NEW YORK (September 19, 2011) — Continuing a tradition that dates back to 1920, the Best Plays of 2010-2011 were announced today by editor Jeffrey Eric Jenkins. For its 92nd edition, the annual chronicle of United States theater honors 10 new works staged in New York...
A simple question about ATCA’s longtime secretary and distinguished Nashville critic Clara Hieronymus has generated an outpouring of affectionate tributes as she approaches her 98th birthday, July 25. It also reinforces the impact of social media and how we can embrace it. During an ATCA excom meeting, Jay Handelman contacted Evans Donnell via...
Caldwell Titcomb, a familiar presence at many ATCA meetings for decades who had a long career at Brandeis and elsewhere in the Boston area as a critic, composer and professor of criticism and music, died June 13 of complications from leukemia and pneumonia. He was 84. One of...
Norman Nadel teaching criticism Norman Nadel, ready to travel, 1961 (images from “Under the Copper Beech”) Norman Nadel died Oct. 25, age 95. He had been critic in turn for the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen, the New York World-Telegram and Sun and the New York World Journal Tribune, chaired...
Gerald Weales: formally retired but still writing Oct. 15 — Gerald Weales, winner of the 1965 George Jean Nathan Award (the highest national award reserved for theater criticism) and an ATCA emeritus member, says, “After more than a half century of reviewing, I formally retired. My farewell...
Cheers for Richard Christiansen. On March 1, Chicago’s Tony-winning Victory Gardens Theater named its new 109-seat studio theater after the retired chief critic for the Chicago Tribune, a key figure in the growth and recognition of Off-Loop Chicago professional theater and a longtime ATCA member. Read more...
Larry Devine and his wife, Lois, made a surprise visit to Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater March 1 to attend the gala ceremony naming the new VG second stage in honor of Larry’s old friend and ATCA colleague Richard Christiansen. Since the new “R. C. Theater,” as it already...
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)...
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...
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. In honor of her late son, Pat created the Evan Shipley Hook Fund...