A couple days ago, my friend commented to me that theatre criticism was a dying medium. I asked if the theory behind this was that blogs were diluting the critical landscape, thereby making theatre critics obsolete. In response, he concurred that theatre criticism as a profession was on the decline, and of course, I had to agree. Much like all journalism, the proliferation of the cyber landscape with non-paid writers, critics and theorists have eliminated the need for these types of paid investigations – after all, why should a newspaper pay for an article when it can be published (and accessed) for free on any individual’s blog?

There are many factors which I believe will still continue to allow paid journals and newspapers to thrive, specifically online, but nonetheless, even these bodies are turning increasingly to more unconventional types of journalism in response to the pedestrianization of critical and investigative response. My favourite example of this is “Bros on Broadway,” a new feature launched by TheatreMania.com in which every day men, ostensibly ones who haven’t seen a play since middle school, are sent to review shows from a distinctly non-theatrical perspective. The ones released so far include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Cyrano de Bergerac. And man are they funny. More