In the drop-down Commentary menu (above), a new category, Position Papers, has joined Perspectives in Criticism (the ATCA series that began in 1992) and Criticism in Controversy (newsy battles that start on the Home page before accumulating there). The newest Position Paper transcribes the Perspectives in Criticism panel...
This year’s Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has gone to Sebastian Smee of the Boston Globe for his art criticism. Finalists (i.e. runners-up) were food critic Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly and architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (for the umpteenth time) of the N.Y. Times. The criticism award was initiated in 1970,...
Many ATCAns attend Humana and we use it to hand out the Steinberg/ATCA and Osborn awards, so these review articles might be of interest: Julie York Coppens; Charles Isherwood; Chris Rawson (sidebar on Marc Masterson, who’s on his way to South Coast Rep); Don Shirley (mainly an interview of Masterson). If you...
The 2011 ATCA ANNUAL CONFERENCE will be at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, July 6-10: Full details coming by mail, but to whet your appetite, there will be eight plays to see (4 Shakespeare, 4 not), lively panels, companionship, a lovely small town full of...
Alison Croggon gave this talk on April 11 at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane, Australia, as part of the Low-Fi Forum organised by Arts Queensland. You can read it in its original setting here, where you can also read and add comments. A couple of quotes: “Criticism...
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...