'A Decade of Young Critics' by Karen Fricker
For the past ten years, I have taught theatre criticism to young people in Ireland as part of the National Association of Youth Drama (NAYD)'s Young Critics programme. I work alongside an expert facilitator from NAYD in leading a group of up to 18 older teenagers through the experience of seeing several productions over the course of a weekend, and engaging with them critically. We meet with the same group of young people two, sometimes three times in a single year, and the programme ends with a panel discussion featuring four of the young people, as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. For the past several summers we have held a Young Critics workshop as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival, and have engaged in some innovative social networking and blogging activity as part of this (about which more as we go along).
In this article I will offer some background to the thinking behind and practice of this programme, in the interest of promoting best practice in criticism pedagogy. First, we need to start with the basics.
What is theatre criticism?
Theatre criticism is an intense and significant mode of engagement with a work of performing art. Approaching a production critically means experiencing its meanings, exploring and appreciating the ways in which these meanings are created, assessing the production's relative merits and weaknesses, and communicating all of this to others. This latter criteria is crucial: criticism is a public act. To fully do its job, a review needs to include all three key elements: description, analysis/evaluation, and judgment (these three elements of engagement with a work of art date back to Goethe). Ideally, professional critics are subject experts: they know a great deal about the field in which they critique, and consider each production in the larger context of theatre histories and current movements, as well as placing this consideration in the context of the current socio-cultural moment.
 Arts criticism in the early 21st century is in considerable flux. Traditional journalistic outlets, newspapers in particular, are struggling to find a viable economic model in the face of the challenge of 24/7 news sources on the internet and television. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other online tools help anyone with a wired device to transmit their point of view around the world instantly. Websites such as Yelp! and TripAdvisor allow citizens to offer their points of view about consumer experiences, a model that is being adapted in the arts realm. Many newspapers are slimming down their arts staffs or getting rid of professional critics altogether, and offering readers' e-mails, blog postings and Tweets; and/or aggregations of professional reviews from other sources, in the place of professional reviews written specifically for the publication.
 Where subject expertise and writing skills fit in this evolving matrix is currently unclear. It certainly seems evident that earning a living as an arts critic - always a shaky prospect - is not going to be achieved on the same terms as previously. This does not seem to come as a surprise or affront to the university students I have taught in the UK and Canada: their generation of arts students has accepted that they will need to hold multiple jobs - including possibly ones that have nothing to do with the arts - in order to build their careers as artists, producers, administrators, technicians, and critics.
In the midst of all this, why teach and study theatre criticism? Well, in my view, because inviting young people to engage in the performing arts and to articulate a response afterwards is a way of helping them become better thinkers, writers, and, more broadly, citizens. It teaches them that they have a right to a point of view and that (in the context of NAYD's Young Critics) there is a connection between the fun and learning they experience in their local drama workshops and productions, and theatre staged in professional contexts. It's another way of exploring and appreciating the many elements that come together to make a live piece of theatre. It helps young people appreciate through experience that it's challenging, but rewarding, to articulate what a theatre production was trying to do, and how well they felt it achieved this. It helps give young people a voice in our society.
 How to prepare, and the event itself
Swotting up in advance is an important part of professional, as well as student, arts criticism. Since critics frequently write and broadcast under considerable time pressure, they need to go into the theatre having done background research about what they're going to see. In a student context this is particularly important, as they'll not have nearly as much accumulated knowledge about plays, artists, and theatre organizations as their professional counterparts. The larger point is that theatre doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that it's the critic's job to place their description, evaluation, and judgment in the context of what's being attempted, by whom, where, and for what stated reasons.
In the Young Critics programme, we prepare the students with introductory workshops in which we go over the many elements that contribute to the experience of live theatre (script, direction, performance, technical elements, the atmosphere in the auditorium and response of the audience, etc). We introduce the idea of criticism (much as I've done here) and do some in on-their-feet exercises that help them engage their critical skills. We then give them research materials about the productions themselves (programmes, PR materials, photos, and any advance articles, broadcasts, or videos in the media) and have them engage in small groups with them, and then present to each other important background about the shows they're going to see.
The metaphor I always use (which I most probably nicked from someone else) is that a critic needs to pack her bags with research in advance of going to the theatre; but then she needs to check those bags at the door, and experience the live theatre event with an open mind and heart.
Whether to take notes during the performance is really a matter of personal choice and preference for professional and Young critics alike. We give the Young Critics notebooks and pens; some of them write during the show, others wait until the interval or afterwards.
On the morning after seeing a show/s in a Young Critics weekend, we warm them up with exercises helping them recall what they saw the previous day. In their small groups they discuss what they've seen, referring to their knowledge of the many elements that go into a theatrical experience, and their research. One representative of each group then participates in a panel discussion with me, which models the public panel we have in October as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Expertly guiding this discussion is crucial. The facilitator in these processes needs to have her critical game on too! In my experience, in such discussions the young people tend to lead off with judgment (it was good, it was bad, it was all right), and so I consistently steer them to describe first, then analyse, and then offer judgment. In a professional context, it is most frequently the case that the reader or listener will not have seen the production the critic is discussing; so it's the critic's job first of all to say what happened, before they discuss what they think it meant and how well it was done. This is also possibly the case in our public panel. In any event, guiding the discussion using the description-analysis-judgment model helps the young people break down the process of criticism into its constituent parts and better understand it.
For Young Critics the final outcome is the public panel discussion. Myself and my NAYD colleague choose four from those members of the group who say they're OK with being the spokespeople (most of them are usually eager). Because we've been working towards and modelling this event, there is not much special preparation involved: I present it as part of the process and behave during the panel the same as in the workshop room, to minimize nervousness and performance anxiety. The panel lasts an hour: half of this with the panel being interviewed by me; and half in dialogue with the audience.
Without wanting to tempt fate, I will say that these panels have consistently been wonderful, stimulating, feel-good events. Over the years, artists whose work we are critiquing have come along to listen to the panel, and have engaged with the young people in the Q&A period. Successive artistic directors of the Dublin Theatre Festival have come along and spoken up. This is thrilling and empowering, and underlines the validity and importance of young people's points of view and voices in the dialogue that is cultural creation.
In some cases and when time allows, we have also included a written critical component as part of the outcomes of Young Critics. During a weekend, small groups produce short written reviews which we then put up on a NAYD blogsite; afterwards, some individuals write reviews or reflections on the weekend which we also post on the blog. In our summertime sessions at the Cork Midsummer Festival (CMF), we encourage Tweeting using a hashtag; the CMF tends to re-Tweet, which is always exciting and fun for the young people - again, evidence that they are part of the public dialogue. Developing more written and online outcomes would surely be part of the agenda were Young Critics to grow further.
The Young Critics programme was the brainchild in 2004 of Orlaith McBride, then director of NAYD (now director of Ireland's Arts Council). I was then living in Ireland and working as a critic and educator, and was thrilled that NAYD asked me to come on board in the programme's first year, and am equally delighted to have been involved in nearly all the years since, as my career has led me to university jobs in the UK and, now, Canada.
While the core principles and delivery of Young Critics has remained constant throughout, we have continually kept evaluating and adding to the programme given our own knowledges, experience, and developments in the fields of publishing, media, and criticism. Every year the programme is a new experience because we have a new batch of young people, and different productions to engage with. It is hugely gratifying and exciting to now see former Young Critics appearing in the artistic programmes of the Festivals we engage with, as writers, directors, and performers. I am not aware thus far that a Young Critic has gone onto a professional career as a critical writer (though it could surely happen), but that is not necessarily the point of this programme. It is not vocational: it's about improving critical and communications skills, and giving young theatre lovers yet another way to engage with theatre as a living art form.
Karen Fricker is Assistant Professor of Dramatic Arts, Brock University, Ontario, Canada, and holds a PhD from the School of Drama, Trinity College, Dublin. She is the founding editor in chief of Irish Theatre Magazine andhas reviewed and broadcast for The Guardian, Variety, The Irish Times, The New York Times, the BBC, RTĂ, and the CBC, amongst other outlets.
                Karen Fricker, 1 October 2013
