In what will likely be seen as a significant turning point in the quest for legitimacy by the theatrosphere, David Finkle, of theatremania.com, has been granted membership in the New York Drama Critics’ Circle.
The organization, whose role is to give out the highly prestigious annual awards named after themselves, had been reticent to offer membership to non-print published critics. But it seems the tide has finally turned, as reported by NYDCC President and Time Out New York critic Adam Feldman.
That’s right theatres, if you’re not engaging your local online critics and bloggers, you are officially hurting the feelings of writers that will form the next generation of prestigious award-givers. That really shouldn’t be the motivation to engage with the online theatre community, but if fear is your GO button – consider it officially pressed.
The EYE website already has reviews pouring in.
Looking for reviews to decide what’s hot and what’s not at this year’s fringe?
Looking to see if anyone, anywhere, has written about a show you’re involved in?
Looking to kill hours of time refreshing your browser?
Click the links below to get to all the Fringe reviews out there:
Eye Weekly Fringe
The obvious choice, this is the one publication that guarantees they will review every fringe show. Also has a handy sorting system that lets you see what has been reviewed lately, well, or has the most comments. The comments section also has an “agree” or “disagree” function for the first time this year. This could end up being a key community tool to call bullshit on people involved with the show posing as uninvested parties with impartial feedback.
Now Magazine Fringe
The Now review site looks a lot like last year, but has a few more conveniences for the non-informed fringe-goer . Someone has taken the time to condense the plot of each show to one sentence, there is a calendar to visualize the day that each show is playing, and the venue map is right there as well. Critically, there seems to be consensus that getting 4 or 5 Ns from Now is alot harder than EYE so becoming a Critic Pick in this section is usually great for a show’s box office.
Torontoist Fringe
As a member of the online community we’re psyched about this one as Torontoist has 3, count them 3, reviewers hitting the Fringe this year. Because they’re not beholden to review everything, or the constraints of the printing press, it looks like these could end up becoming the longest and most detailed reviews of the Fringe. Also, possibly most importantly: no star system. Read the review if you want to know if it’s good lazybones.
Toronto Star Fringe
Getting your Fringe show reviewed by the Star seems pretty tough to do, but they always do review a few, and this year they do have a specifically dedicated page online. They use a strange system that we’ve only seen used for Fringe or Summerworks where shows are rated, “not recommended”, “recommended”, or “highly recommended”. Anyways, it has the highest circulation of any newspaper in the country so I guess they can do whatever they want really.
Toronto Sun Fringe
Uh oh, hard times for The Sun and theatre coverage. First they announce that although they don’t have a specific plan to review shows readers can write their own reviews which will be posted here:
http://www.torontosun.com/fringe/
As of publication this page was blank. Just completely white. No text. Nothing.
Globe and Mail Fringe
The stiff upper lip of the Globe editorial board likely prevents any print coverage of fringe shows here. Fortunately, Globe critic Kelly Nestrucks has a blog, Nestruck on Theatre, where he did cover some of the action last year. This makes a lot of sense as Kelly is an online Fringe review pioneer. (Anyone remember Alison Broverman and Kelly Nestruck as the National Post’s “Theatre Eaters” in 2006?) It’s kind of unfair to list this as we have no idea what will happen in this space for sure.
Did we miss a place for Fringe reviews? Leave a note in the comments and we will update the post.
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