A Chicago Theatre Critic Moves On, And Reflects On How Being A Critic Has Changed

“When we’re looking at hard numbers, it’s clear that people just aren’t reading this stuff, and theatres are spending most of their advertising, like everyone else, in the digital realm. It used to be that we had seven or eight pages in a weekly magazine to fill with theatre reviews because that was based on advertising from theatres wanting to advertise next to our reviews. That relationship has changed. I think absolutely, if you wanna be taken seriously as an arbiter of culture in this city, you have to have some kind of knowledgeable coverage of theatre. But I guess the question becomes, is it profitable to be a cultural arbiter? I’m not sure that it is.”