The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has named Bill Cain’s “Nine Circles,” a harrowing play about war and redemption, the winner of the $25,000 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for 2011. The award recognizes playwrights for the best scripts that premiere professionally outside New York...
“Is there a future for criticism?” asked A.O. Scott in the NYT, March 31, 2010. He began: “TWO weeks ago I went to Atlanta to give a talk at a conference devoted, in part, to ‘The Future of Criticism.’ The gist of my remarks was that there is...
Cori Thomas has won ATCA’s 2011 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award for an emerging playwright. The award recognizes Thomas’ When January Feels Like Summer, which at City Theatre (Robin Rombach picture, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)premiered in March 2010 at City Theatre in Pittsburgh. The Osborn Award recognizes the work...
ATCA has named six finalists for the $40,000 2011 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award recognizing the best scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City during 2010. The six are Rinne Groff for “Compulsion,” Lisa D’Amour for “Detroit,” Kathryn Grant for “The Good Counselor,” David Bar Katz for “The History...
The Perspectives in Criticism talk at ATCA’s weekend conference in NYC (Feb., 2011) was coordinated by Sherry Eaker (Back Stage), who gathered playwrights Adam Rapp and Richard Nelson, artistic director Tim Sanford and producer-director-playwright Emily Mann to discuss the role of the contemporary critic. It was a stimulating discussion, one of ATCA’s best. Sherry deserves...
Feb. 14, 2011 — At ATCA’s recent New York weekend conference, playwright-director-artistic director Emily Mann, one of the Perspectives in Criticism panel (along with playwrights Adam Rapp and Richard Nelson and artistic director Tim Sanford), preemptively set a high initial bar for all critics by reading aloud Howard Clurman’s 1964 “The Complete Critic’s...
The latest take on the ongoing war of attrition is surveyed in this Feb. 8 NY Times account of some reviews of Spidey’s ongoing previews. Previously, Leonard Jacobs had a juicy take on the “Spider Man” situation in the Jan. 17 Huffington Post (it’s rich in links). He wrote of “the anachronistic...
About 50 ATCA members gathered in NYC, Feb. 4-6, for a weekend conference (aka “mini-meeting”). In between panels and shows and the hurlyburly of The City, a few took a short break to file a comment, and more are expected. ...
Before spending time with my new ATCA colleagues in New York, I was under the impression that most performers/writers/directors shy from reviews, so I was pleasantly surprised with those who confessed to reading them and how many said that both the good and bad live...
Some great moments in ATCA’s mini-meeting in NYC: * At the Sardi’s brunch, celeb guest Dan Lauria sounds like Vince Lombardi: “I like the challenge. I’m a Marine. Come on. Bring it on.” His stage wife in Lombardi, Judith Light, looks ethereal as she allows the winds...