Point Park's "Room Service" a romp at the Playhouse

Everyone knows the Marx Brothers, right? (Just think: in a few years that won't be true. Maybe it's not even true now . . . shudder.)

Well, you and I know them, anyway, the guardian geniuses of American farce. That doesn't mean everyone knows Allen Boretz' and John Murray's "Room Service," though, which is not one of the triumphant Marx trio's (yeah, I know there were technically five of them) best-known achievements, either on stage (1937) or screen (1938).

But even so, we can all appreciate the temptation the Point Park theater students must have been under to craft their performances in "Room Service" (at the Playhouse only through Sunday) as imitations of the immortal Groucho et al. Sure, that would have been fun. But by resisting it, they've allowed us to see more of their own comic invention, and the result is a "Room Service" that's surprisingly fresh.

That is to say, it still has the pleasures of characters reacting extremely under extreme pressure, but they don't seem to be following any formula, instead inventing their own folly as they go. Farce is often heartless and even mechanical and none the less funny for being so, but this farce turns out to be not only fast and furious but to have some heart, as well, a real bonus.

I'd divide the credit for the production's pleasures roughly in thirds. First, there's director Rich Keitel's shaping hand, keeping the antics on even keel, as frenzied as necessary but with humanity nonetheless. This has the bonus effect that when very occasionally the action does jump the tracks of the probable, it's all the funnier for its excess.

Second, there are the lead performers, committing to the lunacy wholeheartedly but never jumping the tracks and losing touch with whatever reality they may command.

And third, there's some indefinable esprit de corps which keeps even the small roles (cast of 17) thoroughly engaged in the frantic fun. For this, I like to think the Playhouse ghosts are partly responsible, standing guard in the Rauh Theatre, presiding over the continuity of a great tradition.

Unusually, given the way farce plots usually go, "Room Service" doesn't really have anything to do with sex and only peripherally with getting the girl. So the Conservatory Theatre Company's logo, that hotel desk with two room service bells grinning at us like a part of female anatomy, is a bit of a red herring, even though it does suggest the appropriately subversive mood. There are only three women in the cast (well, sort of four), but they pitch in with that same community spirit.

Sure, it's a student production. For example, one guy, a bellhop with ambition, could hardly be heard. But generally even the small parts jump right on the spinning merry-go-round with the chief farceurs. These are led by Justin Fortunato as chief dervish (aka Groucho), with Ryan Patrick McFarland and James Masciovecchio as his chief abetters and Jonathan Rooney and Richad McBride as chief obstacles.

Kudos also to the usually slick Playhouse sets (Andrew Homyak), costumes (Joan Markert) and sound (Randy Kovitz) -- all very '30s. 

And that's all you'll get from me: no real review today, just a happy appreciation. 

(Playhouse photos by Drew Yenchak.)

-- Christopher Rawson, senior theater critic

Stage review: a witty contemporary 'Mikado' at CMU

It isn't usual for me to get to shows by the CMU Music School (as opposed to Drama), but the current "Mikado" offered three strong attractions: it's Gilbert and Sullivan, and I'm an addict; it's directed by Gregory Lehane, an inventive director of comedy (disclosure: we work together on the annual "Off the Record" spoofs); and it's designed by Peter Cooke, the new head of CMU drama, in what I'm pretty sure is his creative debut here.

All three attractions pan out, so here's your advisory: there are only three more performances, Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday matinee.

But there are more reasons than these three to see "The Mikado, or, The Town of Titipu," leading off with the strong orchestra, directed by the indefatigable Bob Page. It must be the largest (35!) to tackle G&S that we've heard in Pittsburgh. Indeed, it's one of the largest and richest I've heard in a lifetime of dozens and dozens of G&S performances in Pittsburgh, New York, Canada and London.

I'd go to hear the delicious score, alone. There are also the fine student voices, some especially so. The acting isn't generally up to what CMU drama students do on that same stage, but some is very good, and the result is what you want from G&S: witty, beautiful, silly and touching, all in turn.

And mainly, there's the work of Lehane and Cooke, who have taken "The Mikado" (1885), written to be a spoof of Victorian England refracted through a Victorian view of Japan, and set in a modern high school gym. A program essay, some of the accents, the union jack painted on the floor and the large portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that descends for the finale all suggest that the school is in England, but the school uniforms (short plaid skirts for the girls, white shirts and skinny ties for the guys, plus a few i-phones), erratic accents and the general behavior make it just as likely to be set at, say, Central Catholic High School (Lehane's alma mater) a few blocks away.

Presumably this is a rehearsal run-through, as the opening horseplay suggests. But gradually the cast adopts more elements of costume, especially light blue kimono-like gowns and red fans that snap with crisp theatrical authority, culminating in the Act 2 entrance of the emperor (the Mikado, Tim Ruff) in full oriental polish.

This concept provides an extra layer of comedy, a sort of high school parallel that makes sense, given that G&S used to be a high school staple -- and it even makes sense in the story, since the female chorus are all young ladies from a Japanese finishing school. (The males are supposedly Japanese lords, but you can't win them all in a conceptual remake.)

Anyone who knows the show will have fun spotting the different characters in the initial pre-rehearsal hurly burly -- the confused guy with a trombone must be the young hero, Nanki-Poo (Ryan Townsend); the woman in odd garb must be the angry contralto, Katisha (Melissa Johnson); and even the three vain girls, swaggering in unison, are bound to be the "Three Little Maids from School" (Yum-Yum, Piti-Sing and Peep-Bo -- Kristen Hahn, Loghan Bazan and Meghan Schiller).

The odd fellow preening and knitting and practically doing cartwheels offstage has to be the comic lead, Ko-Ko (Adam Hill), and the imposing tall fellow in a suit must be the ineffable lord-for-hire, Pooh-Bah (Hans Tashjian).

Four of the leads are double-cast, so I can't speak for those you might see. And as I say, they are all from the School of Music, so you don't expect a great deal of acting. But Hahn is all you could wish as the calculatedly demure young heroine, and Hill is a frenetic, physically eccentric comedian. I was also impressed with the stage command of Bazan and the welcome diction of Scott Beasley (Pish-Tush).

Diction is a problem, with the big orchestra and voices sometimes more operatic than musical comedy, so CMU provides projected lyrics, which I've never before seen in G&S. But as I say, I'm an addict, and some audiences need the assistance; it certainly beats following along in your libretto, as some do at Pittsburgh Savoyards performances.

Cooke's set isn't just a gym: the flag on the floor and a slice of sky above the basketball hoop give it a surreal tinge, and the paper lanterns, such as you might see for a school dance, suggest Japan. They also take Todd Wren's lights beautifully, as in Yum-Yum's delicious "Sun and Moon" solo. 

Lehane has pruned some dialogue, as I know he likes to do from his "Off the Record" work. He's an inventive, audience-friendly director, moving the show as briskly as possible, complete with purposefully limited choreography (though Peter Cope is on board for more complex movement). And Lehane's not above inserting comic bits that appeal to the audience more than they might have to librettist/director Gilbert.

As is the tradition, CMU has re-written many of the lyrics to Ko-Ko's "Little List" and the Mikado's "To Make the Punishment Fit the Crime," so there are plenty of contemporary laughs directed at CMU, Pittsburgh and national foibles. G&S is a gift that keeps on giving.

By senior theater critic Christopher Rawson, who can be reached at crawson@post-gazette.com.

End-of-year readers respond to Chris Rawson

My end-of-year wrap-ups occasioned a small flurry of emails. Here's a few.

First, on the choice of Robin Abramson as Performer of the Year:

We saw Ms. Abramson perform as Maria Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" in Israel. Her performance was so enchanting that, after the opening night, the run of the show rapidly sold out. We saw it three times because we were stunned at the job she did.  Audience members felt that she simply elevated the performance of each quite capable cast member and left no one missing Julie Andrews. And that was quite a feat. -- Lee and Lynn Glassman, Jerusalem, Israel

I've loved Robin's acting since I first met her in the Young Playwrights Company -- which means sometime in the last 10 years. In the right role, she is a luminous presence, and she was right in both "Mary's Wedding" and "Blackbird." As you said, there was a lot of competition. If you were willing to repeat yourself, it would have been Helena Ruoti's year again, if only for "Rock and Roll" -- which is a compliment to the role as much as anything. But it's wonderful to see the truly young so elevated -- so, yes, a surprising but nice choice. -- Jeanne Drennan

Thanks for naming Robin Abramson as Perf of the Year! I think she did a very fine job in those two roles. I look forward to watching her career. Her support was fine; and her direction was excellent; and her designers did her well. I was privileged to observe the production of "Mary's Wedding" -- I was "shadowing" Andy Ostrowski -- and I have to say I cried when I read the play, and I cried every time I saw it, from first read-through to closing night. Hard to beat that! And my wife and I are still talking about "Blackbird." (Have you looked at the script!) That's what live theatre is all about. -- Dennis Lynch

Two critiques of my Top 10 of 2009:

I find it very interesting indeed that PICT's production of "Crime & Punishment" which was given a very positive review by Bob Hoover, and just about everybody I know that saw it said it was the best thing PICT has done for a while, is not even mentioned in your [Top 10] . . . In addition, a few that I talked to that have seen various productions of the O'Neill play (including the last PPT outing) were disappointed with "Moon for the Misbegotten" at the Public. -- Ron Necheff

I was wondering what your criteria were for top play. I would certainly rate "A Moon to Dance By" as Pittsburgh's coup of the year, even more substantial an accomplishment than getting G-20 to come here. Getting Jane Alexander to perform in a small theater in an original work directed by her husband speaks highly for the vitality of the Pittsburgh theater scene. The performances were great and it certainly made for a very exciting theater going experience. That said, it wasn't my best night in the theater just because the play was so weak. I don't see it ever going to Broadway, maybe a limited engagement Off-Broadway is the best it can hope for. Major re-writing probably won't improve it because there is not that much to the story. Which gets back to criteria. Is it a combination of outstanding play and good production or does production trump everything? That is basically the same question I have every year with the Tony for best revival. How could a clever production of three pieces of fluff ("The Norman Conquests") beat out great productions of outstanding plays like "The Seagull," "Mary Stuart" and "Exit the King," just to name a few. If last year's revivals had all been produced for the first time last year, I doubt that "Norman" would have even been nominated for best play. Which gets back to "Moon to Dance By." It is perhaps the second or third worst play on your top ten list, so what made it get the number one place? Its importance to the Pittsburgh theater? I'd buy that reason, but not as a stand alone evening watching a very good play.  -- Marvin Fein

There was no interesting comment on my Top 10 of the Decade. But here are some responses to my review of 'Next to Normal' on Broadway:

Saw it last spring with my teenage daughter and we were both really impressed, especially with Alice Ripley. That said, it was very difficult to sit through at some points, because I felt so bad for the wife and husband (not so much for the daughter; she was just annoying). Something happened at that show, however, that was REALLY annoying: there were about a half-dozen teens sitting behind us and toward the end (perhaps seven or eight minutes to go) they all began SOBBING loudly. OK, I get the interaction, etc, but it was loud to the point of making it difficult to hear. I am not the type to Shush anyone who is clearly that emotionally wrought and involved but, still . . . .  -- Maria Sciullo Kaufman

Always appreciate your reviews, Chris, and now you've made me want to see "Next To Normal."  I've been enjoying the cast recording for months, but hadn't heard from anyone who had seen it yet. Also, please don't miss "Ragtime."  I was at the closing performance at its Kennedy Center run in May (before it moved to Broadway) and witnessed one of the top musical theater performances I've ever seen in my life (and that includes the original run of "A Chorus Line" on Broadway). -- Bruce Smith

And finally, Jeanne Drennan also wrote about my remarks on 'Blackbird':

On leaving "Blackbird," I was thinking of the song also and was transported mentally to the "History Boys" singing it at their teacher's funeral. The song is more than melancholy; it's self-elegiac (if I can make up a word). The bed being made up may well be floating on the River Styx. And the young woman who has made this trip toward discovery is again left alone, left in the dark. I found it utterly chilling.

Agreed. (If playwriting doesn't pan out, Jeanne could be a theater critic.) And does anyone think there's significance to Una, the young woman's name in "Blackbird"? . . . I'm thinking of Spenser's "Faerie Queen."   

Chris Rawson as Janus, looking back at both 2009 and the past decade

I've been playing Janus, as I said on my weekly spot on Pittsburgh Today Live (KDKA-TV, Thursday mornings, sometime between 9 and 10.) As I'm sure you know, Janus is the Roman god who looks both forward and back, hence "January." My Janus-like feeling, which is nothing at all like god-like -- far from it -- derives from doing three retrospective opinion pieces, the Top 10 of 2009 (Dec. 17), Top 10 of the '00 decade (Dec. 27), and the 2009 Performer(s) of the Years piece coming in tomorrow's paper.

Granted, these are all backward looking, but I justified my Janus claim on KDKA by making some remarks about what's coming up. And anyway, what's the point of retrospectives unless they prepare you for looking ahead? You get an idea of where you're going by chronicling where you've been.

City Theatre

I was startled to find (as was pointed out by a couple of, uh, surprised readers) that no City Theatre show made the decade's Top 10 or the runner-up half-dozen. Oddly, I hadn't even noticed this, my focus was so intent on individual shows. Still, I was asked if I had an agenda, if I was sending a message.

Simply, no.

However, it has given me to think. It's certainly not that I don't admire City: in fact other theaters (I name no names) have accused me of partiality to them. And as I point out in the article, among the 103 shows cited in the annual lists, 2000-2009 (there were some ties), the Public led with 15, followed closely by City and PICT with 14 each.

Still, I was startled enough to go back over the annual lists. (Remember, all these judgments are personal, even arbitrary. But since the person is me, I have to own them.) The only City shows to rank higher than fourth were "Red Herring" (2001), "Hedwig" (2003) and "2.5 Minute Ride" (2004). The latter two were in essence tours (see "some caveats," below), and I don't think "Red Herring" stands up that strongly in retrospect. Right now, I'd say "Fuddy Meers" (2002), "Marriage Minuet" (2008) and "The Seafarer" (2009) are the three City shows of the decade I'd rank highest.

Ask me tomorrow, and I might think differently. Still, it strikes even me as odd that I ranked "Seafarer" only fourth, and that was just a few weeks ago. That's how variable judgment can be.

How about this: As the last of the half-dozen runners-up for the decade I wrote, "your own favorite show that I stupidly left out." One of those City shows belongs right there.

Looking deeper

But once I began thinking (dangerous ground) about this, I realized there has to be some further reason that a theater I admire so much doesn't consistently score higher in the annual lists. Here are some thoughts.

City Theatre has the toughest row to hoe in the garden of Pittsburgh theater. The Public chooses from the whole range of plays new, old and classic. PICT has the classics, not to mention Ireland, and it's been observed that I'm partial to both. (I am. With good reason.) Quantum has individual taste and quirkiness. And so on. Each of these groups has a downside, too: the Public has to play to a large, theatrically mainstream audience; PICT's ambition can exceed its grasp; Quantum can be caviar to the general.

But my point remains: City is squeezed by concentrating on plays new or nearly new. Of course, it is exactly this that makes it essential, a center of nurture for American playwrights and more important to the American theater than any other Pittsburgh company. Its level of production is also among the highest in Pittsburgh.

But it is intrinsic to this mission that new plays are difficult and risky. City's shows have high average quality and appeal, but new plays are rarely world-beaters. How could they be?

My wife Mary suggests I call City the Alice Waters of theaters. It's committed to creating out of American materials. Other restaurants can mine the classic repertoire or the experimental and trendy, while City searches for what's fresh and local.

On the other hand, as I've remarked before, Mary can't see why we journalists have this thing about lists, anyway.

Some caveats

* Looking back, I see that the Top 10 of the Decade leans toward shows produced locally, including only "Twelfth Night" from London's Globe and "El Eco de la Sombra" from Barcelona's Teatro de los Sentidos, plus "The Argument" from London's Theatre O as a runner-up. That's not true of the annual Top 10's, where, following the pattern laid down by my predecessor, George Anderson, local shows and tours compete more equally. I could well have included the Globe's "Measure for Measure" or a Broadway tour, at the cost of other local shows. But see the next caveat.

* Obviously my rankings, besides being personal, involve some sort of sliding scale. In this, I operate just as any theater-goer must: you arrive at the CLO, Public or City with a different level of expectation than you bring to a semi-pro or college group. How else could CMU's "Oresteia Trilogy" beat out many fine, fully professional shows? But that said, the scale of judgment isn't entirely relative. It takes something extraordinary for a CMU show -- or "Two Trains Running" at Pittsburgh Playwrights, say -- to outrank those at the Public, etc. And extraordinary they were. 

Chris Rawson's theater Top Tens of the year and the decade

On Dec. 17 we published the PG's Ten Best list for 2009. If you didn't read it, it's still up on the Theater page, or you can use this link.

And tomorrow, Dec. 27, we publish our (well, my) Ten Best list for the decade --  that being the decade of the oughts, or whatever you choose to call it.

As you can imagine, it wasn't easy winnowing down the c.1,700 Pittsburgh-area shows we reviewed during the decade to come up with just 10. But in practice, what I did was look at the ten best lists for each of the 10 years. So I was really considering "just" 100 shows.

It occured to me that others might like to look back and see how I made my choices, and perhaps make their own. So here are links to the Ten Best lists for the decade. If you're interested, let me know what you think I missed in boiling this all down to a Top Ten. And note the bonus at the end -- the Top Ten list for the 1990s.

2000: published Dec. 29, 2000; apparently there's no current link.

2001.

2002.

2003.

2004.

2005.

2006.

2007.

2008.

2009.

1990s decade bests. 

1980s: published Dec. 25, 1989; no link available.

'Blackbird' and 'The Little Foxes'

December! Where does it go, this thing called Fall? There's just enough of it left to see two rewarding shows at our leading (non-musical) theaters, both running only through Dec. 13 and, in an odd coincidence, each taking its name from a famous quotation.

First is the Public's classic Lillian Hellman melodrama, set in the turn-of-the-19^th century South:

Take us the foxes,
The little foxes, that spoil the vines.
-- The Song of Solomon

I knew that was the title's source, but I had to go back to Bible to recover "spoil the vines," which is the point. "The Little Foxes" is an all-out battle between the genteel Old South (Horace, Birdie, Zan and Addie) and the mercenary go-getters of the New South, here represented by the locust-like Hubbards (Ben, Oscar, Leo and, most of all, Regina, who wants to queen it over both worlds). The Hubbards are Faulkner's Snopses just a few rungs up the social ladder.

It's one of the most seamless casts the Public has recently enlisted, led by Helena Ruoti, Ross Bickell and Deidre Madigan, with substantial contributions by Michael McKenzie, John Shepard, Chris Landis and Lara Hillier, plus Linda Haston, Phil Winters and Wali Jamal. Ted Pappas directs, and this is a show he knows very well how to shape and pace. Lillian Hellman could really put pen to paper (finger to typewriter?) when she was at the top of her game.

It's almost a guilty pleasure, veering from satire to melodrama and back again. I marvel at myself, an unreconstructed New England puritan, actually rooting for the Old South, the people who gave us slavery and had the effrontery to defend it. But many a system in decline suddenly glows with the shine of melancholy. 

The other play is at City, David Harrower's harrowing "Blackbird." On the way home, Mary and I had just started discussing where the title came from when she began singing the lyrics to the 1926 song:

Pack up all my care and woe,
Here I go, singing low, Bye bye Blackbird,
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is she, Bye Bye Blackbird!
No one here can love or understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me,
Make my bed and light the light,
I'll be home late tonight, Blackbird bye bye."
--Mort Dixon (lyrics) & Ray Henderson (music)

It doesn't matter that Harrower's intense 80-minute two-person confrontation is set in Scotland (but not at City, where it seems to happen somewhere in the U.S.). It doesn't matter that it's far darker than the situation in the song. What fits the song title to the play is the shared melancholy, complexity and regret.

Under Stuart Carden's direction, Robin Abramson (a Pittsburgher from Israel) and Steve Pickering (a Chicagoan) face off in a non-descript lunch room. There's ugly ancient history between them. Compelled, they dredge it up, largely against their will, discovering in the process something almost sweet, which makes the history even more appalling. Don't take the kids. But what a play!

You'd expect it to be good if you saw the two previous Harrower plays in Pittsburgh, both staged by Quantum Theatre -- "Knives in Hens" (1998) and "Kill the Old Torture Their Young" (1999).

Remember: there's just 10 days to go for "Little Foxes" and "Blackbird." 

P.S. Tomorrow I'm doing a podcast interview with Robin Abramson.

Chris Rawson is senior theater critic for the Post-Gazette and reviews weekly for KDKA-TV.

The senior theatre critic explains the world series (which is theater, too)

I know, it's odd that I break my long silence (excuses below) to comment on the world series, but it is one of our great national dramas.

And like any good drama, it involves the audience, which creates a crisis for us in Pittsburgh: How can we bring ourselves to root for a team from Philadelphia? On the other hand -- and especially for a New England-bred Red Sox fan such as myself -- how could we bring ourselves to root for the Goldman Sachs of baseball, the Yankees? (I shudder typing it.)

As a Pittsburgher and Red Sox fan, I wouldn't root for the Yankees if they were playing the Cleveland Indians . . . or France . . . or Al Quaeda . . . well, maybe if they were playing France. And it's just too simple to hope that every game will be rained out or that both cities will be washed into the sea.

So my solution, elegant in its simplicity, is to root against the home team in each game, thereby maximizing the anguish. So far, I'm 1 for 1, and I'm rooting for the Philles (yech) in game 2.

As to my long silence, blame it on summer, producing "Off the Record IX," a theater critics conference in NYC, etc., etc. Meanwhile, I've been seeing a lot of theater which, for the most part, I have not been writing about in the PG, so I should have been writing about it here. I plan to get right back in the saddle.

POSTED MORE THAN A MONTH LATER:

OK, the damnyankees won. What can you do? Life is like that -- if nothing else, we New England Calvinists know that. And anyway, how much was I really rooting for the Phillies? Come on, be serious.

Whatever it took me several more weeks to recover, then came Halloween and Thanksgiving. Now I'm back at the keyboard. (see above.)

Chris Rawson's OnStage: Taste, Sondheim, Chris Laitta and "Off the Record"

They say there's no arguing about taste, but of course that's wrong -- taste is probably what we argue about most. (It's facts about which there ought to be no arguing, but there is, because some people -- always on the other side of the argument, of course -- don't care any more about facts than reason.)

So this is my disclaimer, taking a long way around to a letter in a Weekend Feedback complaining about Stephen Sondheim's score for "Into the Woods," several weeks back when I was playing hooky on a golf course in New England.

Now I would have thought that Sondheim's score was beyond argument. I can see objections to his re-writing beloved fairy tales with grownup insight (but they're hardly any more cynical or grim than the Grimm originals), or to his inventing a tale (The Baker and His Wife) in order to weave the others together, or to his connecting Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as generic maiden-and-prince fantasies, or to his following the sweetly satiric Act 1 with the apocalyptic Act 1, and so on.

Not that I feel those objections at all, since the show has such wit and insight -- just that I can see them coming up. But the score? The one that contains wit, feeling and just plain gorgeous passion? Not so, according to Mike Aleprete of Plum, who said in his letter, after praising the production and performances:

My only complaint was the score by Stephen Sondheim. I just don't get what all the accolades and praise this guy gets for his music. I thought it was monotonous, nerve-wracking and boring. As a matter of fact, I think all of his later works like this and "Sweeney Todd" are terrible. I loved his early music like "West Side Story," and "Anyone Can Whistle." What happened?

Leaving aside the failures of information (the "West Side Story" music is by Leonard Bernstein) and omissions (my own Sondheim favorite is "A Little Night Music"), plus specifics of taste ("Anyone Can Whistle"?!), I'd like to lay this response to a general failure of taste. But taste can't really fail, can it? Just differ.

So instead I'd like to lay this opinion to unfamiliarity, which leads me to this simple offer: If reader Aleprete will send me a snail mail address, I will mail him my own "Into the Woods" CD. If he listens to it twice and doesn't find that it has risen dramatically in his estimation, I will confess myself (and Sondheim) defeated, and in recompense, he can keep (or trash) the CD as a trophy of his victory.

But if he discovers that a little familiarity reveals some of Sondheim's fund of melody, not alone his wit (NO ONE could miss the wit), then he has to mail me back my CD.

Of course, if he remains impervious to Sondheim, he probably wouldn't want to keep my CD, so he might mail it back to me anyway.

 NEWS BITS

(1) I first learned from my Facebook wall (yes, even the senior theater critic is on Facebook, though not so often as to make much of a ripple) that Chris Laitta is performing her "TV Tunes" at the CLO Cabaret this week, Sept. 10 and 12. So I've done a podcast interview with her, which you can hear by clicking here.

That I think Chris is a fine performer is obvious, since I keep casting her in our annual Pittsburgh spoof, "Off the Record." This year she's playing Lynn Cullen in "Off the Record IX: High School Confidential!" It's at the Byham Theater, Thursday, Oct. 1. Tickets are already on sale at 412-456-6666, and as usual, proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

(2) Many-award winning director (a fistful of Tonys, to start) Trevor Nunn directs an ensemble cast led by Kevin Spacey and David Troughton in "Inherit the Wind," Lawrence and Lee's highly relevant drama inspired by the famous 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey Trial,' when school teacher John Scopes stood accused of violating a Tennessee statute by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. It opens on Broadway Sept. 18 and runs into December.

Chris Rawson's OnStage: ATCA protests critics' loss of Tony vote

Following is a message I sent today on behalf of the American Theatre Critics Association to the Broadway League and American Theatre Wing, who jointly administer the Tony Awards.

To: Nina Lannan, Chair, and Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director, The Broadway League; and Theodore Chapin, Chairman, and Howard Sherman, Executive Director, American Theatre Wing

Now that the initial uproar has eased, the Executive Committee of the American Theatre Critics Association urges the Tony Management Committee to reconsider its recent decision to disenfranchise theater critics who vote for the Tony Awards.

Among the artists, craftspeople and producers who comprise most of that electorate, critics are the least biased voters with the broadest, best informed view of the theatrical scene. Their participation enhances the legitimacy of the Tonys, which otherwise would look parochial and self-congratulatory.

Critics are also natural participants. All around the country there are similar theatrical awards programs in which critics play a leading role; ATCA itself administers several. Disenfranchising critics from the Tonys fits no sensible rationale. Analogies to the Oscars and Emmys miss the point that theater is always alive and local -- whereas movie and TV critics are many and widely dispersed, New York theater critics are limited and well placed to help celebrate Broadway.

If the unspoken aim is to reduce the number of free tickets producers must provide, it would be better to take the vote away from the editors and columnists on the 100-person first night list, leaving the genuine critics. Or just start anew with the New York Drama Critics Circle and add other critics as seems best. Of course, the greatest saving would be to refuse all voters' requests for extra tickets or second viewings.

But these are housekeeping details, well within the competence of the Tony Committee. Whatever the perceived problem may be, tossing out the critics isn't the answer. This is a time when the Fabulous Invalid and the beleaguered critical community should be making common cause for their art. Haven't the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League always supported that ideal?

(signed) Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Chairman, ATCA Executive Committee

BACKGROUND: ATCA is the only national organization representing American theater critics. Founded in 1974 by (among others) Henry Hewes, Elliot Norton, Richard Coe, Edith Oliver and Dan Sullivan, it sponsors yearly conferences and symposia and sends members to the seminars and congresses of the International Association of Theatre Critics. It makes a recommendation for the regional theater Tony and votes on the Theater Hall of Fame, and through its Foundation, it annually awards the $40,000 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA and M. Elizabeth Osborn new play awards and $10,000 Francesca Primus Prize.

Chris Rawson's OnStage: The Tony Awards unwisely disenfranchise the critics, and great is the wailing thereat

If you've recently heard wailings and gnashing of teeth in the small community of New York theater critics, noisy enough to register in the larger world, it's because the Tony Awards have announced they're cutting critics out of the electorate.

There are about 800 electors, mainly made up of producers (including presenters of Broadway productions on tour, such as the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust) and representatives of the main theater unions (actors, choreographers, designers, press agents, etc.). But roughly 100 of the 800 are members of the "first night press list," which is made up of the most influential critics (more about that later) plus arts editors and others (more about that, too), and all these have just been exiled from the kingdom.

On the face of it, it's foolish, especially given the half-hearted reason obliquely cited, which is that voting creates a conflict of interest for the critics. In this, as in so much else, the Tony people have been bedazzled by the New York Times, which prohibits (dissuades? doesn't like?) its critics' voting on awards they also report on. But the Times is pretty much alone on this, and anyway, this position is insulting to critics. Should no political reporter be allowed to vote for mayor or president? Should no sports writer be allowed to vote for the baseball Hall of Fame?

Obviously conflict of interest can't be the real reason, because conflict (i.e. partisanship) is much greater for those theatrical craftsmen whose paychecks are affected by the awards, which have real commercial value. For a critic, the only conflict I can imagine is in voting for a show in order to validate the critic's published opinion -- but how is that a conflict, rather than simply expressing judgment, which any voter ought to do?

This is why most critics in their predictions columns give their own preference but also predict a more likely winner -- they can see the difference, even if the Tony people can't. Having an opinion about what's good isn't a conflict of interest, it's the basis of an informed vote. Or maybe it is a conflict for industry insiders, who want to vote for their own shows, excellence be damned, so they assume others have similar conflicts.

Cutting out the critics is mainly foolish because they're generally the best informed part of the electorate. That's why in many cities that have their own versions of the Tonys, the critics are the major or even only voters -- who else but the critics have had the time to see most of the shows, even before the nominations come out? No one is supposed to vote for the Tonys who hasn't seen all the nominees, but surely critics meet this requirement more often than others.

Once the Tony nominations do come out, all 800 voters are supposed to see all the nominated plays still running, and they get free tickets, two per person. So this is probably the real reason to cut out the first night list -- so producers can save on the free tickets that these 100 voters scarf up.

Of course, the critics have already seen most of the shows, so you might wonder, where's the saving? Two places. First, there are those 100 names on the favored first night list. Not so many of them are critics as you might think. The New York Drama Critics Circle, which polices its rolls carefully, has about 20 members. There may be some other major suburban or out-of-town critics on the first night list, but the bulk of it isn't critics at all, but influential editors and publishers and columnists. In fact, the New York Times is said to have a half-dozen or more names on the list. They dissuade their critics from voting, but apparently other staffers are free to accept the producers' largesse.

So the Tony committee could disenfranchise all these non-critics and keep the critics onboard. But the word is that they fear making those distinctions, since they'd be offending some powerful journalists. It's easier just to throw the baby out with the bathwater -- the critics with the freeloaders.

The second saving is this. The recent furor has revealed that when the nominations come out, Tony voters can ask for free tickets even if (as with the critics) they've already seen a show. You can see why no producer wants to turn down a ticket request when a single vote might be the difference in winning a Tony. The cost in free tickets is huge. So why not simply declare, Broadway-wide, that no one of the 800 Tony voters gets a second pair of free tickets, not just the 100 first nighters? That would save plenty of money and be even-handed, as well.

The main area in which I do feel for the producers is in the increasing difficulty of determining who, in a welter of print columnists and web columnists and bloggers and twitterers, is really a critic. Throw in the historic tension between producers and critics, and I'm sure it's tempting just to diss them all. Maybe that's what happened. But that's dereliction of duty. Producers (actually, press agents, whom they hire to do this work) already have to sort out the more important critics when they hand out reviewers' tickets, so why is it so impossible to make those distinctions when creating a Tony voter list?

Bottom Line: The worst part of all this, to my mind, is that it further marginalizes critics, just at a time when this important part of the theater ecosystem is under financial siege, with newspapers at risk. Critics help define and celebrate the theatrical community. Don't deprive them of this traditional involvement. The theater will be the loser for it.

Chris Rawson is current chair of the American Theatre Critics Association. Although ATCA is making its own protest against this new Tony policy, this column represents Rawson's own opinions, not ATCA's.