Read Online The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future by Matt Windman - Free Book Online
Authors: Matt Windman
Ads: Link
write a twice weekly column about the politics of the arts.” They said, “Great, come over,” and that’s how I joined. I had all this writer energy that had been building up because USA Today was not a writers’ newspaper. Newsday had these wonderful editors, and they let us write the hell out of everything.
New York Newsday lasted seven or eight years. They killed it, but not because it deserved to die. It was actually starting to pay for itself. But the Los Angeles Times , which owned us, got a new head of the board who wanted to show that he could save a lot of money quickly, so he folded New York Newsday . It was the last real chance of having a daily newspaper in New York that could compete with the Times . Eventually, I became the theater critic of the Long Island edition of Newsday .
Michael Riedel: It was really just a fluke. I had no ambition to be a journalist or to do anything in the theater. I went to college at Columbia, planned on going to law school, and was hanging out with a bunch of people who were involved in the theater, including a guy who became the editor of TheaterWeek magazine, who asked if I wanted to become the managing editor. I thought I would do it just for the summer, but it turned out to be a career.
I was at TheaterWeek for three years. Then I got friendly with a lot of gossip columnists, like George Rush and a woman named Charlotte Hays, because I had pretty good theater stories that I would give to them. Then Hays got a column at the Daily News . I figured she would need an assistant or leg man, so I applied for the job and got it. She was a bit of a disaster and got fired, but they kept me on. I worked for George Rush for a few months, and then they made me a feature writer. Then they gave me a regular weekly theater column. A year later, the New York Post lured me away and gave me a twice-a-week column, and I’ve been there ever since.
Ben Brantley: It was a long, circuitous route. It was the job I always wanted. It combined the two passions in my life: theater and writing. Journalism is a trade in my family that goes back a few generations. First, I was an intern at the Village Voice . After college, I worked for Women’s Wear Daily and W as a reporter, editor, and fashion critic, first in New York and later in Paris. It was the best graduate school I could have gone to. Then I was a writer for Vanity Fair and then the New Yorker . I also wrote movie reviews for Elle . My first editor at Elle was Alex Witchel, who at that point was dating Frank Rich, whom she subsequently married. The Times had been looking for a second-string theater critic for a long time. I met Frank through Alex, and we bonded over our love of theater. He called me at one point and said, “You know, we’re looking for someone. Would you mind if I threw your name into the hat?” I had to do some audition pieces, but it happened very quickly.
Charles Isherwood: I didn’t aim to be a theater critic. It really wasn’t a lifelong dream. I didn’t study criticism or journalism. But in a way, it’s something that drew on all of the various interests I’d been cultivating for years. I grew up in Northern California in the suburbs. I didn’t go to the theater very often, but I think my critical instincts were there from a very early age. I was a huge movie fan as a kid. I was completely obsessed with Pauline Kael. I wrote movie reviews just for fun. After college, I graduated and moved to Los Angeles, thinking I was going to either work in the movie industry or in magazines, and I ended up getting a job at a magazine.
I started going to the theater a lot when I was in Los Angeles. It was the late 1980s, when movies had started getting really bad. When the magazine I worked for folded, I ended up at Variety as an editor. At the same time, a friend of mine became the editor of Backstage West , and I volunteered to write reviews for five dollars each. A couple of years into that, Variety was very unhappy
New York Newsday lasted seven or eight years. They killed it, but not because it deserved to die. It was actually starting to pay for itself. But the Los Angeles Times , which owned us, got a new head of the board who wanted to show that he could save a lot of money quickly, so he folded New York Newsday . It was the last real chance of having a daily newspaper in New York that could compete with the Times . Eventually, I became the theater critic of the Long Island edition of Newsday .
Michael Riedel: It was really just a fluke. I had no ambition to be a journalist or to do anything in the theater. I went to college at Columbia, planned on going to law school, and was hanging out with a bunch of people who were involved in the theater, including a guy who became the editor of TheaterWeek magazine, who asked if I wanted to become the managing editor. I thought I would do it just for the summer, but it turned out to be a career.
I was at TheaterWeek for three years. Then I got friendly with a lot of gossip columnists, like George Rush and a woman named Charlotte Hays, because I had pretty good theater stories that I would give to them. Then Hays got a column at the Daily News . I figured she would need an assistant or leg man, so I applied for the job and got it. She was a bit of a disaster and got fired, but they kept me on. I worked for George Rush for a few months, and then they made me a feature writer. Then they gave me a regular weekly theater column. A year later, the New York Post lured me away and gave me a twice-a-week column, and I’ve been there ever since.
Ben Brantley: It was a long, circuitous route. It was the job I always wanted. It combined the two passions in my life: theater and writing. Journalism is a trade in my family that goes back a few generations. First, I was an intern at the Village Voice . After college, I worked for Women’s Wear Daily and W as a reporter, editor, and fashion critic, first in New York and later in Paris. It was the best graduate school I could have gone to. Then I was a writer for Vanity Fair and then the New Yorker . I also wrote movie reviews for Elle . My first editor at Elle was Alex Witchel, who at that point was dating Frank Rich, whom she subsequently married. The Times had been looking for a second-string theater critic for a long time. I met Frank through Alex, and we bonded over our love of theater. He called me at one point and said, “You know, we’re looking for someone. Would you mind if I threw your name into the hat?” I had to do some audition pieces, but it happened very quickly.
Charles Isherwood: I didn’t aim to be a theater critic. It really wasn’t a lifelong dream. I didn’t study criticism or journalism. But in a way, it’s something that drew on all of the various interests I’d been cultivating for years. I grew up in Northern California in the suburbs. I didn’t go to the theater very often, but I think my critical instincts were there from a very early age. I was a huge movie fan as a kid. I was completely obsessed with Pauline Kael. I wrote movie reviews just for fun. After college, I graduated and moved to Los Angeles, thinking I was going to either work in the movie industry or in magazines, and I ended up getting a job at a magazine.
I started going to the theater a lot when I was in Los Angeles. It was the late 1980s, when movies had started getting really bad. When the magazine I worked for folded, I ended up at Variety as an editor. At the same time, a friend of mine became the editor of Backstage West , and I volunteered to write reviews for five dollars each. A couple of years into that, Variety was very unhappy
Similar Books
