I must have missed this announcement in the paper, but apparently the Journal Star is no longer going to review local theater productions. A letter to the editor today from Steve Bortolotti, President of the Peoria Players Theater Board of Directors, asks the Journal Star to reconsider:
I think I speak for many in the Peoria area’s community theater groups when I say how saddened I was to hear the Journal Star plans to no longer offer theater critics’ reviews of local non-equity theater productions in the Sunday Journal Star…. If the paper’s decision is an economic one, I would suggest that the Journal Star hire freelance writers to cover the local theater scene. In any case, I hope the paper reconsiders its decision to eliminate theater critics’ theater reviews altogether.
That means no more reviews of Corn Stock Theater or Peoria Players Theater productions. Today’s “ARTSplus” section was a whopping three pages (perhaps they’ll soon be renaming it “ARTSminus”). I guess the National Endowment for the Arts director Rocco Landesman can be forgiven for thinking there’s not much playing in Peoria now that Peoria’s only newspaper of record is cutting its coverage of local theater. It’s just one more step in the Journal Star’s apparent quest to alienate all their readers and reduce circulation. That’s the darndest business plan I’ve ever seen.
I’m getting very close to dropping my subscription which I have carried since I graduated from college. I keep it only because of the coupons and because I need newspaper for emptying the cat’s litter box. Also, I do not want to see print journalism die out (and for the sake of the journalists), but the company needs to work harder to keep print journalism alive. In fact, I would be happy if the PJS dropped some natinal news and added much more local news.
Maybe they could arrange for plays to be shown in taverns, then Luciano could knock out two columns at once.
We passed on renewing the Journal Star.
It is ridiculous. PJS needs to continue reviews of the local arts scene whenver possible, including community and college theater. Bad call, PJS management.
The reviews, for the most part were fluff. They were simply free advertising for the theaters, which is okay, I guess. They certainly were not serious reviews or critiques of the shows. In fact, when ever Panetta would do a real critical review he would catch all kinds of flak.
Does this mean they are letting Panetta go?
Maybe they could get Pete Vonachen,Shadid,and Maloof to do reviews.
Having community members review these productions would be a good, low-cost solution. I would say “break a leg PJS” but you are already maimed.
See some local theater reviews at my blog.
(I am definitely not a professional reviewer, just an opinionated patron.)
Paul,
If you bashed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I will denounce your site to the world!
Maybe the Gatehouse bondholders, purchased default insurance/derivatives from AIG and it is actually in their interest to have the paper run a plan that will eventually bankrupt the newspaper……then they collect on the default insurance policies they took out on the bonds.
I attended an AnnArbor.com (the twice weekly newspaper that is the successor to the daily Ann Arbor News that ended last year) event last night for online commenters. The event was to obtain feedback from frequent commenters as to how to improve that and other aspects of the online paper. I stuck around to talk to the editor afterwords. He advised that in the last year AnnArbor.com had been able to raise their online advertising rates by 15% without losing a single advertiser. The reason: they had projected and would have been pleased with 20k unique visitors per day…….they are getting 50k.
New Voice,
When Cornstock presents “Transformers, The Musical”, I promise to review it kindly!
Paul,
Rumor has it they are working on a script/music as we write.
Having costume/prop troubles, etc.
Has the special publication appeared in the PJS that profiles the top grads of area schools yet??? I understood it had. I keep seaching online for this piece but cannot locate it. I know in previous years it was posted on line. Can anyone help me??
Frustrated, yes, there was an insert about the top ten in all area schools. It came out several days ago.