We’re at the point where a brand new year is around the corner and we find ourselves asking “what did we do this year?” In the spirit of a round-robin Christmas letter, we thought we’d let you know what our 2017 has been like… January proved to be an exciting start to the year for … Continue reading 2017 In Review: What Have We Been Up To?
EMBEDDED CRITICISM: Critics Become Stagehands for a Night
Blind Date @ GCTC November 30-December 17, 2017 Previews November 28 and 29 WHAT IS EMBEDDED CRITICISM? The traditional model for theatre criticism (and other art forms) involves a separation between artist and critic. The artist(s) create(s) a piece of theatre and present it, the critic attends the performance and writes their review, and never … Continue reading EMBEDDED CRITICISM: Critics Become Stagehands for a Night
On Reaching Out to the Media
One of the great things about digital media is that it’s a lot easier and faster for the publisher to open up a dialogue with the public: updating a problematic sentence on a web page is simple and guarantees that future readers will see the corrected version, whereas the corrections in a newspaper, for example, … Continue reading On Reaching Out to the Media
Online Criticism & Artistic Darwinism
Are online theatre critics, or digital content creators in general, artists? To answer this seemingly rhetorical question, let me begin with a story: Not too long ago I found myself walking in a park in a quiet town in Germany and sat down by the edge of a pond, where I was greeted by an … Continue reading Online Criticism & Artistic Darwinism
Cultural Exchange|Theatrefullstop
"Introducing a new segment to both Theatrefullstop and New Ottawa Critics. As two independent blogger collectives, we are both inspired by what theatrically is happening beyond our borders. Each month, we will correspond with all the latest happenings in our cultural cities. This is an opportunity to learn, be inspired, communicate and collaborate!"- Lucy Basaba, … Continue reading Cultural Exchange|Theatrefullstop
The Unresolved
There’s a tendency I’ve noticed in theatre writers and theatre-goers alike to want things to be tied up in a neat little bow. But what if things weren’t so tidy? What if the playwright conspired with the director and the actors to leave a few things unresolved. What if we left the theatre with questions, … Continue reading The Unresolved
Happy Birthday to Me (or Blow Out the Candles, Make a Wish)
The New Ottawa Critics is celebrating its 5th birthday this week, so this Dark Day Monday Tuesday, we’re here to tell you a little bit more about our plans for the upcoming year and why we need your help more than ever. Over the last 5 years, the New Ottawa Critics and I have been … Continue reading Happy Birthday to Me (or Blow Out the Candles, Make a Wish)
The Collaborative Audience
It was brought to my attention last week that I was talking about theatre criticism as a collaboration between theatre artist, critic, and spectator without really exploring what that means. I touch on the relationships between these types of people a bit in the article on The Separation of Art and Critic, but I think it might … Continue reading The Collaborative Audience
The End? of Art
This Dark Day Monday I’d like to lean back into a more theoretical query: what is the end of theatre? I’m being deliberately vague (not to mention pretentious) about this question, because it lets me explore a few boring assumptions about theatre in an interesting way. This question has two distinct meanings that I’d like to … Continue reading The End? of Art
Community Voices
What are community voices, anyway? This is a new section of NOC devoted to giving space to people who normally live in the background of the conversation around art making and art criticism a dedicated place to speak. The community is a sound designer sick of people not appreciating their work, because people don’t know … Continue reading Community Voices
The New Ottawa Critics 