Members' Milestones

Gerald Weales announced his retirement in the Fall, 2010 issue of The Georgia Review with an addendum to his annual “American Theater Watch” essay. His first review appeared in 1955 and he had regular gigs for The Reporter, Drama Survey and especially Commonweal (1968-93) and Georgia Review (1979-2010). He says, “Incidentally, just because I am giving up regular reviewing does not mean that I am giving up writing. As long as my mind and my typing fingers work, I’ll keep at it.” Click here for more.

Barbara Gross retired from the Federal Government Jan. 1, after more than 27 years. While employed most recently at the National Institutes of Health, she was Barbara: full-time writerrecognized for her outstanding contributions to the goal of “plain language in government communications.” She was the only non-scientist to serve on a committee which reviewed all materials disseminated to the public by the Department of Health and Human Services in the field of nutrition. Barbara is a veteran of the O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Critics Institute, class of 1992, and has been a member of ATCA since 1993. She served for a number of years on the New Play Awards Committee. She has contributed to such publications as Playbill and Playbill on Line, the Washington Post and Backstage and looks forward now to pursuing life as a full-time writer.

After 26Elizabeth Maupin Retires years, three months, two weeks and six days (but who’s counting), Elizabeth Maupin left her job as theater critic for the Orlando Sentinel on Feb. 26. She says she plans to read all the books on her bedside table, throw lots of clay and keep on reviewing theater online. She saw the writing on the wall last year when her arts editor left and was not replaced. Now she looks forward to a world with no bosses. Click for her final, characteristically no-nonsense blog.

(Betsey’s service to ATCA has been extensive, including a term as chair, 1996-99. She now serves on the New Plays Committee, which adjudicates the Steinberg/ATCA and Osborn awards.)

Dominic: handing out money nowOn January 15, Dominic Papatola, another former ATCA chair, left the critic’s post at the St. Paul Pioneer Press to become a program officer at the Otto Bremer Foundation. “The decade I’ve spent at the Pioneer Press has been one of the best of my life. My editors and colleagues at the paper have been supportive and willing to let me do things I doubt would have been possible at any other newspaper – how many theater critics were on the convention floor at the 2008 Republican National Convention? [covering it as theater]. I will continue to do periodic reviews for the Pioneer Press so that at least a little ink will still flow through my veins.” Dominic came to the Pioneer Press after covering entertainment for the Duluth News Tribune (“from ballet to tractor pulls”) and theater at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. And what other theater critic can brag that his theater community roasted him with a Fringe Festival show, Bring Me the Head of Dominic Papatola?

Brad: heading westOn Jan. 1, Brad Hathaway called it a wrap for the website Potomac Stages which, in its more than eight years, provided some 2,200 reviews, most of them Brad’s, of theater in Washington and near-by Maryland and Virginia. Characteristically, he closed the site (www.PotomacStages.com) with a celebrationof the highlights of the Potomac Region’s vibrant theatre community. An ATCA ExCom member who hosted ATCA’s 2008 conference in Washington and Northern Virginia, Brad continues to write for Capital Community News, the Virginia Connection Newspapers and others. He and his wife Teddie closed the website to free up time for major research projects prior to relocation in 2011 to California where they own a houseboat in Sausalito. ATCA member Tim Treanor wrote a testimonial to Hathaway’s Potomac Stages for DC Theatre Scene.

Recently retired: Joe Adcock, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (farewell column). Some recent buyouts: Peter Filichia, Newark Star Ledger (now blogging on TheaterMania); Damien Jaques, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (farewell column); Martin F. Kohn, Detroit Free Press; Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (farewell column; Chris continues as part-time senior theater critic). And recent buyouts of former ATCA members: Michael Sommers, Newark Star Ledger; Anne Marie Welsh, San Diego Union Tribune.

Michael Kuchwara, since 1984 drama critic for the AP and thus the most widely disseminated in the U.S., died May 22, age 63. He was an even-handed, well-informed, enthusiastic critic who did the profession proud. Only a sporadic member of ATCA, he was always available to discuss issues of importance. Click here for his AP obituary.

Bill Fark, known to many in ATCA from his frequent participation in our conferences, died April 18, age 91. He was unfailingly interested in everything theatrical, a kindly, courteous man with a ready laugh, distinctive in his colorful garb, western jewelry and striking white pony tail. From Escondido, Cal., he covered the arts scene in San Diego county, mainly for the North County Times, from 1967 until he retired in 2005. But he had had many jobs, including military archivist, playwright, theater director, choreographer, hairstylist and actor, and a varied education to match, beginning in his native Indiana, which he left to join a traveling tent show at age 16. Said former ATCA chair Welton Jones, Bill was “a sweet soul who delighted in being surprised and amazed. He represented his paper, his readers and his country in solid, admirable fashion, never citing his illustrious past. He should be remembered as a keeper of the flame.” ATCA sends commiserations to his widow, Lucy. Click here for Pam Kragen’s fine obituary on an extraordinary man.

Patricia Shipley Hook, 77, of Annapolis, an educator, puppeteer, actor and for 20 years a freelance theater and music critic, died Jan. 25 of Parkinson’s Disease at a hospice in Harwood, MD. One of the best tributes came from the Goodman Theatre’s Denise Schneider, who knew Pat from her time at Arena Stage: “Her wide, caring eyes and gentle nature were distinctly and uniquely Pat. She so loved the theater and we so loved her being there. I could always count on her reviews, regardless of whether she actually liked the production, to be thoughtful, well-written and encouraging.” In honor of her late son, Pat created the Evan Shipley Hook Fund within Foundation ATCA. The fund fosters and encourages new critics to pursue education in theatre and criticism and has been used to subsidize those at the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. The family suggests that ATCA members’ contributions in her memory be made to that fund. A full obituary ran in the Feb. 1, 2010 Baltimore Sun. Thanks to Mary Johnson for her contribution to this sad news. Click here and scroll down for more memories from ATCA members.

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Randy Gener at the Deadline Club, Rick Maiman(Feb 1, 2011) Randy Gener, Senior Editor of American Theatre magazine, has garnered a bunch of prestigious awards lately.  When he says he’s been busy trying to make a difference, he’s telling the truth: the Philippine government awarded Gener the 2010 “Pamana ng Pilpino” Presidential Award.  He was one of six honored with the award (which translates to “Legacy of the Filipino Nation”), conferred by President Benigno S. Aquino III in ceremonies held at Malacañang Palace in Manila in December 2010. Gener was selected out of 110 nominations from 23 countries. Gener spoke in Manila at a two-day conference entitled “Vision 2020: Responding to the Challenges of Migration and Development.”  The prize comes on the heels of Gener’s selection as the 2009 recipient of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and as 2010 Journalist of the Year from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.  NLGJA named Gener Journalist of the Year at its National Convention and 7th annual LGBT Media Summit in San Francisco.
Gener also was awarded the 2010 Deadline Club Award for Best Arts Reporting in New York, at a ceremony held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.  Gener’s article “Fomenting a Denim Revolution” (May/June 2009, American Theatre)   beat entries in his category from The Forward and the New York Times.  Gener also recently took home an honorary diploma by the National Operetta Theatre “Ion Dacian” in Bucharest, Romania.  Gener had organized and moderated a conference entitled “Musical Theatre in the USA” for the Operetta’s International Festival for Musical Performing Arts.

Bob Abelman, theater critic for the News-Herald in Cleveland, Ohio, is one of 25 arts and entertainment journalists and editors chosen for 2010 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. The fellowship allows Abelman to take part in the Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater on the campus of the University of Southern California this summer. In addition, Abelman received top honors in the 2010 Ohio Professional Writers, Inc. (OPW) Communications competition for his articles about community and professional theater.

Ron Levitt of Weston, FL, has been re-elected to an unprecedented tenth term as president of the South Florida International Press Club (formerly the Miami Press Club).  Theatre critic for Florida Media News and ENV Magazine, Levitt is a former United Press Staff Correspondent and retired chairman of the Levitt PR Group. He is a former Florida Asst. Secretary of State, who managed cultural affairs for the Sunshine State, and serves on the board of WLRN Public Radio and Television.

Following a successful March 30 viva (i.e., defense) led by Anthony Frost and Stephen Bottoms, Foundation ATCA president Jeffrey Eric Jenkins received his Ph.D. from the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia (UK). His supervisor was the distinguished critic and scholar of American theater, Christopher Bigsby. The thesis, “Making Theatre ‘History’: (Re)Writing the Record,” is a study of the challenges inherent in writing “authoritative,” “reliable” theatre history. “Making Theatre History” critiques totalizing theatre-history narratives within their original contexts of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It also demonstrates how these narratives have affected theatre historiography and offers correctives that may be of use to future theatre historians.

It’s not unheard of for theaters to be named for theater critics (e.g. the Walter Kerr and Brooks Atkinson Theaters on Broadway), but it’s rare enough to occasion surprise and deserve huzzahs. So cheers for Chicago’s Tony-winning Victory Gardens Theater, which on March 1 named its new 109-seat studio theater after Richard Christiansen, longtime chief critic for the Chicago Tribune. A key figure in the growth and recognition of the Off-Loop Chicago professional theater scene, Christiansen is also a longtime ATCA member and delivered a Perspectives in Criticism talk at our 2000 annual conference at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Read more about Christiansen, Victory Gardens

The International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC/AICT), of which ATCA is the American section, selected the renowned American performance theorist and artist Richard Schechner as the 2010 honoree for its biennial Thalia Prize. A prolific author and director, Schechner’s greatest impact has been as editor (1962-69, 1986- ) of TDR (The Drama Review), which IATC President Kim Yun-Cheol of Korea called “the world’s leading journal on the avant-garde and … the premiere journal of Performance Studies, a field he virtually invented.” The previous Thalia winners were Eric Bentley (US, 2006) and Jean-Pierre Sarrazac (France, 2008). The prize will be conferred at the IACT congress in Yerevan, Armenia, June 16-20, 2010. More on the IATC/AICT website.

Randy Gener received an Evan Shipley Hook educational grant from Foundation ATCA to defray expenses as ATCA’s representative to the January Executive Committee meeting of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC/AICT) in India. Gener, the 2007-2008 George Jean Nathan Award winner for dramatic criticism, serves as vice-chair of ATCA’s International Committee.

Long time ATCA member Robert L. King, contributing editor in drama criticism to The North American Review since 1993, and professor of English at Elms College, Massachusetts, saw publication of The Ethos of Drama:  Rhetorical Theory and Dramatic Worth (Catholic University Press) in May 2010.  The book uses rhetorical theory to evaluate moral values in plays from Shakespeare’s time to the present. Dr. King examines other theories of drama to show that they ignore or minimize the argument from moral worth  (Ethos).  Among the plays Dr. King evaluates are works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, David Mamet and Tom Stoppard.

Gwen Orel, encyclopedist

ATCA member and webmistress Gwen Orel contributed a lengthy entry onRegional Theaters to the new Broadway: An Encyclopedia of Theater and American Culture, ed. Thomas A. Greenfield (Greenwood, 2009). She sketches the evolution of the Little Theater Movement and its rise into the modern Regional/Resident Theater movement and takes a look into her crystal ball identifying a trend of increased flow from regional theaters to Broadway after a century of a flow the other direction. She points out that nearly one third of the 2008 Tony Award nominations went toproductions that originated in not-for-profit companies. The two-volume set is published by Greenwood Press.

Martin DentonMartin Denton’s anthology of plays from off-off-Broadway, Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium, which has been out of print since 2004, has just been re-issued as an e-book, available for Kindle. It features the seven plays that were in the original print edition, along with bonus material never before available. There’s more info at the publisher’s website or click here for a fuller description, including links to Denton’s podcast interviews with playwrights on nytheatrecast.com.

Denton has also just edited Plays and Playwrights 2010, the 11^th in an annual series of anthologies of new plays by never-before-published playwrights (New York Theatre Experience, Inc., publisher). All 10 plays premiered off-off-Broadway, Sept. 2008-Sept. 2009: The Invitation by Brian Parks; Flip Side by Ellen Maddow; Any Day Now by Nat Cassidy; The Spin Cycle by Jerrod Bogard; Suspicious Package: Rx by Gyda Arber & Aaron Baker; Our Country by Tony Asaro & Dan Collins; Maddy: A Modern Day Medea by Will Le Vasseur; Al’s Business Cards by Josh Koenigsberg; The Songs of Robert by John Crutchfield; and MilkMilkLemonade by Joshua Conkel. For more info, visit http://www.nytesmallpress.com.

March marks the publication of a volume edited by Barry Gaines, ATCA Treasurer and Excom member, and Margaret Maurer of Colgate University:  Three Shrew Plays: The Taming of a Shrew; Shakespeare’s The Taming of  the Shrew; and Fletcher’s The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed  (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing).

The Best Plays Theater Yearbook 2007-08, the 89th edition of this essential record of the American theater, was released in Nov. 2009. Edited by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins and featuring essays by ATCA members David Cote, Christine Dolen, Chris Jones, Christopher Rawson and Charles Wright, among others, this is Jeffrey’s eighth as editor of the series. Read more on the Best Plays website.

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