Just two weeks to Ashland . . .

ATCA’s Daumier critic prepares to go pen-to-pen with the Bard!
Final conference schedule to come shortly (no substantial changes from what was previously announced).
The American Theatre Critics Association, Inc. is the only national association of professional theatre critics. Our members work for newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and on-line services across the United States. Membership is open to any writer who regularly publishes substantive pieces reviewing or otherwise critically covering theater.
David Dow Bentley III is the thepeoplescritic.com, which can also be read at the Houston Chronicle and broadwaystars.com.
Nancy Bishop reviews Chicago theater for gapersblock.com and for her own blog.
Lindsay Christians is a full-time arts and food writer for The Capitol Times in Madison, Wis., where she has written theater reviews since 2008.
David Cote blogs, reports on theater and reviews Broadway, Off and Off-Off productions for Time Out New York and davidcote.com.
Harry Duke covers theatre throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. His essays and reviews can be found on the For All Events website and in the Sonoma County Gazette.
Sandi Durell is publisher, editor, and a critic at Theater Pizzazz which covers Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theater, including openings, red carpets events, and interviews.
Michael Grossberg writes on theater, comedy and the arts in Theater Talk, for the Columbus Dispatch.
Jay Handelman writes News, reviews and opinion for the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Pam Harbaugh’s blog, Brevard Culture, offers reviews, commentary and links in arts and culture primarily for residents of Brevard County and the Orlando area.
Lou Harry writes Lou Harry’s A&E: opinion, debate and discussion on arts and entertainment for the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Bill Hirschman is editor, chief critic and reporter for Florida Theater On Stage.
Chris Jones writes reviews, interviews and commentary for Theater Loop at the Chicago Tribune.
Aaron Krause is the editor of Theatrecriticism.com, founded by Alan Smason (Steppin’ Out, WYES-TV), which offers original theatre reviews and republishes current critical print works online.
David Lefkowitz publishes the theater website TotalTheater.com, co-publishes the theater journal Performing Arts Insider, and reviews on his weekly radio show, Dave’s Gone By.
Jack Lyons covers the theatre scene for the Desert Local News. Jack is based in Desert Hot Springs and covers the entire Coachella Valley and the rest of Southern California including select productions in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San Diego.
Katherine Luck writes news and reviews of theatre in Seattle, Portland, and around the Puget Sound at Pacific NW Theatre.
Jonathan Mandell reviews Broadway, Off-Broadway and independent theater productions, and covers theater for a variety of publications, including Playbill and American Theatre Magazine. He blogs at New York Theater and Tweets as @NewYorkTheater.
Andrew McGibbon writes Theatre Opinion, News and Information in TheAndyGram, based in NYC.
Kathryn Osenlund reviews Philadelphia theater productions and some New York theater festivals for www.curtainup.com. She also writes for www.Phindie.com —independent coverage of Philadelphia and arts, and tweets as @theatrendorphin.
Rick Pender edits The Sondheim Review, a quarterly dedicated to the musical theatre’s foremost composer and lyricist.
Christopher Rawson is the senior critic (part-time) for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and also appears regularly on KDKA-TV.
Wendy Rosenfield covers drama, onstage and off, in Drama Queen and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Michelle F. Solomon is a critic, reviewing professional theater and professional touring productions, for Florida Theater On Stage and miamiartzine.com.
Martha Wade Steketee writes reviews, interviews, and commentary on Broadway, Off Broadway, regional theatre, and film for Urban Excavations in New York City.
Steve Treacy is the primary theatre critic for The Port Townsend Leader. Find his reviews of Pacific Northwest shows at ptleader.com.
Lauren Yarger reviews Broadway and OB for Reflections in the Light and reports on pro theatre and arts in Connecticut Arts Connection.
For the full text of each Milestone, click on the name; for all these and previous Milestones together, CLICK HERE. They are listed in the order (latest on top) they appeared in the weekly ATCA UPDATE.
KAREN TOPHAM, Chicago, is actively seeking theatre critics from around the country to become part of the expanded edition of her website, ChicagoOnStage.com. Contact her here.
ALAN SMASON, New Orleans, has launched a new website, seeks to post reviews from legitimate critics country-wide.
JOEL MARKOWITZ received a moving radio tribute Dec. 21.
RICK PENDER, Cincinnati, OH, has signed a contract to assemble The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia, a comprehensive reference anticipated to be completed in late 2019.
For full text of these and previous Milestones, CLICK HERE.
Do you have a Milestone to share? Member Milestones are generally for Transitions (new jobs, retirements), Achievements (awards, honors), Publications (books, TV specials) and Memorials (obituaries). Write a paragraph and send it here. Include a Twitter address in the paragraph so we can give it wider notice.
After more than 33 years and (by her count) 13,000 reviews, the long-standing Chicago theater and arts critic Hedy Weiss has been let go by the Chicago Sun-Times. Reporting in the competing Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones writes that the sometimes controversial critic “fit into the decades-long Chicago tradition of powerful, hard-working and famously independent women writing about the arts, without compromise or apology.” Read Jones here. Here, the Chicago Business Journal reports. Weiss delivered ATCA’s 2015 Perspectives in Criticism talk in New Orleans: click for an audio recording.
Martha Steketee’s accumulating interviews of critics for The Clyde Fitch Report (click for index).
See ATCA International for news of the International Association of Theatre Critics from the ATCA members who represent us there. See also the IATC’s own site (just [2017] handsomely redesigned) and its web journal, Critical Stages, where the current issue deals at length with Contemporary African Drama and Theatre.
{For collected Pull Quotes going back to July, 2012, CLICK HERE.}
I “believe in culture as a social justice and social change project, which requires not just looking at how ‘good’ a performance is, but at what it does in the world.” — Jill S. Dolan, critic for “The Feminist Spectator” (Princeton University, Dean of the College).
“The Internet allows an avalanche of opinion for infinite sources, many of them rubbish, mean-spirited and lazy. But there’s some terrific writing out there too, and best of all there are so many new ways of reviewing.” — Frank Rizzo, 33 years as Hartford Courant critic, now writes for Variety and many more.
* Previous Pull Quotes are ASSEMBLED HERE.
New York Weekend Conference, November 3, 4 and 5, 2017. Details.
2015 New Orleans Conference
Alan Smason, chair
2014 Weekend Conference
New York City
2014 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Humana Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, April 2-6; chair, Jonathan Abarbanel.
Logo by Tim Menees after Honore Daumier
2013 WEEKEND CONFERENCE
Indianapolis, Indiana
March 21-24, 2013
Lou Harry, Chair
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2012 WEEKEND MEETING
Colorado New Play Summit
Denver Center Theatre Company, Feb 10-12, 2012
2011 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Ashland, Oregon July 6-10, 2011
Chris Rawson, Chair
Logo by Tim Menees after Honore Daumier
2010 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Waterford, Conn.
Chris Rawson, Chair
Playwright and critic
Playwright and two critics
Check out: ATCA Blog — scroll back for accounts of ATCA/Ashland, ATCA/O’Neill, more on the Pulitzer controversy, also from Humana and Denver festivals
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(above) Sarasota, 2009.
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ATCA’s Daumier critic prepares to go pen-to-pen with the Bard!
Final conference schedule to come shortly (no substantial changes from what was previously announced).