The Shawn & Kati Show

Okay, you've probably been able to tell that there has been a certain amount of turmoil going on here at the Hub Review.  And if you're in the theatre community, you're going to hear about all this anyway.  So I might as well tell you.

I have resigned as a member of the IRNE Awards, largely due to the scheming of the ART's Kati Mitchell (the addled old bat who has long defined the local nadir of the public relations profession) and Company One's "artistic" director, Shawn LaCount.  For many readers, I suppose an introduction is in order to both these unsavory characters.  First, batty Kati - she's been after me for years, I think because I could precisely explain why most ART productions were pretentious junk. She didn't like that, not one bit; not because she understood the productions herself (don't be ridiculous; she's crazy but not that crazy); no, it was just that my level of insight threw a serious wrench into the campaign of intimidation and threat by which the ART maintains its reputation against all artistic and moral odds. Kati not only used to send me crazy emails in all caps after a bad review, but, believe it or not, she even penned the IRNE folks an angry letter declaring that the ART's failure to win more awards every year only made the IRNEs look bad.  She's hilariously beyond the pale - easily the worst PR person I've ever encountered in my life.

Next: Kati's latest cohort in crime, Shawn LaCount, whom (yes) I called an "a**hole" in one of my tweets a few weeks ago. Shocking, I know; such language!  (And in my own Twitter feed!)  I tossed off this "personal attack" (in Kati's self-serving lingo) because Mr. LaCount was serving as her replacement for Jeff Poulos, late of StageSource, who was her previous pawn in a plot last year to get me off the IRNEs. (Yes, the poor IRNE critics have gone through all this before - Mitchell essentially wages wars of attrition.)

Now calling LaCount an a**hole may be crass, but is it inaccurate? Before you answer, consider that LaCount has spent the last few weeks relentlessly badgering and harassing various IRNE members (until finally I resigned just so he'd leave them alone). He whined and screamed and stamped his feet. He called the IRNE critics racist (of course); what's more, he actually called good old Beverly Creasey a racist, even though she was one of the founders of the non-traditional casting project, back in the days when local critics like Arthur Friedman (Bill Marx's mentor, of course) would publicly argue for all-white casting for classic plays - and many years before LaCount discovered (as so many of his generation have) the career-enhancing aspects of "fighting" something that nobody actually supports anymore.  To be fair, LaCount was also probably smarting from my labeling him a "race diva" after Company One refused me press tickets to their crude blackface extravaganza The Neighbors - which was dreadful, everyone says in private, so maybe I should be grateful I didn't have to suffer through it.  And to be honest, I was also pretty grateful for their hilarious explanation as to my exclusion - according to the logically-challenged Mason Sand, it was because of Company One's commitment to diversity!  That's right: "We are excluding you because of our commitment to diversity."  (Really, you can't make this stuff up.)

I should add, though, that LaCount went well beyond simply playing the liberal guilt card to get what he wanted.  He claimed he would boycott the IRNE ceremony unless I left the organization,  and would talk other companies into boycotting, too.  He threatened that he would not allow his actors to accept their awards should they win.  Which was pretty ironic, since one of those nominated actors - Becca A. Lewis - was on the ballot largely because I argued for her to be there.  So it's also amusing to ponder that if she wins, and I hadn't resigned, LaCount would have ripped the award right out of her hot little hand. That's how much he loves his "collaborators."

And Lewis well may win; like diversity specialist Mason Sand, she has some talent.  But Shawn LaCount, like his sidekick Summer L. Williams (who also specializes in browbeating critics), just doesn't - funny how that works, isn't it - and that's going to hurt more and more as the years go by and Shawn doesn't get the recognition that (like Kati!) he's sure he deserves. To pile irony on irony, however, I should also tell you that I actually argued for a directing nomination for Shawn only a few weeks ago, because I thought he'd done better than usual with his direction of The Aliens; isn't that just a hoot? I was shouted down, though; other IRNE members felt his sterling cast had made him look good, which is probably true.

Anyway - back to the Shawn & Kati show. Mitchell and LaCount were clearly in cahoots, but they weren't alone, I'm afraid; I don't have the full story from anyone on this, but I imagine the usual suspects (Steve Mahler, of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, I'd guess, and maybe the neurotic John Kuntz?, or the weird Mitchell crony Henry Lussier of the Lyric Stage?, perhaps the bitter Debra Wise of Underground Railway Theater?) got involved with drafting a Scary Letter of Outrage against me.  I know, I know - a scary letter!  EEEK!  The IRNE people really need more spine, but to be honest, the situation was more that their spines were just being worn down from the ongoing neurotic frenzy.   Still, I wish I'd been able to read this letter!  I can just imagine: Tom Garvey said "a**hole" in a tweet!  Plus he said Shakespeare was white and James Levine is gay!  He is a terrible stain on your entire organization!  (Remember, Kati Mitchell works for Diane Paulus, so I think she knows from stains on reputations.)

Anyway, long story short, together Shawn and Kati slowly wore the IRNE members down.  Kati didn't threaten to deny them all press tickets (she has done that before, it seems), but I'm sure they feared that was the final step, after the Scary Letter, in her ongoing Inquisition.  They wouldn't actually get rid of me, of course, but I kept getting calls and requests to go to meetings that all revolved around their begging me to censor my blog (and then even my tweets) as if I were writing for the Globe.

In a word, that ain't gonna happen.  So I resigned, just to get the whole thing over with. And the bitch won.  (Yes, you can quote me on that.) Although it may be a pyrrhic victory, at least for Shawn LaCount - for as you can see, my resignation actually means Company One has lost an advocate on the IRNEs.  (And I don't think they've gained any others!)  Of course Shawn couldn't have known that, just as I'm sure he couldn't figure out that Mitchell was playing him for a patsy.  What the other dolts who apparently signed on to Mitchell's letter thought they could possibly gain from it I've no idea.  People do seem to think I have a mysterious influence over other IRNE critics, but rest assured, I don't.  Behind closed doors, my opinion of the quality of the productions at both the ART and Company One is widely shared.  I've really never had to argue against the ART, or Company One - or Steve Mahler, or Ryan Landry, or even David Miller (in fact I'm careful just to never discuss David Miller).

Anyway, for a few days I was very blue.  I thought I wanted to close The Hub Review, in fact. It wasn't that Kati Mitchell "won;" it was, as another critic put it, that her example, along with the fact that several other theatre producers would fall in line behind her, made you not want to go to the theatre at all.  Because Kati's - and Shawn's - vision of the theatre is a place of sleazy, crude gamesmanship overlaid by Harvard "class" and political correctness, where artistic quality comes dead last.  It's creepy - a kind of theatrical hell, in fact. 

And I have to say that this whole affair has set a horrible precedent.  It gives the impression that PR people are setting critical policy - at least at one remove.  Which, in a word, should never happen.  Plus there's the dispiriting sense of what the IRNEs have turned into backstage - a vile exhibition of arm-twisting and back-biting.  It wasn't supposed to be that way.  The IRNEs are entirely a volunteer organization, of critics who do indeed love the art form they cover; they "owe" the grasping Kati Mitchell and Shawn LaCount, as well as the theatre companies they represent, precisely nothing.  And yet both feel entitled to attack and bad-mouth these volunteers at will.  They're just disgusting.

Never fear, however - I'm not abandoning the Hub Review. (Then the bitch really would have won.)  Mitchell and LaCount may have tarnished the IRNEs, but who knows - things change, and if there's any justice, Mitchell will be struck by lightning and a piano will fall on LaCount.  And as my partner pointed out, the only practical difference to me is that now I don't have to cover their mediocre theatre companies anymore.  Because that rogue's gallery of "usual suspects" I listed above - the ART, Company One, et. al. - are, indeed, the shallow end of the theatrical talent pool, the ones who have to lean on money, clout, or political correctness to "win" awards.

So I'll keep writing.  I have to.  If I quit, the amount of theatre coverage in Boston is almost cut in half!  And I'm really not concerned that my reputation for skeptical, fair-minded analysis will be at all impacted by this whole imbroglio.  Everyone knows I'm the strongest, most versatile, and most prolific critic in town.  That's why Kati wants me gone.  But yes, it's true that if you poke me enough, I will respond with a word like a**hole - and that's just the way it is.

Thoughts on the 2010 IRNEs

The Independent Reviewers of New England had their big shindig on Monday night at the Cyclorama, and I heard a grand time was had by all (and Diane Paulus didn't make off with the bar tab, as some feared - aw, just kiddin' Diane, I love ya baby!). No, I didn't attend, because one or two people nominated have threatened me with bodily harm over the past few years - and that always makes for an un-festive atmosphere, don't you agree? Plus there are a few more nasties who show up regularly that I'd rather just avoid.

But of course I'm interested in who actually wins the awards, so I hate having to wait for the news - especially as this year I'd participated more forcefully in the nomination process. I confess I had a motive (though not an ulterior one) in doing so; I'd been a bit disturbed by the preponderance of awards given to a single company last year - a company I admire enormously, btw. Still, it seemed to me that inclusion and diversity should be a hallmark of the IRNEs, and so I was interested in making sure that the IRNEs were perceived as devoted to serving the entire Boston area theatre community. Thus, after much debate, we opened up the nomination process to five nominees (generally) for each category, and we considered nominations from as far away as Ogunquit and Hartford. In the end, we wound up giving nominations (excluding the musical nominations) to some 37 different companies (at top). What's more, 24 different companies walked away with at least one award.

The "downside" to this kind of approach is that the eventual winner sometimes wins by a hair. And of course I disagree with a few of this year's winners (as I'm sure everyone does); that's what makes a horse race, as my mother used to say. But overall, the benefits of throwing a wide net out to the community I think have been proven. The pendulum swung hard against last year's big winners this time around, but newer companies and lesser-known actors - some of whom have never been reviewed by the major dailies - got their first taste of wider recognition, which is great for them, and great for the IRNEs, too, because it re-inforces our reputation as being the critical voice for Boston's home theatre, the folks who will help us grow from the bottom up into the next Chicago or Seattle.



The Nortons, meanwhile, look more and more like the remnants of an old guard that's only interested in looking from the top down - at least that's the way it seems judging from their recently-announced nominations. As you can see from the chart above, the Nortons agree with the IRNEs that the Huntington and SpeakEasy Stage are the most reliable theatres in town, but note that the Nortons offer far fewer nominations; this is partly because their nominators have done their winnowing at the front end, by limiting the number of nominees to only three.

But they've also smashed together all musical performance into just a single award - and done the same favor to every kind of designer. The Nortons have also spread their nominations across only 16 local companies, less than half the number the IRNEs reached - indeed, more companies won an IRNE this year than were even nominated by the Nortons. What's really striking about the Norton list, however, is the number of players who have been shut out of the game. Trinity Rep down in Providence got zero nominations. The New Rep got nix. The Lyric Stage got zip. Lowell's Merrimack got nada. Meanwhile these four major companies pulled down 29 IRNE nominations. That's right - 29 to zero. Many smaller theatres were likewise ignored completely, even though the Nortons distinguish between "Mid-Size," "Small" and "Fringe" companies: Gloucester Stage, Stoneham Theatre, and the entire fringe scene at the Factory Theatre and the Central Square Y came up a cropper. What's most troubling about this situation is that there are well-known personal connections between some of the small companies that got nominated and a few of the nominating critics.

There are, of course, two companies that could claim the opposite snub - Orfeo Group and the Gold Dust Orphans were both recognized by the Nortons, but ignored by the IRNEs. Still, the discrepancy between the two award programs looms large; the IRNEs ignored two of the Norton companies, but the Nortons ignored almost ten times as many IRNE nominees.

It would be hard to argue that this gap is due to a higher standard over at the Nortons - because frankly, despite that supposed "winnowing," many of their judgment calls look - well, let's just say there's no accounting for taste. But the more likely reason for the concentration in the Nortons is that its critics just don't get out that much. The Boston Theatre Critics Association, which puts on the Nortons, is comprised of Caldwell Titcomb, Terry Byrne, Carolyn Clay, Iris Fanger, Joyce Kulhawik, Louise Kennedy, Sandy MacDonald, Robert Nesti, and Ed Siegel. Only one of these people - Louise Kennedy - has a full-time gig as a critic (the IRNEs are in the same boat), and as two more Nortoneers are her second-stringers at the Globe, her taste looms rather obviously over this year's nominees (as does the gap caused by her sabbatical last fall). The bottom line about Louise, of course, is that funny as it may sound, she's not really a theatre person. She's hardly insensitive, and she has a lovely writing style - but she's not really going to seek theatre out unless her editor tells her to. And other members of this merry band seem unlikely to take up the slack - there are fewer of them than there are of IRNE voters, of course, so it's unlikely they'll see as many shows to begin with (and none of them are as addicted as the most avid IRNE critics). Indeed, about half of them simply don't review regularly. The result is a critical vision that looks a lot like tunnel vision.

But then again, that probably maps well to an awards show that (let's be honest) is really for people who don't like theatre all that much, either. The categories are smashed together, the number of nominees has been reduced, and most of Boston's companies don't stand a chance in the selection process because the Nortoneers are more interested in celebrity than the art they critique - and so are the people they're trying to attract. One lack of passion seeks out, and validates, the other.

Of course every cloud has it silver lining. Poor SpeakEasy Stage, which was showered with IRNEs last year, got the shaft this season. But they can look forward to winning a Norton award - they have to, they're the only nominee for "Best Director - Mid-size Company." They've also got "Best Mid-Size Production" and "Outstanding Musical Performance" pretty much covered (2 out of 3 nominees in each). Company One has pulled the same trick in the "Fringe" category. Likewise the Huntington has to win "Best Actress, Large Company" - they're the only theatre in the running!

So while the Norton Awards won't be too long, they also won't be too suspenseful.