaturgy. In this post, I’d like to talk a little bit about accountability. It’s been quite a year for this topic. It seems we always want to find […]
Responding to a wake up call
Arts Council England just released a statement on Monday Dec 8th about funding cuts for theatres that don’t show attempts to make their work more diverse. The week before also in Britain, Meera Syal a writer and actor interviewed with The Stage Magazine and talked about vast potential for diverse audiences, in particular Asian audiences, […]
Coined “Czar” and it’s negative implications in our battle for The Arts
I understand that the term “Czar” for positions specific to tackle certain issues in all levels of government has become a coined term in the U.S….but can we just take a moment to notice that we are actually calling people czars? I guess once you’ve said it enough you forget what it feels like to […]
Critics and Playwrights and Something Inbetween
Over the past month I have been part of a new play dramaturgy project at BU which has made me think a lot about where I am as an artist. I learned a tremendous amount about what it means to read, re-read and give criticism to a new piece. During this time I also realized […]
This Is (in fact) Our Youth (of today)
In inspiration through a guest workshop with Bill Marx today, I look at this drama criticism article of “This Is Our Youth” directed by Anna Shapiro with star name Michael Cera in the role of Warren. This article posted on the Village Voice website utilized two voices of criticism “One Veteran, One Youth”. I understand […]
Where is our…Us?
This is a follow-up to my last post because I feared if I tried to combine the two my head would explode. Again, at Ilana’s suggestion, I read Sherri Kronfeld’s article, “Where is our Tiki Barber?” on HowlRound. (It’s getting less scary with helpful suggestions!) We discussed in class what the article is about, and […]
Backstage stops all posting of further theatre reviews
After HowlRound’s week-long focus on the art of being a theater critic, I found it really interesting to see HowlRound retweet that Backstage will no longer be posting theater reviews. In the article, Backstage to Halt All Theater Reviews, its author Colin Mitchell (actor/writer/director/producer) explained how the reviews were stopping because no one reads them anymore. […]
Complicated criticism critique
One of the trending topics on HowlRound over the last few weeks has been the role, or state, of the theatre critic today. In his article, Critics Love for Sale: Why Journalism’s Demise is Bad for Theatre, Denver-based critic John Moore argues that with the demise of print journalism and the rise of reviewers whose […]
Approaches to Criticism
I recently encountered Dominic Taylor’s “Two Considerations for Criticism.” This article, published on howlround, suggests that there are two central ideas that he does not hear critics discussing: 1) The primary function of the work 2) The primary audience The idea that critics do not consider this frightens me, and yet, I witness it from […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 