Essential Blog Offense

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There’s drama pinballing through the theater blogs this week, people! In a recent letter to subscribers, Carolyn Cantor, the director of Adam Rapp’s play Essential Self-Defense, took issue with Charles Isherwood’s “scathing” review in the Times. Isherwood has become something of a punching bag among theater bloggers for his perceived stodginess, and the review is, at times, unnecessarily ad hominem: “A self-conscious exercise in stagy attitudinizing, it could almost have been composed by a computer. Well, maybe a computer that spends a lot of time posing in funky bars in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.” [Disclosure: we once caught a nasty virus from a computer we picked up in a funky Williamsburg bar. Never again.]

Cantor’s letter went on to name other critics who “embraced” the show, emphasizing more “adventurous” theater bloggers. (We interviewed Rapp, who we like, and reviewed Essential Self-Defense, which we didn’t.) That’s when Culturebot, a great performance art group blog – don’t call it a P.S. 122 blog – edited by P.S. 122’s Andy Horowitz, dipped its oar in by suggesting that those bloggers were essentially part of a viral marketing campaign fueled by free tickets (accurate) and complimentary beer (inaccurate). Bloggers took umbrage! Perhaps the best insight came from Parabasis, who detected a whiff of “our show is just too experimental for the Man!” in Cantor’s letter, possibly prompting the P.S. 122/Culturebot crowd to go, “Hmm. Experimental, eh?” [Paraphrasing ours.]

Whew! All this in the same week that Time Out New York’s Spring theater issue cautioned readers to beware of certain unnamed theater blogs because “marketing departments have offered drama bloggers free seats…” There seem to be two distinct questions here: How does the theater community counterbalance the New York Times, which, like it or not, is a near-monolithic critical force? And if the Rise of Theater Blogging is the answer to the first question, can complimentary tickets yield favorable reviews when there’s no editor monitoring ethical standards? Anyone know of any verifiable instances of bloggers hyping a show they didn't like in exchange for comps?

(Photo by Richard Termine.)

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Arts & Entertainment on April 6, 2007 1:02 PM

Comments [rss]

f r a n k

The idea(s) that traditional media don't receive free tickets and that traditional media critics aren't "part of" the industries they critique; are really quite strange. theatre blogs are not all equal, but neither are papers. the _Times_ and the _Voice_ (and TONY) all have critics with specific, perceivable tastes. bloggers do too. a lot more theatre goes on in this city than can be documented by the centralized "arbitration of taste" that is represented by the _Times_, particularly given its shrinking arts coverag and the fact that Isherwood is in many ways a more conservative, curmodgeonly critic than Brantley.

Gabriel

The TONY article was so ridiculous that I called and canceled my subscription. It's just become a useless magazine.

moxie the maven

The TONY article was a huge disservice to bloggers, and the theater industry in total. It implies that Stephen Sondheim just plunks out a melody and calls it a day, letting the orchestrator do all the real work. It calls chorus girls ugly. It's a real shame that this year's annual theater issue seems to take aim at the theater as much as it celebrates it.

Joshua James

For those that point out that the paragragh doesn't begin with the words "beware" . . . I know it doesn't . . . I did that on purpose - heh!

You just can't trust us bloggers!

Joshua James

What was sloppy about the TONY mention was this paragragh:

You know that clever theater blog you bookmarked, the one with inside dope on the edgiest shows and artists? Be careful—it might be a PR tool. Marketing departments have offered drama bloggers free seats to write about hipster-skewing plays such as Pig Farm and Dying City. Mind you, theaters don’t demand positive write-ups; they just want the cool-kid buzz. Blogs to trust: George Hunka’s Superfluities, Isaac Butler’s Parabasis and Jaime’s Surplus.

It used the PIG FARM blog night as an example of what not to trust . . . then named Isaac Butler's blog Parabasis as a blog you can trust, neglecting to mention that Isaac ORGANIZED the PIG FARM blog night . . .

And anyone who reads blogs knows this . . . you can tell right off the bat the tastes and individuality of the blog author . . . free tickets would not be enough to buy that, as that the readers would know right in advance they're being hooked . . . I've gotten free tix before I even had a blog, free tix are handed out all the time to generate interest in a show . . . there are random PR blogs out there with limited readership because they don't discuss or embrace, they don't argue, they only tell . . . critical blogs, be it of theatre or screenwriting or film are about the discussion . . .

I'm a fan of TONY (and it's theatre critic, who also has a blog) but that paragragh did a great disservice to those who have been blogger, and left quite a few really reputable blogs out, in particular Garrett Eisler's PLAYGOER, who first brought the RACHEL CORRIE circus to everyone's attention (ignored by MSM until the last minute) and Mark Armstrong's MISTER EXCITEMENT, who also has scooped a number of stories (recently, RACHEL CORRIE getting cancelled in Miami) . . .

Methinks there are other theatre bloggers to are just as worthy, and to begin the paragragh with the words "beware" does a disservice to all of us who have been doing this for free for quite some time.

MissPinkKate

Exactly- no press person pays for tickets. They get comp tickets (and usually more than one).

Rebecca

What reviewer pays for tickets? None.

jaime

Even when theatre bloggers aren't getting free tickets from theatres (and no, I haven't heard of anyone falsely praising a show because they got comped), they're often getting in free other ways. Theatre bloggers are often enough theatre industry people - if the tickets aren't coming from a marketing director, there's a friend in the show, tickets through work, or seat-filling for a papering service. Which is maybe even insurance against praise-for-comps - theatre bloggers are actually pretty used to occasionally getting into things for free.

Marketing directors are also being very good and careful (Playwrights Horizons especially, in fact) about negotiating these new relationships. Most ticket offers come with a request, rather than an in-exchange demand, for a mention on the blog, and often (Playwrights Horizons, again) this includes an explicit invitation to write *any* response, good or bad. They're just trying to get the word out.

Tim N.

It's much more likely that a theater blogger knows someone who knows someone who knows a guy who's involved with the show. The theater world (particularly the off and off-off worlds) is *this* big. I would suspect it's something on that level, rather than something more corporate or more set-up.

Either way, if the Times blasts you, stand up and take it like a man (you know, like I did! *sniff sniff*). All kidding aside, this director did this writer and this show no favors by blasting back.

Elderta

Don't NYT reviewers get free tickets, too? The Times reviewers are always the most harsh and nasty reviewers on the planet, so what's wrong with a counter argument? And who says that all the theater blogs will write a good review just for a free seat?