It has long been the practice that theatrical critics remain silent during the early, developmental stages of a new theatrical work, not printing a word, positive or negative, until an official opening has occurred. But Hedy Weiss, critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently broke this unspoken-but-understood rule when she reviewed eight works-in-progress at a 30-year-old theater company called Theater Building Chicago, an organization dedicated to the development of original musicals.
For 13 years Theater Building Chicago has presented a weekend-long festival of musicals in progress, called Stages. In the early years, critics were explicitly asked not to review the unfinished products. Recently, however, it seems that this request has been anything but explicit.
For the past several years, Ms. Weiss has been reviewing the event in the Chicago Sun-Times, and although the reviews initially came as a surprise to Ms. Joan Mazzonelli, the executive director of Theater Building Chicago, neither Ms. Mazzonelli, nor any of the writers, directors, or actors expressed objections, according to Campbell Robertson of The New York Times.
However, when Jeffrey Sweet’s musical I Sent a Letter to My Love, co-written with Melissa Manchester and workshopped at Stages in 2000, was reviewed by Ms. Weiss, the writer claims he did, in fact, express deep concern over the practice to the theatre staff.
“Even though her notice was enthusiastic,” writes Sweet in his regular blog for BackStage.com, “I protested to the Stages management that it was inappropriate for her to review it, and that, in fact, it was a violation of my understanding with Stages that the piece wouldn’t be reviewed.”
This year reviews, however, were far from positive. In a piece entitled, Stages’ Eight Musicals Show Serious Flaws, which ran three days after the close of the festival, Ms. Weiss, who left the theatre before the completion of each of the eight shows, wrote, “The eight deeply flawed new musicals seemed to suggest the art form has fallen on very hard times.” She added that nary one of the shows, “whether in semi-staged or concert-reading style, was ready for prime time.”
A member of the Dramatist’s Guild Council, Mr. Sweet informed the guild about the negative reviews. In response, the guild sent a letter to the publisher and editor of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Ms. Weiss’s decision to review the musicals, the guild’s letter said, “was a shocking and irresponsible betrayal of one of the fundamental understandings which makes the creation of new work possible. [The workshop process] provides an opportunity for writers to evaluate their work as it evolves, protected from the consequences of critical appraisal.”
Also included were copies of twenty-two of the e-mails received from Dramatist Guild members in response to the controversy, the most scathing, perhaps, coming from Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, who stated Ms. Weiss was “incapable of understanding standards of professional and ethical conduct.”
The letter went on to demand a public apology.
But Ms. Weiss defended herself in a telephone interview with The New York Times. “If you are given a press kit and if you are given pictures,” Hedy Weiss said, “what are you supposed to do with them?”
According to Sweet’s blog, “given that Weiss didn’t get her wrists slapped for [her] more recent reviews, [she] has some justification in thinking that Stages didn’t disapprove of her returning and reviewing again.”
But he went on to argue that, “she was wrong to review the weekend in 2004. Stages should have told her what she did was wrong but didn’t. Weiss was wrong to review the weekend in 2005. Again Stages should have told her what she did was wrong but didn’t. The fact that Weiss was not corrected doesn’t make her reviewing it in 2006 any the less wrong, it just means that, not having heard an objection from Stages, she kept doing wrong things.
Ms. Weiss is not alone in her practice of premature reviewing. Controversial New York Post theatre critic Michael Reidel has attended more than one press event for new, Broadway-bound musicals that are yet-to-begin previews. At these events, called “dog and pony shows” by many, productions present a few numbers to generate both enthusiasm and feature articles prior to the show’s opening. However, Mr. Reidel has more than once commented upon such press events in ways that many have considered to be an outright review. Such was arguably his practice with the ill-fated Beach Boys musical Good Vibrations as well as the Oprah Winfrey produced musical The Color Purple.
But even if early critical appraisal is unethical, it could conceivably be positive in its nature. And if this is the case (and that is a big if), the consequences might well help to give life to a new and yet-unknown work that might otherwise languish in obscurity.
This, then, might be why Stages has looked the other way for so many years, why the theatre has provided reviewers with press packets and, in the words of Mazzonelli, “encouraged” the press to attend, and why many a fledgling writer has been willing to endure the double-edged sword of such premature criticism.
