Quote of the Day

"Look, we’re all going to die. Nothing somebody writes in an article is going to be the thing that kills me. A lot of other things are going to kill me, but that’s not one of them. I understand if you’re working onstage and you’re reading reviews while you’re onstage, you can get stuck in your head on that stuff. But also…I don’t know. I like to know how the work’s being received in the world. I think it’s important. I think I’m interested in that conversation about what art is doing. I’m part of what’s doing the art, and I feel like I have some responsibility to understand how that work is landing in the world—to help me hone in on the kind of things I’m interested in participating in, and what’s something that I don’t think I want to put my name on."

I know I'm a movie critic so of course I'm partial to opinions that value our work, but I think Carrie Coon (in an interview with Vanity Fair here), in admitting she reads the reviews of her work, really pinpoints something beyond my ego (as if such a far-flung place exists) -- that it's the critic's job to situate art within the moment; to give it context. Sometimes it's one person's context -- the critic's -- but we are not islands, and surely those of us who are actually trying and aren't just pull-quote machines are actually providing a service. Anyway I always like it when performers and artists appreciate what we do and don't act like pissy little ceramic dolls and Carrie Coon continues to rule, the end.