 Welcome to the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY and to Prelude 21. Start making sense. It is our annual theatre and performance festival celebrating the work of New York theatre artists of ensembles and it's hard enough in normal times to create work for the stage and for spaces inside and outside but at the time of Corona we all are faced with exceptional challenges and we are here to celebrate again the extraordinary achievements that come out of the New York theatre community. It is time I think and we feel to start making sense to ask questions why are we making theatre but also how are we producing it and for whom. And this is a great investigation again into the mechanics of making art in New York City and we also invited theatre ensembles from around the U.S. from Detroit and Cincinnati and Lewis and Philadelphia and New Orleans to join us and this will be extraordinary. Look into what is on the minds of artists right now. Now we also have many panel discussions. We have an award which will be giving out to honor outstanding members of the New York theatre community so I would like to all of you to join in and get an insight of what is happening. Hi everyone. Thank you so much, recorded Frank. Always wonderful to see you standing in a gorgeous green field and describing it as the Siegel Centre which I think those of us who have worked there, several of us on this screen have done that is certainly how it feels spiritually. So Prelude for me is a homecoming. I was a curator at Prelude in 2011 and maybe 12 or possibly 10. It's the past but it is one of the great incubators and sort of, I don't know, you would say like a wonderful little fishbowl where you can see all of the sort of the strangest, first best thoughts of the theatre makers in our beloved field. So it is a privilege to be here with some of the freshest voices, the newest faces who will be describing that beloved field, inscribing it into the archive and being the interpreters and critics who will hopefully kind of carry the word forth as the theatre emerges from this long and strange period of dormancy and potentiation. So welcome all. The panel that we're doing today is specifically organized around two new groups. The first is three views and the second is the Did They Like It cohort which is a new body of critics who are writing weekly even daily about the work in New York. What I was hoping we could begin with is because these are new groups, in the case of three views, it's a group which is kind of being reborn after the shutdown. I was hoping we could hear from the people who are in them, giving us a little bit of the biography of the institution itself. So first let's start with three views. What is it? Who is it? What is it? How was it born? And what sort of position are you hoping that it will fill? So the people who will be answering that for us will be two of the minds behind three views, two of its editors, Jose Solis and Sarah Rose Leonard. So let me turn it over to you. Thanks Helen. Jose do you want me to start? You go ahead Sarah. Okay. So Jose and I are what we call viewfinders of three views, kind of co-editors but people who are orienting the public towards different points of view on one place. So Jose, Brittany Samuel and I, Brittany is currently traveling in a car so she's not here. But the three of us came, were selected by one of the founding editors, Melissa Crespo, and Sarah Rule and Julia Jordan on behalf of the lilies who birthed three views. They came up with three views right before the pandemic as a response to some criticism that felt like sexist and biased, specifically responding to Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogels plays on Broadway that were really well received by the public and closed fairly quickly. And that, you know, there's a lot of long standing rage and criticism and against criticism, and that fueled the lilies which is a group really focused on gender parity and equality in the theater to start three views. The idea was that they would host writers from different fields, different artists to talk about art and have multiple points of view on a play. And that changed because the pandemic happened and Melissa Crespo really did a very valuable and smart thing with the funding they had already secured to do an archive of everything that happened in 2020. And the three views site became an archive for every major production that we could find on that had closed or was going to be postponed or shuttered. We don't know if it would come back so it served as an archive and then also held a lot of homes, rants and raves from artists in the community. And that came on as an assistant editor at the time when Melissa was just kind of drowning in submissions and helped her sort through and was working very part time. And then when she moved on as the Associate Artistic Director at Syracuse Stage, she passed the baton to Jose, Brittany and I to work together for three different viewfinders. And now we're looking at one play a month with three different perspectives. Sorry, that's the beginning. We can keep going. You aced everything. I have nothing to add really. I practiced. Can I actually ask Jose, as a viewfinder, obviously one of the most important things about three views is that because it's not binocular but trinocular. It means there is a huge amount of attention on whichever show you do choose. The first show that you guys chose to have this kind of the kind of glory of all of this attention paid to it is chicken and biscuits. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your own private logic of how you decide on what show you think should sort of receive the three views treatment. And and if chicken and biscuits, how that sort of either exemplifies or counters that that understanding of what your editorial function will be. Yeah, of course, one of the things that we were very conscious of and about was in this, you know, like return to life theater. Because like theater never really stopped, but this return to life theater. We wanted to hold the industry accountable. There were so many promises that were made in terms of equity, not only, you know, in giving artists of color, the same opportunities but also giving women and trans and non binary artists the same opportunities that mostly cis white men and women have. We wanted to select obviously thinking about New York being the capital of at least American theater. I don't think a global theater anymore. The pandemic pretty much destroyed that myth. And we wanted to focus on a Broadway show that was unlike anything else that would be coming back. I mean, we didn't want to do the music man, we didn't want to do like any Scott Gooden, you know, traditional old fashioned stuff. We wanted to focus on something different. And after looking at all the options that we had and the things that were opening around our launch date, we decided that Douglas Lyons. Play was ideal. And in similar fashion every month as we we've planned a schedule ahead for at least like six months. Obviously we can't give away all the details like no spoilers we want to surprise you. But we have been very careful in selecting the shows because we're also planning on covering regional shows and shows outside of New York City. You'll look you'll see those when the time happens but yeah we we are very thorough in our discussions about why do we want to talk about the show what is the show potentially saying to people right now. And I think we have fun doing that right Sarah Rose. Yes, so fun. One of the things that I'm particularly excited about with three views is, I was at a tailor mac production at Joe's pub just a few nights ago, and in the sort of banter. Taylor mentioned that they were interested in slowing down in a city that does not usually make any space for people to slow down. Literally on the sidewalk, there is not space to slow down. And that Taylor's current project, which is new songs about queer people is actually an effort to kind of stop and look and spend time with something, as opposed to sort of reacting to the intensity of the kind of quote unquote New York pace. And I feel that three views is the critical version of that kind of slow thinking the slow food movement comes to criticism which is that as it sort of unpacks over the month, you keep returning to a show thinking about it again and again, as opposed to doing what so many of us who are in daily criticism have to do, which is think about something and then immediately sort of etch a sketch it out of our minds, so that we can think about the next thing on our plates. That's a mixed metaphor. If I were an editor, I would have I would have toggled that in the comments. Well, let us switch to the other sort of new project new critical project we in the email that I sent this group of writers, I said, This is the occasion for a party if there were just one new critical like outlet in the world how thrilling that is but we actually have to. So the second one we're turning our attention to is the did they like it cohort. And so who one Michael, I think was nominated and sort of volunteered to be the person to kind of describe the biography of did they like it. And let's be clear, I pushed everyone out of the way and said I'll talk about it. So, did they like it. Many of us know that did he like it was originally devoted to the reviews of Ben Brantley. And so the idea was that it would aggregate reviews of shows that were going on in New York City, and you would say, if Ben Brantley liked it, it got thumbs up and who cares what everyone thinks. But then a group of theater lovers contacted Jose, because they saw the incredible work he was doing to diversify the fields with his BIPOC theater lab critics lab and said, Hey, we'd like you to be a part of bringing in a bunch of diverse voices that were a couple of white guys to say what's what. And our perspective is not so much to save a show was good or not but to discuss what its merits were. What was the artist doing. How did it affect the audience was the audience represented by what was going on on stage so that if you were seeing a show just chicken and biscuits, and you have a bunch of people who are like, Well, I don't think it's funny at all because I don't get it. The people who are reviewing it would say, Well, maybe this appeal to me, but I know that audience was getting their life and we'll report on that, as well as what we thought was going on craftsmanship wise. We also do aggregate the other other reviews but unique from other aggregate sites, our cohort reviews each production as well so it's not just what those critics think it's also what we think. And we rotate around and you'll get a fantastic selection of our thoughts. You have Christian, Ran, Betaturi, Anna, and me. But I think also, Jose, so I know I said I wouldn't do this, but Jose, can you actually describe your relationship to the cohort. How that how and how your relationship has has changed as the as the thing has been born. Okay, so my official title, I always forget it because it's like it sounds like very serious. I'm not a very serious person. It's cohort critic cohort director or something like that. Basically, my job was to recruit the team and to put the team together. And I have to say that I feel like whoever it was that put together the Spice Girls is Anna, Juan, Michael, Betaturi, and Ran and Christian are just fantastic. Like I couldn't have dreamed of a better team to be working with. And what I do with them, one of the things that really became very important to me during 2020 and throughout the pandemic has been this notion of community Helen, you have mentioned already that critics don't necessarily interact with each other and don't get to talk. And when we bring into the mix, critics who aren't white, that's even, you know, that's a whole other story that there's no community basically for people from for critics from underrepresented communities to have this. So one of my favorite things to do during the pandemic is kind of build on the sense of not only community but also family. I love working with Anna when Michael Betaturi ran and Christian so much. And one of my favorite things to do with them actually is besides, you know, doing assignments and editing their work is when we are able to get together and just like talk about the things that we love. I don't know, necessarily, like I don't feel like much of an editor, or much of a leader, I just feel very blessed and very lucky to be in their company most of the time. I don't know if that's a very like roundabout answer, but I hope it helps. It's very exciting because it's the model of critical community as salon, which I think that over the years, many of us have talked about the need for a sort of a public intellectual conversation which is happening sort of salon style as opposed to in the sort of adversarial style that it often happens in in sort of critical writing. So it is exciting to know that that is happening in the did they like it cohort. Speaking of did they like it cohort, could we go around and could each of you just introduce yourself? And could you also talk about a show that you have seen recently that you did not write about, but that you wanted to write about? It doesn't need to be theater if that's because I know we're only just coming back. But so at the top of my screen is Anna so if we can start with you and then go and each of you, because this is like a little chance to get a little capsule review from each of you. What have you seen what has what has been kind of moving and stirring and changing you in the last week. Okay, so tell us who you are and what you've seen. All right. Well, my name is Anna lovely to see everyone. So I recently saw chicken and biscuits. And I did not write about it, but boy did I want to. I am one of my best friend who just came to visit New York. And I was sitting next to her the whole time watching this. And it was really hard not to get emotional from the show and her because every two minutes she was like, This is my family. This is the first time I'm sitting just like that. I swear to God, I'm not like that is my family. And it was such a beautiful journey to be able to be there with her and celebrated with her. And yeah, I really wish I could just wrote about that experience and it's a great show. I love it. And yeah, chicken and biscuits. It's mine. Um, one Michael. So, because I am the pretentious person here. I wish that I had a coverage fire shutting up in my bones the the opera I Camille Brown. Wow, just Camille Brown, and the music, the story and bringing step and just black culture to the met. I have read a number of reviews and I feel like they're missing so much. And I think that part of that is because they're not necessarily in that same tradition. And I haven't written about it, I may write about it later on, but for now, that's what it is that's moving me. Hi, everyone. My name is with our three and thank you Helen nobody's called me fresh and new in a while. So that was great. Thank you. Um, I think the last thing and I watched that I did not write about is American utopia. And what I did want to write about is a friend and I were watching it. And I swear when it ended, he said, he was literally sad it saw his face and he was like, No, this can't be ending. So it was like, I think what I really wanted to write about is how much we've missed a spectacle. How much we've just missed standing up in a crowd of strangers and dancing and singing along. And, yeah, so it and you know I grew up in India with Hindi cinema which is so much of a spectacle. So I have, I guess I've missed a spectacle these, these few months of the pandemic and it was really even the experience of watching the play it was great but just to be a part of the audience was something we missed and I didn't know I was missing so that's something I wanted to write about. Thank you. Ren. Hi. I recently, I was actually a couple weeks ago, but I saw Sanctuary City by Martin Amarok, and I was just so incredibly struck by, by how honest and lack of romanticism that play portrayed the experience of trying to not release any spoiler here. But the play is close, right? I can talk about it. What happens in it now? The experience of a potential green card marriage between two close childhood friends and how difficult it is. And I remember talking to my friend who went with me who was also not an American citizen. The idea that every time somebody would joke to me about like, let's find someone to marry you so you can have a green card that has always annoyed me. So to see a portrayal and representation of something like that on stage for the very first time, I think, on stage and in cinema was a new experience and kind of daunting. But I didn't write about it. I think possibly too hard to write about. I think we still need even more spaces to write because I think, anyway, that's my obsession. Okay, Christian. Hi, so the thing that I've been wish I really got to write about with Dana H. I did write a review for Did They Like It? of Is This a Room play that I really love and I love Dana H so much. I saw it off Broadway before the pandemic and it's like, without exaggeration, something I thought about like on an almost daily basis throughout all of the pandemic and seeing it again this time, I appreciated it even more. All of my theatrical training from college was an experimental theater and so I really love downtown weird shows and it felt so special that I got to see a very weird edited manuscript verbatim lip sync performance happen on a Broadway stage. I wanted to write about it so much. It's such a great play. It is tragically closing too soon. So consider this a small commercial that everyone should go see it before November 14th and hopefully maybe between now and then I'll get to write about it. That is such a, all of us found out just today obviously that Dana H and Is This a Room are closing a couple of months early. And I do think it kind of re-emphasizes for us how as critics we are one of the ways that the life of something ephemeral is extended because as long as we are thinking and writing about it and making it part of a cultural conversation or part of our own work, you know, it sustains at least the life of the thinking of that show. And so I do, you know, it was a real shock to see the announcement of its closure but at least, you know, always again it is sort of reminding me of how valuable criticism can be that it is that even if it was only on Broadway for a short time, at least it means that the writing around it multiplied by ten from the people who were able to do it. They were able to write about it when it was at the vineyard. So that is, so that's obviously my sort of slightly sentimental but my reason for writing which is to continue the life of things that I love because in the theater there is no true record. I wanted to ask you about your own sort of paths to criticism, especially what it is that you think criticism is best at doing. Like why do you write criticism as opposed to say academic criticism? Like why have you not sort of moved into the academy? Why do you write in the sort of public facing way that you've chosen to do? And so I thought maybe we would just sort of popcorn around the screen for that question because I think if each of us answers every question then we'll just wind up having one long conversation about one thing which will destroy us. So if it's okay if we could ask sort of why do you write? So that's the question I'm asking. If it's okay, I'm going to ask Jose partially because I desperately want to know the answer to that question and I have an inkling. Anna, because I don't know how you'll answer that question and Christian and then I'll have other questions for you guys. Okay, so starting with Jose. Okay, I'll try to make this super quick then and I'm curious to what you think is my recent Helen. So you'll have to tell me after I'm done. Basically, I've always been very unimaginative. I've wanted to be a critic since I was 10 years old and it's the only thing that I've ever said that I wanted to be. And the reason why I wanted to be that is because I grew up in Honduras. I'm actually here right now escaped Brooklyn to be in the tropics and I have a pool and a garden and stuff also bragging. I grew up here and it's a country where it's one of the poorest countries, the second poorest country in the entire continent. The illiteracy rate is like out of proportion. It's one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It's extremely violent. And as a little boy, I found so much solace and it escaped from the reality of where I grew up through criticism. Through criticism, I was reading Time Out New York and Entertainment Weekly and Premier Magazine when it existed and I was having imaginary dialogues with critics like Lisa Schwartzbaum and Artemis weekly who I have a massive crush on still. And basically the reason why I do criticism is because I wanted to be able to talk to people all over the world about the things that I loved. And the more romantic side of me also I think as mortals we always want to be able to capture the things that we love and extend the lives of the things that we love and the people that we love. And I figured that through criticism and through writing what I love and what I didn't like what I didn't get what I didn't understand sometimes about specific art pieces. I almost have this like really strange like you know like book, tons of bookshelves in my brain somewhere with like tiny jars with like little lights that's almost capturing the lightning of everything that I've seen everything that I've experienced and everything that I've loved and everything that I haven't loved, but they're all here stored somewhere. And there's this like combination of me like storing those memories and also through my writing wanting to do something like a like a spellbook like I want someone in the future to be able to read what I wrote and just for like a tiny instant to feel what I felt experiencing that so it's kind of like I'm not a huge like Harry Potter person like I shouldn't even say Harry Potter right now too late. But it's like my criticism to me are my spells so to speak. I love that I should say that was beautiful Jose. And I guess the simplest answer to this I I write for my mother, you know I write for my sister. I am an actor I'm a director and I love film and I love theater and I would come back and talk to my sister or my mom about it and they get things when I talk to them. You know they're very intelligent people but sometimes criticism is written in a way where not everyone can understand it you know it's delivered to you in this way you're like oh well then I don't get that I don't want to spend time then maybe I don't know know you do know you do know. We all know and I think it's really important to communicate things in a way that you know people will connect with and they'll understand and there's no need. Our job is to communicate something to another audience the people out there and if the people don't understand well then who's going to read who's going to learn about these amazing shows. So yeah that's why I write criticism so so my sister and I can talk about it in heights and we can just go nuts together. Christian. I love the way that you framed this question of like why do you do this and not like academic criticism. And I think you probably chose me to answer this because you know where I'm going to go with this. But in addition to being a critic I am also part of the Academy and I'm doing my PhD here at the Graduate Center where I'm pretending we are right now. And I have written theater criticism in academic journals and I've done it on websites and I've done it on blogs and I feel like I'm trying to juggle all of those and I like all of the different. Doing things for different audiences and different styles because it lets you do different things. I generally get really fed up with the elitism of academic writing which is why I prefer to write my theater journalism and on websites instead of in journals but I do like doing both. But in general I feel like I have three competing things when I'm writing a review that I try to juggle. And sometimes thinking about myself like you often talk about Helen like as a historian but like I'm trying to write something into existence like I think that I'm trying to make this into a beautiful metaphor like Jose did I think about myself as like a footnote in a history book somewhere or like the first time I saw myself on a plays Wikipedia article I was like oh wow like maybe I did something and we'll be like does that people think about this show now. But I also have a lot of training as a dramaturg and so a lot of the I am thinking like critically and academically intellectually dramaturgically about what a show is doing and how a show is doing it. But also much like Anna I write for like the everyday people I'm from Connecticut and I grew up with my mom bringing me to matinees and so much of the audience is not the like New York elite people who see Revivals of Plays but it's like moms from Connecticut and New Jersey and upstate and Pennsylvania that like want to take their kids on a train to see a show so I like want my criticism to be something about like those people can read and understand and help them decide like oh this is a show I should really go see this is like cool fun art doing something good or like oh this may be problematic or not good or too intellectual or not interesting I'm not going to like that so I try to get all three things together and sometimes it works better than others but those are like my three goals when I'm writing criticism. Um, so my question for one Michael and ran and three is actually a little bit more about. Moving from one kind of writing into another because I know that all three of you are multi taskers multi valent your people who have in one Michael's case a deep interest in dance. Um, in bed at three's case a deep interest in documentary and film in Rand's case I know you make pieces and so you're accustomed to kind of the sort of the creative process as a, you know, as a as the maker as opposed to the sort of the analyzer. And what I am curious about is that all of you have also done programs, the O'Neill, the BIPOC Critics Lab, you've had the experience of being edited which for me at least is always an education every, every time I get edited I'm like oh yes I do over use the semi colon thank you. And so I'm wondering about that practice that you have undergone of moving from one kind of writing to another. And how your teachers your editors, your salon compatriots have taught you something which you have recognized as I am changing my writing in order to meet this new thing which is to write public facing theater criticism. If it's okay we'll start with one Michael. So, I actually started as a dance critic. But even before that I was a playwright, I wrote a play called Horworks about a sex worker and toured around the world in it. And I did that because someone asked me to write it. And similarly with dance criticism I started writing it because people said you have a lot of opinions. You think the other critics are idiots. Perhaps you should write instead. No, no, no I can't, okay fine I will. And I came into theater criticism because the theater publicist kept asking me to write about it. They would read my dance reviews and say we really think that you should be a theater critic. I was like no leave me alone, no. And eventually I said yes. And you know I'm also a health journalist so the main difference here is that I get to share my thoughts about something without having to fact check it all the time. Being, writing about HIV which I'm also living with, there's a huge responsibility to make sure that you get the knowledge right. You can't put out misinformation in the world and potentially hurt people. So the stakes are different when I'm writing about theater. It's more of a shared experience and it's my perspective. I don't have to be right. That's actually really refreshing that I get to say this is something that I observed in this moment in time and how it affected me. How did it affect you? There's also the responsibility to make sure that I am thinking about people who don't have my extreme privilege of being able to go and see a show for free all the time. Even though it's work, it's also that privilege. And so I guess it's a bit of a shit focus from I have a responsibility to always be right and to do right by people. And then I have the freedom to actually say to people come to the party. Writing about theater is a party for me. Beat entry. Yeah, you know, I'd like to start with what Jose said that critics don't talk to each other. And I also think art forms and different kinds of art form criticism don't talk to each other enough. And they should. I, you know, drawing lines I don't think has helped anyone. So, you know, when there's like, oh, I'm a theater critic and I only write about theater. Oh, I'm a documentary critic and I'm only going to write about documentaries. I don't think that's going to serve anyone because whatever art form it is, it is coming out of that same moment in time in history and politics. So, so for me, honestly, I don't see it as very different, you know, very different buckets. You know, when I speak, not not stylistically, but if I'm talking about the politics of it or like the thought process of it. I think I, I would definitely approach a play or a documentary or a film or a TV series, pretty much from that same idea. Like, you know, the first thing I do is why are you making this film? Why are you making this play in 2021? You know, that kind of a thing. But what is different about, you know, different kinds of criticism for me is especially writing about film and documentary because I also worked in production is you kind of tell yourself it's not about you. It's about the story. It's about the issue. And you know, you just get further and further away. And in fact, being at the O'Neill NCI with Juan Michael, I realize that I don't write I in my reviews. I write one, one does one watches. And then that is something I think Juan Michael actually was and I'm not saying this because he's on this panel with me. But I owe him big for this because he said, why do you keep writing one? When you mean I and and I think for me with theater criticism, I'm finally getting around to that I of like, this is what I think. And this is why this and this is why I think so. And this is why it is important. So I think the only difference for me between different kinds of criticism would be that. Yes. The question of the eye and when to use it. I feel like it is it's so fraught for me, you know, that it is because everything I write has this this eye that's being shouted through the writing, you know. And then when you pivot to say it, there's it really it's like making eye contact with people like it's so powerful that you almost have to use it carefully because you know that it's it really sort of rocks the piece of writing. And in documentaries, you don't make eye contact. This is what I think. Yes. I have a similar experience. If I could answer this question backwards. I'm a playwright and director. So everything I create from the production side of things is is constantly extremely personal. So when I first started writing critic criticism and reviews, I went the other extreme. I will start from an extremely objective place with the construction of sentences. And I think similarly review reading other people my cohorts writing and it made me kind of realize that there is. Nothing that's ever going to be not personal when it comes to writing. And even from a objective and critical point of view as a theater critic, you're still, you're still looking at this piece from your own world view, and you can only represent your own feelings and emotions and try to and it's actually more important. To make that clear and carry that message through that you're not trying to speak on behalf of anybody in particular, but this is your one person's point of view, when you were talking about your experience from that piece that you and going back to the first part of the question. I've been counting stock of my upbringing and this is funny, but as a matter of fact, I think I actually have more mileage in reviewing and critiquing theater and film than playwriting and writing creatively and narratively. Because my dad is the editor-in-chief in Shanghai's first film magazine. So I grew up going to Shanghai International Film Festival and reading and translating a lot of international film reviews that he would or his colleagues were right. So I was exposed to a lot of that aspect of writing growing up, and I was very much involved in journalism growing up in high school. And then moving here, I think I went in the 180 degree flip of rejecting that identity and then embracing a more creative and weird and abstract aspect of writing. But I think I started writing theater criticism because I was craving, as a creator myself, I was craving for an objective point of view. Whenever I would write a piece, I would be thinking about if I created this piece, what would I want to know? And what would I want to have discussed with someone who might look at this from a different point of view? And I try to access that somehow. And actually, I remember being very affected by Helen Yorkies on Samara a couple years ago. Because I was reviewing that myself and I couldn't figure out how to get started working on it. And I was reading a lot of different reviews on the piece. And I think there is a tone of embracing the romanticism of the piece. And then your piece stood out for me because there was such a different focal point. And I was like, wow, I can talk about what I actually think and not care about what anybody else think about anything at all. And that doesn't discount anything what I believe or what I know. So that was an extraordinary experience for me. So thank you for that. I always feel like when people figure out how much fun writing criticism is, you know, everyone will do it. It'll be like, you know, fudge and roller coasters. Like we'll be beating people off with sticks. So yes, we have to kind of keep that part secret that it's actually like, you can say anything you want. It's total liberty and freedom. So one of the things that I emailed this group about before we started the discussion was that I am very curious about your. Thank you, Rand, for actually getting us to this question. Is other pieces that you've read that either kind of lodge in your minds and sit there and have conversations with you, either because you wildly disagree with them or because you are passionately moved by them. I, you know, when you were saying that it's frustrating that we try to silo these different kind of types of performance and types of criticism, for instance, some of the voices in my head are like Peter Scheldahl writing about fine arts in The New Yorker, who you would think would have nothing to do with all of this crazy moving stuff on stage. But actually I think the way that he assigns moral value to image is something that has really been powerful for me in my own journey as a critic. So Sarah Rose, now you are, I know because we share this, a dramaturg, as well as a maker, as well as a literary director, as well as a creative producer, there's not even enough room on the table for all of the pies that you have fingers in. But when it comes to criticism, which I know you read widely in criticism, could you tell us a piece or pieces that have been important to you, either as kind of co-adventurers or as enemies? And then I would also ask that question of, let's ask Christian and Anna that same question. So Sarah Rose, can you start us off? For sure. Okay. So I'm embarrassed. I never know how to say this critic's name from The New Yorker, Joan Asochela. Anyway. Yeah. Thank you. I knew how Anna would know. Okay. I've never met her obviously because I can't say her name. Okay. She has a piece that I highly recommend for everyone called Naked Nordics that currently hangs in my bathroom. That is just a fierce and intelligent takedown of a nude Scandinavian dance piece on Michael. I really think you'd enjoy. And it's like, it's just delightful. Like it's fun to read. You want to read it. It doesn't feel mean. It feels informed. It feels like the things that she doesn't know, she's orienting you towards what she doesn't know. And so it feels generous, even though she's writing a takedown, like she hated it. But she also was like, well, I never saw everyone's butthole before and I did. That was cool. You know, you're just like, oh, wow. Okay. Maybe that could be, that could be interesting. You know, like it gets you thinking about where you are in your own taste because she orients you so directly to hers. And I also just have to say I love everything Wesley Morris writes, but especially his piece about the culture wars that came out a few years ago. Just one of those writers who brings in, you can, you know, it's like someone you can tell is super well read and sees things and is one of those absorbers of the world but isn't an ass about it. And I haven't said that twice. So I just think he's one of those people who's not kind of casually referencing stuff but he's like, I'm bringing this thing I saw or read in for a reason it's because of this. And it's everything from high brow to low brow. So, yeah, those are some, those are some of my phase. Yep. Excellent. Yes. So, actually, I saw this pretty recently, and I just wildly wildly disagreed with it. And it was a review actually of shaking in biscuits by Adam Feldman. And I just was reminded why I wanted to do this. I was reminded why I want to do this. And I'm so happy that you wrote it because I was really, really, really reminded who I'm speaking to. And even if I don't like something how I should take a step back and realize where it comes from and make sure what I'm writing, I'm taking that into account. But someone that I love is Monica Castillo. She is an amazing, amazing film critic. And one of the pieces she wrote was about knives out. And I couldn't, when I saw knives out, I was like, something's not sitting right with me about this, but I don't really know what it is because everyone around me was loving it. So I was like, maybe I'm wrong, maybe, you know, but then I read Monica's piece and I was like, oh yeah. And that's why it's not sitting right with me. That makes total sense. And it's brilliant when you have more diverse storytellers and writers because sometimes you don't feel strong enough to voice your opinion because you think that it's incorrect. But when you have someone putting words out there that you realize, oh, my voice is her, my voice is correct. It gives voices to young people like me and hopefully more young authors and writers that will feel brave enough to put their opinions out there because they're valid. Just like everyone else's. Yeah. Um, Fabulous and Christian. I generally think in terms of like people, I love reading more than like single pieces, but the single piece of like theater cultural criticism that has like affected me. Most in my life was an essay that Karina Del Valle Shorsko wrote about the West Side Story Bible, Vanhova revival, and it just like really stirred me and it's something I like to think about a lot and it really just felt in the school of like very politically minded criticism that I like to write it. I felt like a really amazing piece and it was like this is pieces I try to write and I want to do it as well as you did. But as far as like the people I always always love going to Sari McDonald is probably my like favorite critic out there and I really love Vincent Cunningham at the New Yorker. And his recent work where they've been having him just write like single paragraphs of shows has been amazing for me to read. I'm all about changing up how we do theater criticism and rethinking about form and genre, and to do just these like single paragraph. I think it's really cool. He's an amazing writer and trying to boil something down like that is just really exciting theater criticism and I love reading those. That leads me to another question which I want to open up to the whole group. It is by the way 520 so if there are any questions from the YouTube commenters. I will ask them if they come up. But I just sort of flagging that up if there's anything that people want to ask the group. But this is something that I'm springboarding off an essay that Christian wrote for American theater which is about the potential of radically condensed thinking or radically condensed reviews to actually create a different kind of conversation. And that maybe that the future I think the title of the piece is something like the future of is Twitter the future of theater criticism. Is that did I just get that right. I did not write this Rob did but the title is the critical revolution will be tweeted. Yes, amazing. Yes, you did. I've made the terrible mistake of changing my screens or I could look at your piece and now I don't know where our stream yard is so I'm just going to stare into space there you are hi. The idea that the that Twitter is the thing I thought was most provocative about your piece is not necessarily that criticism can be contained in sort of an aphoristic form because that is actually of course as we know a very very old idea you know we the ancient Romans were aphorists you know that's the stuff we find carved onto you know cornerstones but in but that this type of digital criticism is a good way to meet the changing form of the theater that we saw so immensely and so quickly in the heat of the pandemic that digital criticism and digital theater may actually have something to do with each other on on in a very profound way that maybe you want to talk about that that it's appropriate to kind of meet the moment with something that is also digital also virtual also radically decentralized also kind of radically democratic. And so I wanted to ask the whole group about the process of being a theater critic some of you transitioning into the feeling of being a theater critic some of you being theater critics from way back of looking at the work that was being made online or being broadcast online during the during the last year and a half and how you felt either criticism did or did not meet that moment how obviously the moment is not over and so how you're kind of hoping to sort of move forward with that in the future. Do you think really I think this question boils down to do you think those new forms require new criticism. And so is anybody feeling particularly like they can answer that question I'm actually going to start with Christian because since you've already done some powerful thinking on this I want you to respond and then your cohort will respond to you. Yeah, so I talked a lot about in my piece about how I found using Twitter a very productive space during the pandemic that let me I really liked thinking through shows live as they happened that was something that was really exciting. I really liked that certain shows encouraged this like I was live tweeting a review of fake friends this American wife and one of the actors liked to tweet of mine during the show and then they mentioned it and like, it felt like, oh we can do all of this at all together and we can rethink how audience members and critics engage with our engage with each other change the temporality of that in the form of that so I hope we can do more of that in person theater. Public system producers have not been as excited about my Twitter, Twitter revolution as one would hope but that's why we're doing things like this and I even think the idea that we have a critic cohort and the six of us get to talk together through reviews and I even think that is a really exciting way to change up how we do this formally so I'm excited about that and I hope we keep having more experiments like this. I'll jump in. This is something Jose and I have talked about that our review doesn't have to be the written work written form because writing enshrining writing as the only form of communication is white supremacy. And we think about what tiktok has done for the world how it has opened up on conversations and spread information in wonderful ways. I'd love to get up on stage and be like they just did a high kick and like that's my tiktok review, or you know like go see the girls twirl, because there are so many people who that will speak to them and that's accessible to them they can't they afford the New York Times every day, but they do have tiktok on their app and they're interacting with it. And similarly, I think that it just brings more joy into the conversation than a poll quote. There's also to other thank you one Michael for mentioning that because it was one of the points that I wanted to talk about. And two other points are, first of all, the current state of criticism and like how decisions keep disappearing and all of that so sometimes the treat is basically the only opportunity some critics are going to have to communicate what they feel about something what they thought about something. And the other thing that I always encourage especially what I'm teaching is that when you become active in social media and digital media, and you're having those almost immediate conversations that Christian was talking about that's going to help return criticism to a more humanistic place, which is something that critics don't seem to like having you know like most of the critics who write for legacy media, just like seem to get so much pleasure out of like destroying the work of artists and this sense that they're untouchable makes them kind of like you know like Roman emperors like let's feed this show to the lions. And I always encourage my students to go and interact with the people whose work they're experiencing and not necessarily only when they're going to have like a press opportunity like you don't only have to talk to artists. You can interview them get involved and let's bring the credits back into the playground of places what I say. So we do have a question from outside outside our little fishbowl. I'm coming from David Cody my one time editor so there is there is a certain fraught quality to this question. As a recovering theater editor he says my question is does anyone on the panel want to talk about the value or the lack of value of having a good editor in their critical practice. I will say one quick thing about David as an editor who I was very lucky to have as an editor for years is that he had a he laughed at my jokes, which I always appreciate it. And he cut me he cut like he cut my length and that writing shorter is a strangely powerful way to think harder and more carefully. If someone says you've just said something in a thousand words can you say it in 400 and you look at what you've written. You can usually get it to 400 words and that you sort of squeeze the orange and it gets juicier and juicier as you as you arrow in on the things that are that have to stay in the review that have to be there. And the third thing that he did for me as an editor which I always talk about, which is that he was very valuable to me because he noticed my tics. And boy do I have them, and that he was he he banned me from using certain words, which I still don't use because he was right, and that those words, the fact that they kept showing up again and again and again, I had a certain mindset a rut that I was in. And so it was incredibly valuable to have this person outside of me looking back at my work and telling me what what they saw, and what I needed to change. So for some of you guys on this do double duty as both writers and editors. Some of you have been edited by other people in this window. Talk a little bit about the value of the editing that you have had, and any of the lessons that you've learned from being edited. I can go. Yeah, I'll go. So this is like, firstly, I'll acknowledge my favorite editor ever, Michael Koreski who edits reverse shot at Museum of the moving image. Michael has just I've spoken this language I've spoken English for all my life. I guess Michael has just taught me how to rethink sentences at this point. I mean like I write long sentences with like four m dashes and two sentences somewhere there. And Michael and like, and it's not even like and I remember this one piece that I had written. He literally took my last line and made it the first line and said, This is where the meat is why is this why is this coming in so late you know, just the kind. And I have never seriously I've never thought of and it feels strange saying it because this is a language of studied as an undergrad student as a grad student. I was a student of literature in English. And just to have an editor tell you that this sentence is where the gold lies and this is where this goes up top is so important and in fact like at the NCI. We once our cohort once talked off theater critic who apparently is so famous that he doesn't need to be edited, or he doesn't feel the need to be edited and all of us are like, God, I hope I never get there. Like, I don't know like, you know, everything I write, I don't even like you know it's again like I'm drawing a film parallel, people think the director is a filmmaker, and they congratulate them. And it's like that when something comes out and someone's like that's such a great piece and I'm like, yo, you have no idea what Jose cut out. And what he cut out he cut out two sentences. And those two sentences shouldn't have been in there and it's, I absolutely do not think I would be half a writer, as I am without my editors. So we are at 530. And so what I would love for us to do as our closing gesture is I would love for us to just raise a glass to these two new unbelievably valuable, much, much awaited new projects, which the thing that the thing that breaks criticism. And I think that everybody on this panel agrees with this is the thing that makes criticism. Bad, although I never think criticism is bad, but the thing that makes criticism bad is when there's a single voice. Whenever there is one critic. There is the potential for damage and misunderstanding. And that good criticism is many critics writing, reading each other, being read by the community, being paid to write. Moving as Christian does in and out of the Academy, moving as Beatatry does in and out of film. Moving as Sarah does in and out of producing and dramaturgy and criticism editing, moving as Jose does back and forth between three views and the did they like it cohort. It is a it is the it's the way forward and it's the way to heal criticism is to just welcome as many possible voices as many hands on keyboards as we can get into the room as we can read together and discuss together. So when I say that I'm so happy that these two new projects are up and running and and really running like so much has already been written. One of the things I didn't get to in this time is I have all your reviews printed out and I had my favorite paragraphs highlighted. I mean, come on. When ran talks about Dana H sitting in her own private hell that stuff is golden. And then we look at one Michael where you talk about with disappointment more in sorrow than an anger about the Lehman Brothers. It's so it's so it's the slice of a sharpened scalpel because it hurts you to write it as much as it hurts us to read it. When I look oh Christian look how beautiful your work is about the theatricality of interrogation. Is this a room please if you haven't read Christian on is this a room get out there get googling and be that tree there is there is too much to say I wrote about lack of one of blues right before you did. And you caught so many things that I missed it was it was really delicious to read you. And to see how you you wrote to the heart of the issue by finding out that this was a piece that was written in tribute to a specific woman. And that by going to lack of one of blues we were able to pay tribute to too many women who were gone and forgotten. It has been such a joy reading all of you so thank you all. Let's raise a glass you better have glasses I told you in advance. Raise your glasses. Unmute yourselves and toast with me to the success of three views and they did they like it cohort and more criticism. So to more criticism. Okay. All right. That is our night. Go watch shows as many as you can. And I will see you all at the theater. Thank you Helen.