The Future

Instead of concentrating regional power in one paper/one critic/one review systems, we hope for an amplification of multiple voices. Plays deserve more than one defining review. We hope for multiple reviews from multiple reviewers for each play. We hope for reviewers in conversation with one another, as currently heard on the podcasts Token Theatre Friends, Did They Like It, or Three Views on Theatre. We hope for published reviews from a wide range of perspectives across lived experiences, ages, sexes, religions, genders, sexualities, professions and regions. We hope to amplify and examine the diversity of aesthetic, taste and opinion instead of giving only one person the megaphone.

Arts journalism is much more than reviews. We hope for more previews, interviews and think pieces that focus more on “why this play now,” how the play was made, it’s artistic legacy or lineage, all the many people who’s work goes into making every production, trends in the theatre or deep dives into unsung heroes of theatre. We hope for more pieces that lift up those calling for change in this industry. We need and hope for more pieces that interrogate unsafe or unfair practices in this industry, productions trafficking in racism or homophobia and leadership that is toxic and abusive. We want to advocate for all the ways we can expand arts coverage, fund art journalism, and support a new generation of diverse voices.

We urge all theatre critics to end takedown culture by way of writing about artists in a degrading tone. This means gleeful slams, mocking insults, and dismissive ridicule in reviews. This tradition has been seen colorfully through well known critics through the ages, and a feared aspect of theatre criticism as a whole. However, opinion is one thing; degrading an artist is another. We call to end cruelty as critique. We believe such derision and disrespect guised as “critique” hurts this craft and its future, as well as the art form it critiques.

We want to hear what the writers, directors, actors, designers, stage management and literary professionals think about theatre in their areas. Much like we want to know which  restaurants professional chefs would recommend, we want to know which productions professional theatre artists would recommend. We hope reviewers can “share the mic” with the people who most intimately understand the very thing they are seeing.

Who is reviewing plays in your community? What is their background? What plays have they raved about or slammed in the last ten years? What is their taste, preference, favorite writer? These things are vital in teaching us how  to listen to a review and how to judge its relevance. There must be a better solution than “read everything I have ever written” to properly fathom a reviewer’s general perspective. We hope for more pieces that examine a critic’s own subjectivity.

Whether they are journalists or artists, we want to know what critics love, not what they hate. We hope for multiple voices offering multiple suggestions for what is worth watching and supporting. If you don’t like a production and don’t want to support it then don’t give it any coverage at all.

We do not see this as toxic positivity or censorship, but rather asking ourselves: just because I didn’t care for it, does this show deserve not to exist? Does this production deserve financial hardship? Does this production deserve to be erased? Are you the best audience for this production? If the answer is no… then do not review it at all.

We want to hear from whomever enjoyed or responded to a production and why they did. Instead of how to dismiss a show, we encourage finding respondents who can tell us how to enjoy it. Not every show is for every audience. So not every show should be reviewed by the same critic.