Sightlines

Website offers a new home for reviews by theater critics downsized by print media

I think the enormous reduction in the number of critics makes it incredibly hard to sell shows, especially plays.” Scott Rudin

There’s a new place for New York theater reviews.

Those aren’t words you expect to hear these days, not as traditional media outlets scale back their theater coverage and more and more critics lose their full-time posts. But now a group of longtime reviewers — all veterans of city papers — has banded together to create New York Stage Review, a website that’s pushing back against criticism’s demise.

Launching March 20, just in time to catch the spring wave of big Broadway openings that began last week with “Escape to Margaritaville” and continues this week with “Frozen” and “Angels in America,” New York Stage Review comes online with some 20 pieces of criticism about recent openings. Reviews of new shows will post as opening-night curtains come down — the same time reviews post at traditional media outlets.

“We want to keep our voice, and we feel that we need to keep encouraging good, interesting theater,” said Steven Suskin, the critic and musical theater historian (“Second Act Trouble,”“the Sound of Broadway Music”), who’s written reviews for Variety and Huffpost.

New York Stage Review is the brainchild of Suskin and Jesse Oxfeld, former theater critic at The New York Observer, who had the digital publishing experience (at companies like Vox and Tablet Magazine) to oversee development of the site. “We really wanted it to be a well- designed, professional, serious site that takes a group of people who are professional writers and critics and stands out from amateur or enthusiast sites,” Oxfeld said. There’s no funding for the venture — at least not yet. The critics on board the project are ponying up for the site’s development costs (in the low four figures) with the intent of figuring out a financial model once it’s up and running. Ad-supported, of course, is one possibility, as is the idea of filing for nonprofit status.

Along with Suskin and Oxfeld, the site’s roster of writers at launch also includes Elysa Gardner, who was theater critic at USA Today for 16 years; Michael Sommers, formerly of The Star-ledger; and David Finkle, who’s written on the arts for publications including the Village Voice. Over the years, all have found themselves out of a regular criticism job as the media landscape has changed. “It’s been a remarkable, and a remarkably fast, shift,” noted Adam Feldman, the theater and dance editor at Time Out New York, who is also the president of the New York Drama Critics Circle. “Arts coverage, and especially opinionated arts coverage, looks like an easy cut if you’re a media outlet making budget adjustments under difficult circumstances. So unfortunately a lot of really valuable voices are being lost, and in some cases, decades of experience and perspective.”

The people who make theater can feel that loss too. Andre Bishop, Lincoln Center Theater’s artistic director, has voiced support for New York Stage Review, as have playwright Doug Wright and busy stage and film producer Scott Rudin (“Hello, Dolly!,”“the Book of Mormon”).“there’s a profound need for it,” said Rudin, who’s got “Three Tall Women,” “The Iceman Cometh” and “Carousel” opening in the spring.“i think the enormous reduction in the number of critics makes it incredibly hard to sell shows, especially plays.”

Look for the first new reviews to post when incipient Disney blockbuster “Frozen” opens March 22.