Just a note to say that The Feminist Spectatorblog won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for2010-2011. I’m delighted by thishonor. The Feminist Spectator is thefirst blog ever to receive the award in its 56 year history, and I’m only theseventh woman to win in the history of the award. The last woman so honored was my friend andcolleague Alisa Solomon, who won for her book Re-dressing the Canon: Essays onGender and Theatre in 1998. Iattended Alisa’s celebration party at PS122 that year, and remember the pride Ifelt in her accomplishment. I’m thrilledto be joining her and so many other critics and writers I admire in thisdistinguished company.
Other recent award winners include CharlesMcNulty (chief theatre critic at the LATimes), Marc Robinson (for his book TheAmerican Play), Randy Gener (for his writing at American Theatre), H. Scott McMillin (for his book The Musical as Drama), and Ray Knapp(for his book The American Musical andthe Formation of National Identity). The prize is adjudicated by the chairs of the English Departments atCornell, Yale, and Princeton, though Cornell administers the award.
Karen Fricker wrote a lovely post in her theatre blog at The Guardian about thesignificance of my award, noting that Nathan award's history of gender imbalance “mightreflect the field’s demographics, [but] it does nonetheless prompt questioningabout why criticism is still largely perceived and practiced as a man’s game,when the accomplishments of Dolan and other leaders in the field . . . provethat turning out incisive, engaging critical prose about what happens on astage does not require a Y chromosome.”
The significance of the Nathan award going to ablog has also been remarked by various commentators. London-based theatre critic Mark Shenton, onhis blog Shenton’s View, suggests that “the web can also usefully provide aforum for critics to do their work away from the commercial and spacerestraints that typically operate in newspapers.” Shenton discusses the recent firing oflong-time Village Voice film criticJ. Hoberman as an example of the sad state of contemporary arts criticism, and saysthat Hoberman has responded to his ouster by announcing that he’ll start ablog. Shenton also notes that HowardKissel, who once wrote for the New YorkDaily News, now regularly contributes his criticism to the onlineHuffington Post.
Clearly, there’s a lot to say about the state oftheatre and arts criticism. I’m hopingto sponsor a panel discussion about gender and criticism, and about blogging asa forum for criticism, as part of my Nathan award celebration. Save Saturday,April 28, tentatively planned as the date for an event herein Princeton. Details forthcoming.
Meanwhile, I want to take the opportunity of theaward to thank those of you who read this blog. When I first started writing The Feminist Spectator (seven years agothis August), I felt like I was sending words out in the void, happy to seethem move off my private screen but unsure where and with whom they mightland. Learning that so many of you readthe blog, and engaging your comments and quarrels, gives me great pleasure, andencourages me about people’s desire to engage long-form, generative arts criticism.
I’m so grateful for the critical community yourreading creates for my writing.
The Feminist Spectator
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