The New Criterion was founded to provide the world of ideas and the arts with sorely needed independent criticism. Among the areas in which we have attempted to fulfill this function has been the New York theater. We have published articles on this subject-all of them by our theater critic, Mimi Kramer—in twelve of our nineteen issues to date; since September of 1983 she has written for us on the theater every month. Now the League of New York Theaters and Producers has responded to this critical effort by banning our theater critic from its “Third Night Press List.”
Among other things, the League of New York Theaters and Producers acts as broker between Broadway theaters and the many critics who wish to write about their productions. Every July the League reviews the claims of various publications for their critics and then issues a series of “press lists,” which the theaters use to separate deserving critics from undeserving. Since last July, Mimi Kramer has been included on the Third Night Press List, which entitled her to request tickets for the third night of a large number of Broadway and off-Broadway productions. The League also provides—to deserving critics, of course—an indispensable list of openings each month.
The trouble began in January, when Maria Pucci, a press agent for the production of And a Nightingale Sang, then being shown at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater, castigated Mimi Kramer for her refusal to guarantee a review of this production
