The main problem with this year's article on the festival (published August 16, 2006) is that it is definitely presented as a review. Her opinion is crafted within the lead of the article and the headline reads "Stages' eight musicals show serious flaws." The article begins:
"Maybe it was a matter of disappointment by comparison. But after seeing the dazzling revival of "Gypsy" last weekend at the Ravinia Festival, the eight deeply flawed new musicals showcased in this year's Stages 2006 marathon at the Theatre Building seemed to suggest the artform has fallen on very hard times. "
Last year's story? The headline is "Staged readings run round the clock as Stages 2005. " Pretty innocuous, right? Here's the lead:
"By 8:45 Saturday morning, the lobby of the Theatre Building Chicago on West Belmont was abuzz. Audiences were helping themselves to free coffee and bagels as they lined up at two of the facility's three theaters. They were fortifying themselves for an action-packed day -- one in which many planned to see staged readings of at least four or more new musicals, all part of a one-weekend marathon of nine new shows presented under the umbrella of Stages 2005."
This is not the lead of a theater review. This is the lead of a theater story. In the second paragraph, there is this sentence:
"This 12th edition of a round-the-clock musicals showcase has become a late-summer ritual, attracting composers, lyricists, students, performers, and their many friends and relatives from far and near to take a peek at shows in various stages of development and at varying levels of sophistication."
Nowhere in this year's article is there any mention of the festival being comprised of shows in "various stages of development." In fact, there is no real explanation at all about the festival. The story this year is 100% opinion.
In last year's story, we don't get to see opinions until the third paragraph, in which she says "I managed to see six shows, in full or in part. Here's a brief overview:"
She then goes on to write brief little capsules about the shows that she saw and contains actual opinions including "a remarkably fine piece of work" and "overly familiar and tedious melodrama" and she mentions the shows she did not get to see.
Now, why didn't everybody get in a tizzy about that article? It's an interesting question. Bottom line, I think it's the editor's fault. The headline and lead of this year's story are the headline and lead of a straight review. Now, should that matter? If the musicals at the Stages festival are all in development, it looks like Hedy's been doing this for at least a couple of years, and I'd imagine more, but frankly I'd rather not keep spending money to access archived articles.
So, has she been doing the unethical and unprofessional thing for years now, or are we just complaining because her comments were so harshly negative this year? What's the difference between a story that contains well-thought-out opinions about works in progress and a review? Interesting questions are being raised here.
1 comments:
While I will agree that this year's article does read more as a review than a theater story, I can't completely agree with your assessment that "Nowhere in this year's article is there any mention of the festival being comprised of shows in 'various stages of development.'" In the second line of her article, Weiss writes that "None of the shows presented last weekend, whether in semi-staged or concert reading style, was ready for prime time." While this is not as explicit as last year's disclaimer, it seems to indicate that these are not fully staged productions. I would imagine that Weiss's audience is sophisticated enough to understand that "semi-staged or concert reading" implies that these are new plays in development. After all, Joe Six-Pack is probably not even reading theater reviews.
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