2008 Woodie Awards
Criticism from all directions regarding critical MCCTA review
Issue date: 4/8/04 Section: Opinion
To Faculty Advisor Gerard A. Cox and actor Eddie Grosskreutz,
I am responding to your letters to the editor in the March 11 issue of The Circle, in which you came down pretty hard on Ms. Gunner who wrote a review of the MCCTA performance "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown".
I feel badly having to tell members of a college community this, but the kind of review Ms. Gunner wrote is the nature of critics and theatrical criticism. She has an obligation to discuss the play and share her opinion of it. And please bear in mind, she is not "hired," as Eddie put it. She is not being paid for her work, but a student putting her time in with an extra-curricular activity like the players of the performance in question. Let us keep in mind this is a college newspaper, not a professional source of news in the traditional sense. Similarly to how a MCCTA performance is not Broadway, The Circle is not the New York Times and should not be held to the same standards. We are all amateurs with limited experience, and all of this time in college is really to gain experience.
I have seen MCCTAs performances, and I have read the reviews, and I have agreed and disagreed with what the critic has written. That's my right. The general population, I would like to believe, would not rate the value of a production based solely on one person's opinion of it. Similarly, you should not come down so harshly on a person who is perfectly within their right to express their opinion of a performance. There have been many critics who have been more harsh than she was, and to be in a performance environment (particularly theater), you must learn to take certain criticism for face value and some of it for what it is; sometimes amateur and often sided with the reviewer.
- John Saginario
I am responding to your letters to the editor in the March 11 issue of The Circle, in which you came down pretty hard on Ms. Gunner who wrote a review of the MCCTA performance "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown".
I feel badly having to tell members of a college community this, but the kind of review Ms. Gunner wrote is the nature of critics and theatrical criticism. She has an obligation to discuss the play and share her opinion of it. And please bear in mind, she is not "hired," as Eddie put it. She is not being paid for her work, but a student putting her time in with an extra-curricular activity like the players of the performance in question. Let us keep in mind this is a college newspaper, not a professional source of news in the traditional sense. Similarly to how a MCCTA performance is not Broadway, The Circle is not the New York Times and should not be held to the same standards. We are all amateurs with limited experience, and all of this time in college is really to gain experience.
I have seen MCCTAs performances, and I have read the reviews, and I have agreed and disagreed with what the critic has written. That's my right. The general population, I would like to believe, would not rate the value of a production based solely on one person's opinion of it. Similarly, you should not come down so harshly on a person who is perfectly within their right to express their opinion of a performance. There have been many critics who have been more harsh than she was, and to be in a performance environment (particularly theater), you must learn to take certain criticism for face value and some of it for what it is; sometimes amateur and often sided with the reviewer.
- John Saginario