you for coming today I'm really excited to be here with you all my name is Regina McDermott groans are they them theirs left my co-panelist amuse himself hi my name is Yasmine and if I know my uterus pronouns yes my name is Oliver Sava and I use eat yeah and we'll talk a little bit about who we are but the structure of this conversation is pretty loose pretty open please feel free to raise hands and ask questions as we go all perspectives welcome and all questions welcome so I'll talk a little b
it about myself I am which is we make having a dramaturg and a director in my artistic practice I also run a website called were scripted a prescriptive org and as an arts journalism that aims to reprogram the way we critique each other through a lens of empathy and we also cultivate new voices in the field through our program the key young critics mentorship program which I run with Oliver and Yasmin is an alumni of it just to speak a little bit about her scripted we have ten writers total five
of those writers are alumni of the ki young critics mentorship program both programs were started in 2017 so we've had two classes of the key thus far we publish about 10 to 12 reviews per month absolutely phases as well I am the sole editor but we also have an executive assistant Rebecca segment if you don't have a little bit about the key and also who you are in your path into drama tears yeah so Oliver Sava I am a freelance theatre critic primarily that is my kind of general arts critic so I
write about theatre dance TV and comic books I was a staff writer at timeout Chicago for a couple years I am currently a freelancer for the Chicago Reader and then like my main writing home is the a/v Club which is part of the onion and then I've written for vulture box I became a weekly bunch of different places and I had gone to the National critics Institute in 2017 so I've gone to the National Grid's Institute at the O'Neill Center it's a two-week summer program where I want to save 15 crit
ics from around the country gather and we we see in a bunch of different productions mostly theater but we do do like a dance daily to restaurant reviews a lot of guests come in from New York Times Washington Post really big publications and we just write reviews workshops then we are it's in Connecticut it's really fun but so when to this program and was just really inspired wanted to kind of figure out a way to bring something like that to the local Chicago scene and I had been I've already be
en in conversations with MJ we know who is part of the Chicago inclusion project she's the founder of Chicago inclusion project and we have been talking about forming some sort some sort of predicts mentorship program and the conversations around mannequin is stalled and then I went to this program and in the meanwhile Regina ends like I mean I thought for people all emailed enjoy I think at once being like we have to do something about our criticism to teaching the youth and she was like why do
n't we just don't get dinner and that was how Oliver of these well yes'm haha no so you know we all just ended up getting one dinner and had a conversation about this and the kind of two really important pieces of the program or we needed people to take charge and teach which would end up being media Regina we needed somebody who would be able to kind of organize a grass-based like kind of a producer role Regina like entirely Regina fundraising all that stuff and then we we need an outlet if we
were going to be kind of training critics who wouldn't necessarily it's hard to just start writing and then we get get job a timeout or at a reader of freelancing so I haven't restricted already in place to to give these writers a platform immediately and a place where we could publish the the reviews of their writing as part of our program was super important and Regina had already built that infrastructure out so we were able to kind of just jump in there and and make it happen incredibly quic
kly or something I came back from NCI the second week of July and we launched the first session Vicki I think the first in the beginning September yeah and then a large part of the impetus to start training critics I think from my end was about as we generated respected and as you are interested in artists critics coming to the to this discipline the frame of empathy with which we wanted to criticize and the way we wanted to redefine critical thought as not something that is negative needed to b
e something that we could talk about from the beginning of how to write about theatre and then it also I think trauma to jean-yves so wonderfully into that which we'll talk yeah and I did so I have drama for once I worked on prowess it was an eye culture show about three or four years ago insane process I mean drop during a new work that was part of a like what would eventually become like a second place cycle and had like recurring characters and all kinds of stuff like that but also there was
a whole lunch stuff that happened behind the scenes that just make maybe an incredibly crazy process that was not for me but but it did teach me so much about I am active for a little bit out of college and that's being part of a show being apartment process but that is a very different role than being in kind of a more central like creative part of the the larger production behind exactly and and being able to really craft a show as it was coming together I was amazing and then also not give ab
out reviews afterwards I was was really it was like oh this was an incredible process and we all put together an amazing show and this from Ewing up and this doesn't actually affect how I feel about what we did was very enlightening for me yeah I think that's something that we'll talk a little bit about as well that idea the relationship between being an art maker and the reviews and what does it mean to try to engage with the work critically how when do you feel like your work has been engaged
with appropriately right when did someone see the work that you were trying to make versus times that we isolate ourselves to reviews and what do those contained right I would love for you to talk a little bit about your journey to dramaturgy and time in the key yeah so I went to DePaul University I did my dramaturgy and dramatic criticism degree in about three years and then I needed to sleep so I was I went to Spain for about six months and then when I moved back to Chicago that was the summer
of 2018 and I'm still trying to figure out how do I fit within wooden Chicago theater and I couldn't afford to see Chicago theaters so I'm like cool if I can't see it maybe I'll read about it but there was a certain play that I got really difficult coverage that was almost willful ignorance by a certain Chicago critic so it made me really want to write and cover it from a different angle of like what does it mean to cover this play for what the playwright wanted to be how did it achieve those g
oals and then what does kritis need to be so social location perspective is expanded so that was an essay that I wrote for how around and it was with that essay I was able to apply for the key I had been looking for other ways to better my writing whatever that meant I was looking into graduate programs and I've gotten a lot of feedback of like what it means to better your reading in an academic institutional sense and I still sign I question what that means what does it mean to better your writ
ing so I was looking for programs anything and looking at like the grand school and northwestern whatever but these are things that are super inaccessible and expensive so the key is completely free they cover your transportation they cover your tickets and we have class so it was really fully accessible to folks that are younger trying to get by run trying to figure out how to write from ways that really honor the artists in the room so immediately we have very small cohort of about six student
s all of us between the age I think this cohort was 16 to 22 2019 and 23 for this one 1923 it was 16 to 24 yeah we didn't Avenue 16 nice three yes but the application range is 16 to 24 but our student ranges 19 to 23 and I was really happy to squeeze right into that range as a 22 year old at the time 23 now and it was just so we're able to sit and talk about reviews and write them and bring them to a workshop and also have everything covered I can't stress enough what a barrier like economics is
to something like criticism and being able to see shows and it was within the literally the last session that we had was a panel of editors and writers from around town people showing up from the Tribune and the reader and Windy City and within even a month I was already writing for Chicago Reader and Windy City Times and continuing to write very scripted and a couple other writing homes that I found so there's something that really accelerated what we were able to do with our writing but also
the shows we were able to see because we could finally afford to be in the room yeah thank you for that because that's something that our students bring up quite a lot is the idea of access which then of course makes me think about my personal philosophy as an artist his radical hospitality what does it mean for there to be open access and to be radically welcoming to not just people who want to see art but also the type of art is the innate right the idea that critical bias and how people feel
about art to limit the way that people produce art I think about programming art or think about approaching that part and how can we with our empathetic lens set a table that everybody is welcome to express themselves at right just some things that I want to highlight if the key is completely free thank you for noting that our scripted we also pay our writers a competitive rate in Chicago and we also during the key have artists come in the structure of the class itself is the first 45 minutes or
so is a guided by myself and Oliver about a topic that might be relevant to them that week or some more structural principles of criticism in writing approach and then the center section is a workshop of the pieces that they've seen that week so we workshop each of those pieces for about 15 20 minutes in the class participates in that feedback and then the final section is a guest speaker every week comes in to talk about a different form of art that they practice so we might have drama jerks o
r directors or lighting designers or actors or producers come in to speak about how they approach their work and what they want from a critic so they're also having that conversation every week until the final panel which is all other critics and writers and Jackson's just a mix of artists who are giving the class insight into the actual creative process something like a director directing is like a kind of a notorious nebulous thing that is difficult for people to write about but an understandi
ng is blocking is it the way that it cast us chemistry what is chemistry like what do these things mean so like having a director come in and be like this is what I appreciate seeing in a review this is this is how I do my job these are the things that are important to me when I'm when I'm reading a review and evaluating other directing but then we we need to have people that are in the industry that are better editors that are that are writers that can give like real actionable feedback about w
hat's going on right now what you need to be doing and how you should be pitching - how you find the person to pitch to on I should be using social media which are which are all topics that we'll get into a little later - but know you it's it's really difficult and you would figure that a lot of this stuff would get taught in school programs but necessarily I was talking about a master's program and I'm just like laughing over here it's like the end of masters of just pitching people eventually
like getting a resume he'll make money instead of paying money for it so and that's part of the accessibility and hospitality thing too right like when we started this program we talked a lot about how the age range especially I think after our first session realizing that this is one of the last professions you can write your way into and own your expertise of with time and dedication to your craft without the unaccessible forward I'm looking for without the blockade if I meant to blockade doin
g education I get PhD or whatever it's like yeah you if you have a blog you can you can be writing about stuff I mean and build your relationships with your team like you see where a degrees at in like five years she's been writing reviews when she was 7 years old like it's just and that's how I started I started out my message boards essentially and then and then I wanted to see shows for free like I was exactly as men it's like I could not foresee theater AV Club was getting invites when I was
an intern and it was like do you want something to write about this for free an abyss of corpse like we week you're not gonna you don't need to get paid and then I wrote stuff for them and they liked it and they kept me around in a negative start taking me for it so like there is a certain amount of like paying your dues but that's like it that's a shitty thing to expect people to but like unfortunately because there isn't that barrier to entry the barrier entry becomes how much work are you wi
lling to put in for free and kind of I mean like how is interning so that's something that my resume but it's like even before that I was on my exposure yeah right now I was still online I'm like writing about stuff and and like engaging with stuff critically but I mean that's probably everybody in this room is doing so like everybody's already taken steps in that direction but then it becomes a way of okay you you don't you don't know what the stairs know anymore and like we're there to help yo
u see where you go next yeah I have a structure to do all that work in rather than trying to figure it out on your own on blogs and just like writing and trying to get followers and I think to speak to personal practice too and like how it weaves in so I've been like I said a director in a Drama Church for many years and I think that dramaturgy lent itself to certain things certain pieces of writing and I found myself doing as well as assistant directing a lot of the early things that I wrote we
re blogs for theatres about like the a commercial experience or interviewing artists about what they've done for the Chicago dramatist blog or eventually for Halloran which is my first professional piece of writing which I was asked to do because someone wanted to be interviewed by a trans artist and I was the only person that they knew and so I ended up getting that gig that was professional and stumbled into analysis that way but I didn't start writing reviews I started writing essays I starte
d writing retrospectives of pieces of theater that I'd seen from a more scholarly approach and you know talk about that degree right like I did not get a degree in criticism but I did get a degree in theater and my professor that was most engaged with me was my dramaturgy and directing professor and we had to go see shows and write and do write-ups of them essentially do reviews so that was where a lot of the way that I started to look at theater became really helpful and we'd love to talk a lit
tle bit more about that framework just by opening it to a popcorn question what in your in your mind is the job of a dropper Terry structures no right answers yes connecting heart to the world outside of it certainly yes cultural and political context you say my but I love about the definition its along with providing context and when you create create or entity conscientious and you're not just making it to make it you're making it yes identifying the purpose and meaning of the making yeah defi
nitely yeah oh yeah I think it offers the rockers artist to expand their possibilities you can open up different outlets for designers to think of how they might approach things just to given your world more of a depth yeah you can help everyone in that process thank you expanding possibilities just under between the source material of the audience so someone to make sure that it's subtraction same is true to the original intent and values behind yes I love that a mediator between the source mat
erial and the art in the audience move said yes yeah in the forms of that could take right because we worked on too heavy for your pocket which I think some folks saw last night and I think that is that I see that Lobby as a massive mediation between the source material in our ideas about the job in the jobs will go for new works advocate in shamanism in the back I think a lot about phrase mentor my news which are from Church of the midwives of the theatre they create the conditions necessary fo
r their co-collaborators to bring this work [Music] if you want to have to play a question I like to know your play welcome to be able to answer as I think that's really interesting to talking about like new works cuz edit push show discussion I got asked about like what is the difference you working with a living playwright and rod but I was thinking a weird way like I am kind of asked to be the playwright if it's a if it's not there who is past right to preserve that integrity of attention and
help expand the possibilities of telling about story I think kind of on the opposite side of that coin would be the person that should feel empowered to ask questions oh yes I love that's kind of on the outside that was something that I was told when I asked for friends I was like I've never done this before what should I do and somebody said don't don't get kind of caught up in just that that natural everybody loves in this show because we're in the show we have to love it you need to kind of
be a little bit needy outside of that and looking at how the pieces are actually fitting together and like don't let the emotional experience of doing that show like influence your judgment and and how the show needs to be shaped because that's why they brought you in here they trust you to understand somatic structure understand character arts to bring to bring that all together when when other people are are so involved in in the family experience of being in a show they might not be looking a
t it that way yeah the things that we know are so the things in audience will see on first got no brain and I think yep being an advocate for the audience just what you're saying to that absolutely challenging but I also want to see that I don't know if it's possible that actually stay outside of that sometimes there's a cost I know that's a nice nya that's part of why it wasn't really for me because I guess I do get kind of caught up in it and it's like I have such a strong emotional reaction t
o being in that room and I mean I think I feel like I did a good job but at the same time I think that I know that so I don't see that sometimes the way I try to preserve my personal things that way and you come back Oh write it down sir she's going under so when I spoke just put into the mix this idea that to be a separate equally distant approximately there's something game for me a perfect team for being there all the time and sometimes I thanks for coming to bina find some of that first I ap
preciate that and so they've been trying to do both ethic preserving your early thoughts and they also but being there to be part the TV no I think that's great because I think that that what you made me think of is the idea that there are certain players I approach very differently like there are claims where I'm certainly a visitor and that is like the advantage that I am bringing right and I think especially but to talk about like culturally specific dramaturgy as I call it right like if I ha
ve kind of called it to be the the Kai's of color on a production that does not have that infrastructure it is beneficial for them me to be a visitor more so than if I'm trying to build an authentically black work in Oh an institution where I have to be probably in proximity and critical and be holding that playwright a little bit more in the space I think that's really important to voice that those can be different or integrated Thanks yeah and I would also add to as one of the least paid desig
ners on production so sadly the capacity that we had to always be in the room when we want to be in the room is something that we have to and really honored for ourselves and realize how much have my being paid for just how many hours from the beginning am I willing to put on a show and this might be it's really super specific to Chicago but I've also heard from friends and colleagues in nationwide that historically even if drunkards aren't supposed to be or expected to be in every single rehear
sal we're still putting in the same or sometimes more hours of folks that are currently actively in the room because there is so much work that happens beforehand as well and what are ways that we are compensated and then empowered to be impersonal as much as we have the capacity to do so thank you yeah so those are the final little observations on the job of the drama charity I would say something that I love about dramaturgy is the ability to define from institution to institution what my posi
tion is or as an individual artist to bring on the type of dramaturgy that I do because as we've spoken to there's a huge range of services that that field can offer and I think similarly criticism is kind of undergoing its own refreshing and its own remaking and I would be curious to hear from you all what you think the job of a critic is and how you relate to that in this moment yeah both in terms of what kind of the fantasy of what you wish job was and then also what you think a critics actua
l job is and in how people engage with that material but artists and and non artists is it okay if I frame this is what I think is not yes because I don't think a critic place I don't think the critics role is to tell the readers what to see or not see I don't think any critic that you would like yes Go Go run buy a ticket to this or this isn't worth your time I think both of those are presumptuous responsive I think it's more to provide and I think I think this depends on the context of the pro
duction and a patient but to provide relevant context to the piece and like lay out the information in such a way that it actually empowers the reader yeah I love that about empowering the reader to make a decision that's something we talk about a lot of prescriptive I'm in terms of like it actually can have nuance in it actually can be both things like I think there have been a lot of reductions that I see that I enjoy but have critical issues you know and things I want to talk about it doesn't
mean you shouldn't see it it's I'm gonna it's why I gave ya grading systems honestly because that immediately changes it into a consumer report where okay this is for start I'd like to go see if this is one star I definitely should not see that yeah and like if socks a TV Club TV stuff well gets a letter grade but like my big comics column I don't put any sort of letter grade on there and it's the most liberating thing the entire world because like things are not perfect like there were the goo
d things there'll be bad things and and like when you just stamp which is now maybe people will see a DML saying that's not worth my time like when when we could be a super promising thing that had some problems and maybe you'll love it it'll be an a video like who knows there's there's not enough space for that yeah when I was in college we study a gentle and feminist spectator so it's a book of critiques that she's written on film and theatre I've never made the other formats but she really ap
proaches her criticism with a lot of hope for the show so she's considering the writing that right with all of the other aspects of what goes in to show who's being represented it's not you know the feminist perspective than that but really looking at it through the lens of how could they have made different choices that might have made this more accessible to people or I know it's just a very optimistic locator and examining shows in a way that that offers it like opportunity to improve I guess
yeah yeah and making opportunity there's you know I mean I was thinking of ground review making making meaning you know like how do you if you're experiencing something as a critic having you then you know create meaning for others who haven't seen it yet but I also feel like at least what I would like it to be in conversation with mr. training competition with either that that artists body work or sort of like you know where it fits into a broader sort of artistic tradition and then where that
person is coming from what kind of meeting it ringing to it right like what does that person's artistic lineage right I guess someone studied with Laurie Carlos and then does this like black amorphous cabaret show like that should be reviewed maybe differently than I don't know because yeah what am I supposed to think from this and it's not gonna be the same for every piece and for me that hits personally as someone that is more of like a documentarian and wondering like what it says posterity
mean for criticism so very much seeing it as a way to this is how the show felt and moved and breathes here's the intentionality of the artists making sure that all of those elements are hit because theater like we know it's no ephemeral what is left behind besides our programs and sometimes you have our high level videos and most times we don't but it's so fruitful to know where did this happen at once this happened one of the theater companies that was our keynote today free Street Theater has
been around for 50 years they're currently struggling to get coverage because of some of the work that they show so what does it mean for a historic theater company to essentially be on media of the blackout well that means there's a gap in the archive we don't know who the majority of the first ensemble of pre street was besides their founder patrick henry a white man is putting together a diverse theatre company to solve racial centric segregation we don't know what their first shows were the
re is not that history so when I approached writing today and I think a lot of us are being like how do we make sure that we know that this happened especially with theatre companies that go up and down so quickly yeah I mean like I think a good example of in Chicago is like well Davis an American to your company that was so brief and then I think critically in terms of the history of casting and its impact that it has had on the bodies on our stages needs to be documented for intellectual legac
y even though the company is in existence there's one in the back I just want to echo that reporting in theater criticism that is not in film criticism that's not the TV that is not these things that are not experiential and something like but in terms of it's a live experience because even like in terms of a concert a concert to go around the country and a lot of people are going to see it but like a non storefront shown Chicago is going to be seen by there's an aspect of your writing about the
experience that you are having at that show in that exact moment and that is that's a big thing that like we try to talk to our students about is that your personal experience is incredibly valuable to your critical voice there is no objective opinion like people are going to your writing because they like who you are as a writer and they they agree with assuming that you're able to build up a library of work that shows what your opinions are people are going to start following you because they
know what you like and if they either they disagree with you they really do I mean there are people that read my writing that disapproves me all the time but they'll read anything that has Batman in it so they're gonna talk to me of it like they're gonna message me about it and there's like they're gonna read it no matter what the during gauging with it because like they want to see what my opinion is on some some random book that came out and the thing is if you're gonna put yourself in the ri
ght name that makes you a little bit more vulnerable to people coming after your opinions yeah and I think that's definitely been I don't talk about two different pieces of that and the first read is about by it so I'm your script should give artists profiles for all of our writers so there is like a why do you want to write for us a lot of our application questions frankly and what lenses do you bring to a show are you a mother or your person of color are infinitely abled any what changes your
framework of how you view a show what genre and playwrights do you love artists you love so you can get a sense of like who that person is as you read the review we also put bias alerts at the bottom if there's an immediate conflict of interest of any kind just because we have to acknowledge that like we are artists we are in community and we will work with each other I once been a bias Alert your father comes home from the wars was just pops up that was like I'm black so I know all of them some
times close those things but speaking about bias and also accountability right the accountability the seconds right when someone feels like they know you in this current culture right and how we've chosen to manage that it was something that I don't know I'm very grateful we started writing with two people we were originally a I keep saying bicoastal and everyone explained me to Chicago's on our Coast the latest publication originally from Oakland California and we had incidents where someone wr
ote about something and the associate artistic director reached out to them directly and was like this is very unprofessional like you're an artist like if you wanna work you shouldn't necessarily be doing this and I wrote a very strongly worded thing being like hi you're a publication I am the editor like please come to me with any issues you may have like trying to avoid those those bits it made me realize we have to avoid any power play that could come into our reviews right so I've been real
ly intentional about setting up that editorial structure of like you don't contact people at their own personal email which a lot about let's do like when I work with other places I get invites to my inbox I don't give people that kind of access to our artists or you know making sure that in their writing we talk a lot about saying it the way you would say it to a friend it doesn't mean that you're going to pull the punches but if you read this to someone's face is it meanors it is true right an
d I think that offers its own layer of protection of life if you really make good points that people can see where you're coming from there's not a whole lot of ire to be generated out of that you know it man and then speaking more specifically about where I think some of these overlaps come in right which even dramaturgy and criticism audience advocacy I think is the number one thing that I've heard come up from all of us today I think positioning ourselves as the audience advocate as dramaturg
right doing both that distancing and not very close critical knowing everything there is to know about the play kind of work can really apply to criticism in the way that we're looking at something right what was their intention as artists what was the playwrights intention of this story and how well did everybody execute it is something that we either generate as drama Turks or can evaluate as critics right yeah that's a lot of the way that I like to frame what happened with geometry regarde i
s we are producing to work that is also front-facing work that will be in front of an audience and it's also a way to go beyond whatever your performances on stage that's coming from my background in Museum Studies of like how are people going to move through this space that is not the stage that is for everyone that is supposed to be accessible yes indeed never say to information wise write something that when we ever do a new show right and maybe about 1950 to Pittsburgh very Miami Bob you kno
w check for your pocket 1961 Nashville that wasn't alive I don't know what's happening in 1961 in Nashville but I know where to find that information because that's my job right and I think as a critic it allowed me to buffer a lot of expertise that I needed to begin to build myself by being able to say okay what I can look at the history of August Wilson's work I know where to find that information I can look at the history of you know Bernardo Howell but like I can figure out these things as I
'm going and provide a context to the work that I think can be missed also something I like to speak to and something that I think is a takeaway we talked about finding your own expertise and your own lived expertise I talked about one of our writers Lynnae Hickman is a student at DePaul I'm very smart gun percent and pitched going through Jerry lanes mathilde and I was like okay because we usually try not to do like very big houses right we emphasize store crime so I was like oh can you pitch i
t to me why do you want to see it cheer about this really lucky moving like well I have analyzed the book it's one of my favorite books I think Road Dogg really tackles some important questions that aren't in the musical and I've seen both musical they sought on the Weston and I thought over here and I was like this 19 year old is an expert you're with your your way into a show and your points of expertise and letting that guide you chose the shows that you choose to see especially when you star
t out writing I think can be really important I mean it's off the bat also though like taking those specialties and kind of baking it into your like social media presence yes talking about the branding bus like I mean I've gotten a lot of gigs off of talking about specific topics on on my Twitter or whatever like I mean like if there's a thing is if you're talking about like what's currently at the moment like using hashtags stuff like that like people it does show up in front of people like tha
t is a way that you can get people to come and you're finding that the audience that likes the things that you like that will ideally also share your opinions and wanted gates to writing as well but just kind of showing and showing the world that you are an expert on these kinds of things I don't know if you know see spike Troutman at all she's a cartoonist but she also does so she's a publisher she's kind of like mastered Kickstarter and like she'll raise $500,000 to kick-start a comic and this
is a comic that was published through a publisher would make me sell 5,000 copies or something like she's gonna make a huge success on Kickstarter but on her Twitter she is always kind of putting almost like his little ass or it's like I have the topic that I want to talk about like that I'm passionate about and I'm gonna thread it and keep it it'll get spread by people that like that kind of stuff and you guys are drawn maturities you're looking into this stuff all the time you're finding all
kinds of cool nuggets and I mean I don't know how much you're sharing that but I mean you have this research you have a way to like spread it out to the world and and that could ideally also get summarized on the schedule yeah analyst is a Twitter is a great place to test out your writing I know if that sounds really antithetical but I have a little plus button of the add thread and like you can do like five or six tweets that are one thought on something and put that out in the world and see if
it gets retweeted when I was really girly writing I started doing that and people would like how we hunt hey I'm gonna hop in the D and be like T are you interested in writing about that you know so there are people that are looking I do that all the time I'm always on Twitter and Facebook my my joking thing we started out was if you're thinking about turning it into a Facebook post talk to me first because people do really express themselves and really articulate in thorough ways of social med
ia all the time and sometimes those bite-sized things I don't have to get somebody interested it's the same as sending like a 200-word clips to somebody of something I can also have a really good way to get the gears going if you don't if if I'm having trouble kind of aligning my thoughts for review or something it's like you know I don't want to tweet about a show if I'm gonna write a review about it there was a TV the things that are not here because that is much more kind of sexualized don't
want to talk about it until the reviews out but those other things you know what like talk about specific topic like that that might make that making spit ball into something else and I just have some more ideas so there's a way to kind of use these tools I mean and of course to engage your audience to and I think ideas from them as well yeah and I think building that following can be really important and I know I think for myself it's taken a while it's I gotta get that going because I wasn't n
ecessarily varied and stuff or Twitter forward but I have found there to be a lot of reward also like the way that gozman should all follow up what's your handle hasn't you have some in Sakarya yes you should all follow me IceMen on Instagram because I don't know anyone that markets their work as a drama chair get a writer better than Yasmin it's kind of incredible but having the power of those stories and this is instant and this is new can be really great I do wanna make sure we talk a little
bit about the practice but just are there any questions that have come up as we've been talking cool and feel free to popcorn as we go but I'm just talking a little bit about the practice from a philosophical place something that I realized a few days ago a talkback pedagogy that I personally use as a drama terry is to listen learn and engage we listen to other peoples lived perspectives we learn from those perspectives and been gauged with them respectfully from our own lived experience which i
s always valid and in many ways I think that that is something I impart on to our students in terms of like listen to the play and where the play is living learn from the play which you can and then engage with it from your own lived experience what did it teach you some practical things I do about like trying to notice everything the first time I see a show I think astronomer Turks we are naturally maybe more disposed to do but I find just writing in my journal when I'm taking notes lights thre
e adjectives sound three adjectives directing three adjectives for the performance it sounds very basic but it really does help when you're going back through and trying to identify how something made you feel you know if it's flashy engaging and dynamic that gives you three things to talk about in your review that feel more specific then the lights we're cool really hard like you just forget those things something else that we talked a lot about is again intentioned what was the artists intenti
on did they achieve that intention and how did it make you feel but also this is my favorite tip talking about things and the way that you saw them right I find what gets most critics in trouble and where they lose their empathy is what I call the second sentence and the second sentence like you say like I didn't quite understand what this costuming choice was trying to tell me about this character your second sentence might be and those red shoes are really ugly and what kind of character would
wear those in anyway you don't need it just take my second sentence out that's about your feelings not about what you saw right it's a small thing but it's really really useful as you're writing also when you're starting out having someone else read your writing and just ask for them to tell you what they understood about the play just period it doesn't have to be anything about grammatical editing or how you made a certain point just what did you gain from the play and that'll teach you a lot
about your voice and what you're communicating as a writer I also we encourage first-person which i think is not necessarily true for all outlets which I named because pitch other places they will want you to use a more objective point of view and a third person point of view but I think when you're starting out and finding your voice to say like I thought this eventually you'll move into the space of it's obvious this is my thought because I wrote it right but I think it can help us to kind of
get through that initial moment of like this is this was a depression on me right and then I think it'd be great to talk a little bit about the basics of actually setting up a platform and pitching to touch on that a little bit yeah so I mean if you're if you're just starting out and you don't have any clips and the easiest thing to do is start one yeah maybe some platforms that are free to WordPress we believe are two that are free of any others that you love is really nice your ideas drop webs
ite choose your profile mix your mine isn't in the Squarespace okay so a little bit more pricey but I've had it for about three years and it's it's been really wonderful for the different interdisciplinary nests at dr. G finds itself easiest way to get stuff just out in the world and I mean you might not be getting to see shows free but honestly if you're engaging with media at all times and you're seeing theater just go home write 500 words about it I mean part of part of the challenge is being
able to just write 500 words I mean for some for some people that's a that's a number that that terrifies that do I have to write time of your words at this point you're starting on with those best scary blank page I know some rain or anything still there little tip actually change the color of the page before they start to race which i think is just absolutely genius you can play also starting out with where was it done who did it who's the playwright includes the director like you're gonna st
art there and then try to point how you feel about it as your final sentence right and then just move from there you'll edit your opener again and again but it just helps you get something on the page that's factual yeah I could list one thing - if you are starting writing and you don't know how to get free tickets I found that the best way is to frame yourself as an early career writer looking to build a portfolio and can I cover your thing no one very few theaters really are gonna feel that th
ey won't give you the ticket because you could you become in five years do they want to be the theatre company that said no to the person that's trying to build their portfolio and I would also add to that - like being a person who sometimes does feeding for opening and stuff that sometimes it's literally about getting people in right so like it can also help to say I'd love to come on opening but here are two other dates in really close proximity to your opening that I would do be just as happy
to attend so they don't have to feel like there's that added pressure and they can get to know you and then the next time you'll be F opening because Chicago has been very receptive at least here and especially I think in the way that we've run were scripted in terms of like we're not sending a bunch of people like we're sending one person you know and there's accountability for that but that was out of me building my relationship with these theatres of like showing up all the time making sure
the review is published in a timely manner it's not communicating why and I think that that's something that has an individual artist you can also start to do and some of these places I think they do know you and you can be very forthcoming about I am an artist critic and I am trying to do this I worked at these places and this is something I'm interested in doing and why and talking to people you want to talk to the public relations or marketing person about those things as well identifying who
to talk to you and an organization can often be I think this the trickiest part of anything in theatre but usually a press contact asked them to be on their lists for dispersals for when they send out press releases about shows so you can get on that press invitation cycle also publicists in Chicago we have David Rosenberg has been a wonderful ally Jill and Jane said she'll have been wonderful allies Kathleen has been a wonderful ally in terms of getting people into shows getting our students i
nto shows so really pitching the Y can be really helpful and also just being upfront about like I'm not gonna tell you you're doing it wrong I'm just here to document and explore this art with you and to essentially take our collaboration step further I think can be really helpful I'm thinking about oh yeah that's froze so that's like when you're trying that's like pitching to get tickets yeah so let's say you have a blog you've been reading theater reviews or I don't know Wednesday of 662 revie
ws up or something and and you feel okay I now have a body of work I want to see if somebody will hire me to I can get some professional clips basically you're gonna go go - that'll it that you I didn't want to write for and I mean also like be aware of where you are in a career like you can go ahead and email Chris Jones the Tribune but they're not going to get any response probably okay and the thing is like a novice writers write for a blog is not going to get a tribune-review like it's just
that's so like kind of just no no ballots but beyond that just to know that that you're pitching to if you wanted to pitch Windy City Times ya know that they are an LGBTQ outlet if you wanted to write about a show for practice and plays like that when you see times with the probably into that leg so you're fine you find to that fever editor is you get their email because a lot of these places will probably have a general email to send to and then you can do that but I've had I want to say zero p
ercent success ever sending an email to that address but if you want to say you want to find that that exact editors email address and that could be maybe you know somebody who's works better ask that person maybe do the PR person even that you're contacting at a theater they would have the information as well they might not want to get out those places a lot of cases do post the the name of the editor and their email address online so like that's the person they want to pitch to but then when i
t comes to actually crafting a pitch start crying introducing yourself and get to the point quickly ideal pitch document is 200 words you you really want to get in there safe who you are why you want to write about something the the expertise that you could bring to this piece and then a quick rundown of what this these could be if it's an interview who's the interview why why is this interview that what it kills of this Howlett's audience and what project is coming up that that interview would
be attached to because those are important details for an editor to know if there's certain just season of black Muir coming up then there's an actor who's in a movie that's coming out the exact same time maybe and like you can email and see if you know a good example is like I was doing um ma Rainey's black bottom with one MJ person and he was about to open radio golf at court and so I was like I would love to talk to people in the Chicago area and beyond about like what it is like to be an Aug
ust Wilson practitioner at this time and that was something that because they knew the framework when I pitched myself to any see times I'd pitch a piece they pitched myself oh you think so I know it really was just like Hello I think this was maybe elementary but I was a guy here that you had about two K things I'm very very gay the black and shanz and these are the identities that I'm doing this is the type of feeder that I work on and the type of things that I've written my first interview wa
s about the trans artists who need someone to interview them and so making that available as well because there are artists who will say like I want to be interviewed by a fan or a woman or I want to be interviewed by a black person I want to be interviewed by a career person and that's well within their rights but like there aren't actually enough writers to fill that gap so sometimes like you can get gigs just by being who you are and being an adequate writer which as a dramaturg you inherentl
y already have that skill set which I think in sometimes the biggest barrier I'd love to talk a little bit about pitching features too because I think that really and what a future is yeah so the way that I have framed features when I'm writing is you are covering a person generally for me as an oral historian I'm very interested in like where people have come from their places at home and like what has drawn them to their art so usually when I'm pitching on a person it's very much like the live
d lifestyle of who this person is but it's also really important to know word counts and read the features that have already been written on that same flowers to figure out what kind of that style is because every every print print journalism is different than digital journalism and I've even had features that are different from what it isn't print and what it is on the digital page yes and it also is really good to know that if you're pitching to interview someone it's not that you have to line
up that interview it's like you your only contact is with like press yes the publicist don't learn the artist for an interview I also learned this the hard way and that is the thing about having access and being an artist critic right is how do you keep that separation even just today I was like I know something and I can't run that in this piece right things like that you have to know what you can and can't say and be very clear about what is public and what is private if I'm at a post show ri
ght I'm talking to people and they say something interesting why did I want this one side publish it so for colored girls for example I was talking to the cops and she talked about her experience of creating melody angels costume for the new character in for colored girls and my rainbow creation and that it was born of a conversation with intersecting Shangai and surrett Scott the director knows that can I try that like that's really amazing I would love to include that could you ask but making
sure that you're really transparent about what is on and off the record because that will it will pervade your social relationships otherwise right and people feel like they can't just talk to you about things which can also be a greatest strength if people feel like they can just talk to you about things because sometimes they will come and engage you on a piece and be like this is the whole story but could you find a way to write about this core element or this piece over here and I mean like
personal relationships like the theater of course there's like a personal professional and it kind of - in the middle of it where it's like we're friends but we also have to work together in there so like if you're a critic especially like we have to understand that there's like a boundary there but at the same time like you can use that perf like I have people that will reach out to me all the time that are artists that will say hey Ken's up can somebody write about that or would you be interes
ted in writing about this and like I don't mind getting pitched by somebody like and and that that person ends up becoming a resource especially if they have they have something that like they don't be personally they know that there's something I'd be interested in and maybe I wasn't even considering that at all but because they have not reached out to me I am the person that has the connection to the editor so then I can message them and then after after that point it becomes a thing of okay n
ow we set up now we send up at the publicist delay there there is still like a lot to gain from having like a connection with people that are actually in community which is a quite of course and that's something that's not on the line Chicago criticism where it's like oh guess what if you actually engage the community I sometimes just call myself like an SOS critic of like oh my gosh something is happening in Chicago it needs to be covered or it's not being covered the way it needs to or some ho
t tank I've done on Facebook has now exploded and sorry Rio are reacting to what is happening and how a conversation can be pushed on a social media platform and then it transitions to a different conversation that can translate into a different piece and not every credit is that credit either though like in terms of the critic that the hot teen critic like and part of it is knowing kind of what niche you've been as well and I know just stop so I try and wrap it up but like when it comes to thos
e deep analysis interviews like I do like to get my review usually a good work minimum because that's what I love to do right after when he said he was really difficult because I could adjust to the 450 word word count and still say it's when you do things I wanted to think there was a question their companies and the way that I see it you know whether you're writing and glowing with you or you that's more like constructive it's a service to of the company I mean I think that company should feel
this way I'm illiterate Chicago and I was wondering is is there a way that I'm even thinking about ways that mostly together personally access that you crate from companies or like ways in which you're interested beyond the PR and marketing contacts yes I mean the flat answer is yes I think a large portion of the strikes in Chicago is around not having access to critics I kind of you know I do think that like if someone has got time to talk to Heidi Weiss five years ago about the practices that
she was for taking in in the way that they made people feel she would probably still have a job so I think that like having that flexibility and accountability is really important when it comes to our relationships as critics and theaters something that has come up a lot like I kind of did this backwards in many ways I wasn't is book the gift in a challenge as many things are right but when I first started writing like I went to an opening where I happen to know a lot of folks and I was like oh
is there like a after party ticket and there was oh yeah but you know we don't really I'm gonna give these out to critics I don't make it where you're heard like I was like why is it weird like everyone knows but you know what I mean and I don't stick around if I don't know me if it's not something on her yeah but like it was just a very eye-opening moment of like wow they really don't we can't really be around each other like we can't be in the same room and I have started this lens of like ho
w do we reprogram the way we could eke through empathy and the hope that it would influence the greater critical if I do think I see it in certain projects I think Chris Byers for our friend rebellion is like that writing feels a lot more accessible and more free than when he writes for print publication I'm really excited about that but I think this idea that we have to be able to just talk to each other needs to be blown open because when I was at TCG a lot of people were saying I didn't know
I could write a letter to the editor I didn't know I could talk to that critic I didn't know I was allowed to approach that person and I think that even though we're artists critics and we're out here trying to do something fresh and something new the reality is that that is born out of a history of a lot of hurt not just trust and a lot of pain and the things branded as innovative cool new thing but at the same time nobody really wishes that they had to do this right in a weird way so I hope th
at in the creation of this mission if we do actually reprogram the way we could teach each other maybe these structures could even stay in place and have a different relationship to these artists because I do feel like if that does not happen we will not have critics in the way that we have them now in ten years there's too much pain yeah and if I could say something to speaking directly to folks that are out theater companies I want you to be very conscientious of whose reviews you're sharing w
ho do you condemn whose voice are you continually amplifying on your own channels and who is actually writing for those largest mostly funded publications are they people that look like the people that are on stage what does that mean what are other maybe smaller venues of magazines and journalism that is happening we are obviously here doing this work but as what are you amplifying to your patrons that you're trying to see the show and I think to something that I thought was really lovely that
was doing is inviting critics into the whole process I think there is something to artists pretty example thing as you know how the sausage is made but a lot of people don't necessarily have that access and they haven't had it for a long time right so having them come to the the I don't know he's a good example when we did the key last year we went to LA to read it in the good many stages Festival and then as we covered lottery day for scripted this year as a professional writer and that growth
of being able to see what that place started to where it ended I think can really inform the way that you approach a production so getting people in and that ground-floor access so like these are people trying to make a thing not product for you to consume could be a good first step I think as somebody who's you're in to make a couple features where I've been able to be in the rehearsal room it is awesome is it's really cool like and it it does change like we were just talking about like earlier
about kind of like the magic of being in the rehearsal process and like but it makes me wonder like how many outlets really want that want the critic to really feel that like do they want do they want them to have that connection or or do they want them to stay separate which is like an institutional thing that's like good love breaking it yeah China I'm doing them to ever pass them it up yeah but that's a really important question thank you yes thank you and I think for me some of the first th
ings I'm looking at is like what is what is the feeling I think the play was trying to have me leave with at the end of the play which is an old trick my dramaturgy professor like what ultimate question that the play was asking me that I feel like I was given an answer to that question or was I invited to answer it myself when I left but starting with that question can really help and I think also knowing the script I asked you to script a lot when I'm reviewing if I have questions about intenti
on and about especially what a director might have imposed on play right that can be really helpful in determining what choices were made to highlight or perhaps distract from the intention of the story so I do kind of return to my script analysis route sometimes sometimes and then I also I do research beforehand they do tend to read feature pieces that were put out before I read the program I mean the directors note Pat read the directors notes have a stance of like I do not read this on purpos
e so sometimes there's maybe a disconnected like what you think is like cheating and criticism like what could I get without the context but as drama tricks we know context is Queen here like to know [Applause] [Music] for the show is there is it a good question ask and buy the right critic for the show that every boys honored in that space I think eventually we will reach a place where every voice should be honored on an equal thing because that's a thing right I don't really mind you have to s
ay so long as my opinion is equal right we're really talking about a decentralization of power is the ultimate thing that we would love to see personally but I think in terms of can also change back where'd it go oh yes framework from a critic sorry so yes when it comes to asking yourself a favor right critic for that production thank you it can come down to is this plane talking to me right is this something that I would see anyway I find that to be really helpful to in terms of if I'm the crit
ic for that because let's say like oh I am not the person to go review a world from your mammoth I would do not play no favors you know what I'm saying like it's not that's just the way it is in this moment and how I feel about it my bias is very deep and so I feel like I would excuse myself in that situation I do think it's also okay to go see the show realise in the moment that you may not be the right critic for it like if you're watching something and you are not like it's just not landing f
or you that is also okay like if it comes to the point of like I don't even know how to engage with it then it is okay to write the theater and say I don't actually have anything critical to say about this production because it totally went over my head you can't do it a lot but I think it's better than honest like don't just coast you know what I mean but definitely say like hey I think another critical voice would be great if you know critics of color that should see the show recommending thos
e people and uplifting them can be great but I think that that is something that we deal with a lot and something that I definitely occasionally recuse myself from admitting that I have the luxury of writing for myself yes I was literally about to say like there have been times I've had to make it happen if I was sent to review a show by the reader which if you're assigned you don't really have much choice you I could say I don't want to review this August Wilson play you guys should get a black
writer and they may they may not have any black writers they're freelancing and I choose them yeah and and they'll just say like why can't you write this like and it'll end I'm just going to a different white guy writer who who's going to take the money so like but I also think that there's it can be problematic to feel like this show is not for you without seeing it and feeling like you're not the person to see the show because every hurt every shows for every person every show and every perso
n has an opinion on every show and everything is valuable like you know you don't need to have you don't need to have an education or have to have a criticism degree to go see a show and have an opinion and write it down and and have that opinion means something to somebody else in in a positive or negative way and everybody said to the to love like this is maybe this may not be for me but it might be for someone who enjoys X right it can be really useful as well because sometimes like gosh I st
udies show that it was like this is just like got some really sexist jokes baked into it like it's just really it's about alien women who are really intersecting the whole thing I was like an experienced a show that was touring and then I was like okay but I have to figure out because like parts of it were super fun and parts of it were super not about how you might talk about book on his way right about what what is not working for you what makes it's not for me like it's just like this is a Je
tsons based family experience do you know what I mean so like you're really supposed to go with your older friends and like gets wasted and like this is how you there's drinks at the door like I'd let a brand into the show like this is how you should enjoy it if you want to enjoy it because otherwise you're gonna struggle like there's probably plenty of young people don't wanna go see that show they don't know so information is valuable and maybe there's a 60 year old person reading review that
says okay don't not like this we are really close to the end so in honor did you ask me anything yeah I could just say two quick things I'm hearing here that having a self-awareness of what you bring to the table is something that you're gonna forefront and whatever you're writing and being honest about that transparency and also to the responsibility of like should you be in this room because I think at a certain point if there's enough people saying no get a person of color no get a person of
color no get a person of color and it's gonna get in someone's brain moving along at some point so it's from a point of advocacy of your own responsibility but also having a self-awareness and knowing how to write this piece from where it's coming within you yeah like I mean I would even say right like it's like cuz you know it's gonna go to the other wake up being like okay sure like I'll take it if you insist but these are three people have to forgive each other next time or whatever you know
what I mean something like that I know that's complicated because we're all trying to make money but there's space for everybody at the end of the day I want to just honor I think we're close to or in this session but I wanted to honor these questions these last quick question is a common very good question are there when you're working with your student critics any text be the articles for textbooks that you found particularly useful to expose them to a textbook well we use their articles most
articles reviews I send them as I move my Thomas and Sally critique former interior company every year because I feel like having a soap opera inhales and they're no because I feel like that is the piece that I wrote with like the most naked empathy that I could like it is just me trying to communicate to someone how they hurt me like in a way that is not accusatory and I feel it is one of the best examples of that duality of were scripted so that's something that we always direct them into you
direct them to some of your pieces as well for their interval sure and AV Club we have them breathe because they have a multimedia section you haven't made a lot of multimedia reviews Angelica Jade bask in as a writer we have them read I usually have been read something by Kerry read her the land review is a great example of being a critic was white going to a show about a specific cultural context and writing about that so we picked a fresh election every year but those are some off the top of
my head yeah usually and usually local and ideally the people that we can get in the classroom to and rested a little bit but just follow all about transparency and writing criticism but wondering if you have that experience even like you're going some merit but you have to take the job you have to write this thing is there value from my starting office today to the door it is that kind of engagement I have a pretty white pilot it's an ego already something wants to see something which is like a
nd you know forgive whatever years of going to the theater how's this so not for me I've got experience and I was just trying to engage with it in a whole other way I am NOT for this I am NOT the audience for this show yes they could I couldn't tell people about it given how it was just like hockey yeah that and actually another one that I do send them that I forgot is my piece 120 todo three streets show about like living in back of the yards and growing up Mexican and Chicago from a variety of
experiences all not actors and it was in their story from space down on Ashland so I went to that show of the programs in Spanish right I was chillin I really enjoyed it though like I just was like this is great like sit outside of my cultural context and like watch people celebrate that and like how do I relate to that as like someone who's constantly trying to connect to their own heritage like what does it mean to put this play together on on your own and to have these community resources an
d to teach actors like what did what is this effort that fascinates me because like me connecting to the story and validating the story it doesn't matter like what I say about how I think it was like no one cares but talking about what it was like as an outsider to be welcomed into that experience I hope will make people go see the show right did you yeah I think leading off with I have a lot of problems with Mamet or whatever there's a lot of people that have those problems that that establishe
s early on that that you share a perspective with them and that you are coming at it from that perspective and that's that's another really valuable thing if you if you have something that that kind of sets your perspective hearth establish that early enough early on so that leaders and you know that is why they should be they should stick with that piece and keep reading it yeah I mean like Thomas and Sally is pretty much like I don't need to see simulated sex that is consensual it's mean aslee
p they're not scare that it's not something I've opened for business more like you know you know that's an okay thing to say right away cuz that's the penultimate like thing on the play right but I do want to honor our time here at 3:45 I'll be around for any questions after the panel's close but thank you all for coming again
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