Author: ATCA

ATCA welcomes International Association of Theater Critics to Windy City

Chicago, Oct. 11 — And that’s the news: ATCA welcomes the executive committee of the IATC, meeting now in the Windy City at the same time (but separate from) ATCA’s own executive committee. IATC elected representatives attending are Mark Brown (UK), Jean-Pierre Han (France), Jeffrey Eric Jenkins (USA), Yun-Cheol Kim (Korea), Ivan Mendenica (Serbia), Don Rubin (English...

Philadelphia Inquirer sheds theater critic Howie Shapiro

Howie Shapiro The Philadelphia Inquirer, the leading paper in the country’s fifth largest city, which has helped nurture a vibrant theater scene (some 50 professional companies) and maintained a long heritage of regular Broadway coverage, has decided to do without a full-time theater writer/critic. On Oct....

Eight announced for Theater Hall of Fame, class of 2012

Andre Bishop, Betty Buckley, Christopher Durang, Michael Kahn, Trevor Nunn, Paula Vogel, Sam Waterston and the late Martin Pakledinaz form the 2012 class of the Theater Hall of Fame, announced yesterday by Hall producer, Terry Hodge Taylor. That’s a pair each of actors, directors and playwrights plus a producer and...

How (Not?) to Be a Critic

There’s been a spate of recent comments on criticism as chastisement and/or advertising (mainly of books, but we see the connections). For links to pieces by Richard Brody (newyorker.com), Jacob Silverman (slate.com), David Streitfield (nytimes.com), J. Robert Lennon (slate.com) and Dwight Garner (nytimes.com), click below. Here’s a teaser from Brody’s “How to Be a Critic”: It’s...

Bill Gale, back at the mic

Gale continues to recover from a two-week hospital stay which included a quadruple heart bypass operation and another to insert a pacemaker. For his take on it all (he calls it “Heartless”) … Bill writes (Aug. 22): Well, I can’t tell you it was a day at the...

Jim Kilker, a friend to ATCA

James Anthony Kilker, husband of long-time ATCA member Marie Kilker, died Aug. 16, age 86, in Bradenton, FL. Jim was known to ATCA from the many conferences he attended and as co-host with Marie of ATCA members and guests at a tour of Paris for...

March 21-24, 2013 weekend conference set for home of theater, stock cars, satire and song

Organizer Lou Harry bids us welcome to Indianapolis: “Central Indiana is looking forward to welcoming you to the home of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and the place that gave the world Kurt Vonnegut and David Letterman. Conference offerings will include the Midwest premiere of Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons” at the Phoenix Theatre,...

Happy 99th, Clara! . . . plus a pitch for ‘Under the Copper Beech’

Tennessee critic and ATCA co-founder Clara Hieronymus  just turned 99, occasioning a burst of congratulations from near and far. Tucked among them was a pitch for Under the Copper Beech: Conversa- tions with American Theater Critics (ed. Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, 2004), in which she and other pioneer regional...

Stream of commentary on criticism: check in here to keep up!

Thanks to Wendy Rosenfield, the new ATCA website has a steady stream of Twitter links to commentary on criticism (@Theatre_Critics, orange boxes on the home page) and also links to ATCA member reviews and stories (@ATCA_Member, just below them). You should follow both, or just check...

IATC publishes web journal, ‘Critical Stages’

Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, chair of ATCA’s International Committee, sends word of the latest (sixth) edition of Critical Stages, the web journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC). Go to the International Committee’s own web page or go direct to Critical Stages. Coming updates will include a...