My first Humana Festival event: a too-short one-hour seven-panelist discussion of “Critiquing Criticism: (re)imaging the future,” which could just as easily have been called “Extolling Criticism: The future is now.” The idea was that most people, or at least the hundreds of people in the room, still could differentiate between criticism and “reviewing,” or between criticism and “consumer guide,” and between criticism and the lack of criticism. When one panelist, William Hirschman (the Florida-based critic and journalist who’s also active with the American Theatre Critic Association) made a disparaging reference to the ubiquitous “14-year-old fan-boy” critic, and another speaker took up the reference, a third panelist—Diep Tran Editorial Assistant at American Theatre Magazine—announced that “I take umbrage with the vilification of the 14-year-old fanboy.”
The upshot was that passion will out, and if there are no longer hard and fast rules which govern the standards of criticism (“professional” or otherwise), well, that’s not a bad thing. People still gravitate to the critics they trust. As Thomas Graves of Austin’s Rude Mechs troupe put it, “True criticism connects our work to a larger conversation.” There was healthy discussion of the critic’s role in preparing an audience for an event (especially one that’s new or in-process), of “managing expectations.
A wide-ranging discussion for sure, but timekeeping moderator Polly Carl of Howlround made sure it didn’t descend into mindless tangents (hey, like bad criticism.) Sasha Anawalt, who runs Arts Journalism programs at USC Annenberg and was my mentor at the NEA fellowship which fomented the Engine28.com site last summer in Los Angeles, frequently mentioned the new book Counting New Beans—Intrinsci Impact and the Value of Art edited by Clayton Lord.
Plus, allow me a brief blush, Ilana M. Brownstein, director of New Work at Company One in Boston, gave a shout-out to this very website when discussing vibrant work being done online.
Guess I’m in the right place. Except for the pollen count, of course.