It's profoundly saddening to read that AP will no longer be assigning or running book reviews because readers don't engage with them enough and they take too much effort to plan and assign. People complain about critics as gatekeepers; wait until all that's left is marketing.
The devaluation of skill, experience, and expertise is a crisis across cultural journalism right now--it's being felt profoundly in theater. It's great that anyone can post a review, but that does not, even in the smallest way, replace what's being thrown away.
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And with all due respect to those who find it useful, TikTok is not a replacement for what is being lost.
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Artists and writers serve an educational function, not merely the function to entertain or affirm specific tastes. Has Theatre done enough to cultivate an intelligent audience that will want intelligent discussions? www.americantheatre.org/2024/06/06/t... ... www.americantheatre.org/2024/03/28/c...
They Will Survive: Theatres That Are Beating the Odds
Attendance and funding may be down at many U.S. theatres, but the variety of creative responses to crisis and precarity is ever increasing.
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(Ha - responded before reading entire thread) bsky.app/profile/mbba...
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This crisis is being felt profoundly in any profession based on expertise.
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Bleak, bleak, bleak.
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There has been a parallel decline in theatre criticism and technical theatre excellence in my area. I can’t prove that the lack of anyone to credibly call out sloppy lighting/set/etc. work (or praise the opposite) is moving people to spend less time on polish, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
