BWW Exclusive: What Do the Critics Think of Social Media? Matt Windman Finds Out in Excerpt from THE CRITICS SAY...

In The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future, Matt Windman, theater critic of the newspaper amNewYork, interviews dozens of other theater critics about their backgrounds, how they go about evaluating different kinds of shows, and the enormous challenges that threaten the future of professional theater criticism.

The book is published by McFarland and was released on April 20, 2016. To purchase today, click here.

In the below except from Chapter 11 ("Online"), Matt Windman asks the critics about how they use social media, if at all, as part of their work.

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Matt Windman: Do you use social media as a theater critic?

Rob Weinert-Kendt: Social media is a tool. Some of my favorite film critics engage with readers on Twitter. That must be exhausting to do. Peter Marks does it in D.C. I know that Brantley reads a lot of stuff online, but I don't think he involves himself in commenting. In the arts journalism programs that I know about, people are being trained to use social media. A lot of the job listings that I see now are for people to manage social media and file posts every day. The whole business is changing. People are aggregating content and tweeting for a brand or magazine. I'm not sure where criticism is going to fit into that.

Jesse Oxfeld: It's what's happening across the journalism business: engaging with readers online and trying to build an audience in that way. You do end up seeing some interesting conversations between writers and creators on Twitter. You also see a lot of conversations happening among critics, which are sometimes amusing and sometimes tedious. What's more interesting is when a debate flares up. Mike Daisey is such an active Twitter user. He can be bullying and angry on Twitter, but he can also be really smart and insightful. I don't tend to get into those conversations, but they're interesting to watch as they're happening.

Hilton Als: Our editor, David Remnick, doesn't press you into that stuff at all. He's great that way.

Michael Schulman: Every journalist has to have a Twitter account now-and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's how you reach people. Jason Zinoman is a very provocative, insightful critic on Twitter. John Lahr just joined Twitter two days ago. I love watching critics disagree with each other on Twitter and hash out arguments about whatever is on their minds.

Terry Teachout: A professional writer uses social media to strengthen the brand that is himself. I use Twitter and my blog to point people to my reviews, comment about the theater and the arts in general, communicate with people, and make myself more present. As far as I know, I was the first national arts journalist to start a blog about the arts. It was only by a couple of weeks, but it was me. That was also the year I became the theater critic of the Wall Street Journal. In 2003, I realized that blogging was going to become a very important thing. I said to myself, I better come to terms with this now. I did the same with Twitter and Facebook when they came along. I just see them as part of my daily work, and I enjoy using them, too.

Helen Shaw: I read my Facebook feed, but I very rarely write on Facebook or tweet. I feel like I'm five years too old to really adapt to it correctly. It's something I feel guilty about daily.

Perez Hilton: I use Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram for all of my reviews.

Ben Brantley: I don't use social media at all. I have a Twitter account only because there was someone impersonating me on Twitter, and the only way to get this guy to stop was to open my own account. I'm not on Facebook. The Times would like us all to use social media because it's the direction of things. I'm just naturally a private person. Self- promotion, which social media is largely about, is something I feel incredibly uncomfortable with.

Christine Dolen: I'm Facebook friends with tons of theater people in the community, so I learn about things through Facebook. I also hear from a lot of professionals on Facebook after my reviews get posted.

Peter Filichia: I talk about my theater columns on Facebook. Getting the word out is perfectly fine. I'm not above doing that. Even though I'm an old-timer when it comes to traditional theater, I like the fact that all this new technology can help us spread the word.

Charles Isherwood: The industry has changed for all journalists in various ways. The job used to be to see a show and write a review, and that was the end of the process. Now, with the increasing importance of social media, there's a lot more pressure to continue the process: to open yourself up to Twitter, Facebook, and reader comments. We're supposed to be much more engaged with our readers now. It's supposed to be more of a conversation, as opposed to, "Here's the official take of the New York Times. End of story."

I am not terribly active on social media, but I am increasingly seeing that it's inevitable, especially for the next generation of critics. Even for old fogies like myself, I feel like it's time to start learning those tools. I am somewhat of a Facebook phantom. I am not on Twitter at all. I follow a few people on Instagram, but I am not generating any content. I don't embrace the idea of self-promotion. I feel like a lot of it is, "Here's my review. Read my review." To me, that is an act of narcissism.

It's a challenge for all of us because it's a lot more work. In addition to writing reviews (which takes a considerable amount of thought and research), you have to think about ways of promoting your work and connecting with readers. For people just starting out in journalism, these things come quite easily to them. For people who have been working in more traditional models for many years, it's a whole new ballgame-and one that many of us don't really want to play.

David Cote: I use it for self- promotion-to post links to my reviews and distribute my work. As far as sharing my life on social media, I'm not interested in that. I'm too busy writing. If I'm not writing for Time Out, I'm working on my own art. I see people incessantly tweeting about this and that, and I'm not that eager to share my life with strangers.

Richard Zoglin: I do a little tweeting-not very much, usually just a link to a story. I've toyed with the idea of tweeting about shows that I can't review. I really loved the Alan Ayckbourn play I just saw, but Time couldn't accommodate a review. I've written about Ayckbourn before, but in this time of picking and choosing, the magazine passed on publishing a review. I did a quick tweet on the show because I was so impressed. I don't know if that was good or bad.

Richard Ouzounian: I absolutely do not tweet. I don't want to enter into the trivial, mindless discussions that I see happening with it. I see what it does to J. Kelly Nestruck at the Globe and Mail. I see him being tempted to run off at the mouth at 140 characters about everything from the karaoke bar he's at to what he thought about the show he just saw at intermission. That's not what I do.

Maybe I'm an old- fashioned old fart, but I do not think theater criticism, at my level, is about dialogue. As someone who's trained and has worked as long as I have, I have an opinion. You can disagree with that opinion. You can write letters to the editor. If you write me an email using your real name, I will answer you intelligently and respectfully every time. But I think the comments section under all the online reviews is one of the worst things that has ever happened to theater criticism. It lets trolls hide, and it's usually the same trolls time and time again.

Most of social media is not liberating anybody. It's not doing anything for those of us who are in the positions of authority. It's letting other people have a free shot at us. They think, I'm going to post 140 words on Richard Ouzounian's Twitter feed that will be so brilliant that the world will stop and realize I should be the next critic. That's not how it goes, and you just wind up wasting your time. I did Facebook for a little, but I found it was more of a social exercise than anything else.

I recently had a huge argument about this with J. Kelly Nestruck. It was the time of year when we get leaks about what'll happen next season at the Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival, and we both happened to get the same leaks on the same night. Kelly tweeted the names of three shows that he heard were being done next season at Stratford. I went out, did a little more homework, and found out who was directing them, how they were fitting in the season, and who would probably be in them, and I wrote a piece online later that evening. That's journalism. Just tweeting the titles of the plays is gossipy pissing in a barrel.

Twitter is great for revolutionary movements, to get people stirring in the street. But when was the last time something artistically important happened on Twitter? It makes you realize that Ira Glass (from the radio show This American Life) randomly said "Shakespeare sucks." It becomes the scandal of the day, and then it's forgotten. It doesn't do anything for real dialogue, and that's why I don't waste my time on it.

Robert Faires: I'm trying to get better at it, but I haven't used it an awful lot. I've tried to up my game in the last year or so, but I'm an old dog for whom that particular new trick is proving harder to learn than I expected. Over the years, I've gotten slower, while the pace at which the world is moving has picked up, so I'm at a disadvantage. There are a lot of things I just don't think of doing because I'm still in the mode I learned way back. It doesn't always occur to me to get on Twitter and throw 140 characters out about something, like letting people know I just saw a show or that a review is coming. I'm hardwired to write in what's probably the most old-fashioned way possible. I have been trying to break myself of that habit, but what little success I've had has been modest.

Don Aucoin: You go where the readers are, and social media is where the readers are. The Globe sends out my stuff on Twitter. I also post my reviews on Facebook. I've got 530 Facebook friends, and I try to engage them in a dialogue about theater. I'm not boosterish, but if something's worth seeing, I will say so.

Eric Grode: I think people should use as many platforms as they can-as long as they have legitimate things to say on those platforms. I can instantly tell which critics are tweeting only because someone at their office ordered them to do a certain number of tweets per week. They don't get tons of followers because their heart isn't really in it.

The best thing about social media is that we no longer have a situation where the artists create a piece, the critics come in and pass judgment, and that's the end of the discussion. I am in favor of the artists having a chance to respond. I am in favor of audience members having a chance to respond. And if the critic decides to respond back, I don't see any harm in that either. You can easily go down the rabbit hole and spend too much time in that realm, but I think it's healthy for everyone to be held accountable for their opinions. Social media can be a great outlet to engage with your readers.

Roma Torre: I've been advised (or I should say encouraged?) to tweet a lot. And I do somewhat. But to be honest, I don't have the time to share any more than what I write in my reviews. I spend a lot of time crafting each review. There's really no point in saying much more on Twitter or Facebook. It would almost be like stealing my own thunder. There's obviously a way to share my thoughts on social media, but I hate to be redundant, and I'm just not into writing anything else unless I have a good reason.

Elisabeth Vincentelli: I'm not on Facebook at all. The whole idea of friending someone on Facebook is really hard. It can be such a can of worms when you're Facebook friends with publicists and actors, and it's just really complicated for me to navigate that. But I am on Twitter, and I enjoy it. Somehow it feels different. Twitter is more of an open field. Following someone has less baggage than friending. I've also gotten embroiled in some Twitter wars, which are very fun.

Thom Geier: I tweet my reviews and theater news as well. It's part of the job now. For many people, Entertainment Weekly is more than just the print edition that's stapled together and mailed to them, or that appears at the newsstand. People experience Entertainment Weekly on their tablets, on our website, on their phones, on Twitter. There are many different ways they can access it now, and social media is one of them. It's a way to draw people who might not otherwise be aware that we cover theater, except for it popping up on their Twitter feed.

Steven Suskin: I feel like I'm always fighting deadlines, so why do more writing on social media?

Frank Rizzo: I hear from readers through social media. They have wonderful things to say and share, and sometimes it results in other stories. The idea of the critic in the ivory tower is offensive to me. There's nothing more fun than a good old- fashioned argument about something that we all feel passionate about. What you don't want to do is become irrelevant. You don't want to not be a part of that culture.

Jesse Green: I don't know about you, but I get instructed by my publication on using Twitter and Facebook. Jerry Saltz, our art critic, is one of the biggest Facebook destinations of any critic in the world. The rest of us are in awe and mystified because we don't know how to do that. Theater critics are going to have to learn how to leverage their voices electronically, but I'm hopeful that we can figure out a way to do it without cheapening the brand. I'm not there yet. I tweet and post when I have a review. I basically just say, "Here's my review." Apparently, that's not sufficient, but I haven't figured out what else to do-or perhaps I have and I am just unwilling.

Howard Shapiro: I was a really early tweeter. I started five years ago, not long after tweeting had started. The Inquirer made a decision that we were going to tweet our reviews. I find that Twitter is a really good way to tell people about something out there and to lead them to it. It's helpful for critics to say, "My review is ready." What you're really saying is, "You might be interested in reading this."

Michael Riedel: I'm not a Facebook person. I don't use Instagram. I don't tweet. I'm old- fashioned. I rely on my sources. I still believe in calling people, talking to people, chatting with people, going over to see people at their offices, hanging out with them at lunch. I don't think there's any substitute for that kind of old- fashioned "lay work," as we used to call it. People are much more forthcoming when you meet them face- to-face.

The big change for me is that I now can only have exclusives for stuff that is deeply under wraps. You can't really have exclusivity over something that's very dramatic, that happened in front of a lot of people, because all the people that are there can tweet about it. I'm not breaking those kinds of stories anymore. Back in the day, when I had a really good scoop about something that happened in the theater the night before, I would put it in the paper the next day. I would own that story for the rest of the day, and people had to follow me. But now someone can tweet something that happened at the theater, and then everyone else is following the tweet. There's nothing I can do about it. It's the way of the world.

Peter Marks: I went on Twitter three or four years ago. My feed is made up of people in the theater world. It's made me more human to them. As a result, I'm more relaxed about talking with them. I've learned how my reviews land, what about my reviews is useful to other people, and which ones have the most impact. I've learned a lot about what's going on in the theater, and the issues that are most important to the people out there, like how there are so few female directors. You get to hear voices from the groups you're not a part of.

Today at a newspaper, you have to be your own delivery system. You can't hope that your review is going to get read just by posting it on a website. I post almost every review on Twitter, hoping it will get some readers that way. It's a clicks thing. I tweet back at people who make a statement about the theater that I don't agree with, or that I do agree with. I tweet observations about the state of the theater. I tend to limit my tweets to theater. I don't tweet about politics.

Robert Feldberg: For a while, we were being encouraged to write blogs, so I did, but I didn't find it useful professionally. If a sports writer is constantly updating what's going on with a game, there's an audience of sports fans for that. With the theater, I'm already expressing my opinion in my review. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what a blog would be like. If there's some breaking news, I could send something out, but there isn't much of that in the theater.

Michael Musto: I resisted it for years, but later found it's a good way to drum up traffic and increase my audience. I resent when you only seem to be valued by the amount of people that click on your article, but you have to be realistic and realize that if your piece isn't read by lots of people, then you're pretty much irrelevant and obsolete. A lot of critics have now found that they also have to peddle their work. They have to hawk it to the masses. It's demeaning, but that's the way it is now in the journalistic marketplace. You're a writer and a self- promoter, and sometimes you're a bill collector, too.

Jason Zinoman: As print institutions decline, it becomes more important to have your own personal brand. I just sold a new book. When you talk to publishers, they look at how many Twitter followers you have. That's also true in Hollywood for actors. It's the world we live in now. I was asked to go on Twitter by my editor. I started begrudgingly, and now I'm addicted to it. You need to learn how to use the form. You can reach a huge number of people and have a really interesting dialogue. There are also some downsides. You have to be careful what you say. Things can be taken wildly out of context. You can't make certain arguments in short form.

From The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future © 2016 Matt Windman by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com.

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