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.