THE NATIONAL CRITICS INSTITUTE

from Mark Charney

The KCACTF sponsors competitions in each region of the National Critics Institute (NCI). The NCI was established to assist in elevating the level of arts criticism and to provide writers the opportunity to grow at the same pace as the artists, whose work they review and interpret. To accomplish this, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival sponsors workshops at each regional festival where students and graduate students from backgrounds in theatre, English, and journalism write daily critiques of plays in round-table discussion sessions.

In the past, the school hosting the festival has provided the majority of the student critics who have participated in the institute, but in the last many years, we have encouraged each of the participating schools to publicize the Institute more enthusiastically. The process is simple and the rewards are many.

Choose the best writers in your theatre program--and outside of it--who have an interest in criticism. The students selected will meet in daily workshops to look at professional and unprofessional theatre critiques with three professors and/or critics with diverse backgrounds in theatre, journalism, criticism, and writing. During the course of the festival, the student critics will see and write about four of performances. The critiques will then be posted outside of the theatre several hours after each performance, and will be evaluated by each member of the Institute.

After the Institute is concluded, the critic who writes the best response and participates actively in the workshops will advance to the Kennedy Center. From the eight critics selected (one from each region), at least one writer (and often as many as three) will be chosen by NCI director Dan Sullivan to attend the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center during its national playwriting conference (usually early to mid July), where he or she will work with leading professional newspaper and magazine critics from across the United States. All expenses will be paid. But all eight will be in Washington studying with critics such as Peter Marks from The Washington Post and Bob Mondello from NPR and the City Paper .

As National Coordinator of the Critics Institute as well as Co-NCI coordinator for Region IV, I would like to encourage you to select as many promising writers as you can find at your institution to compete for this prestigious award, even from related departments such as English, philosophy, or journalism. If you think other departments have students who would be interested, please reproduce this letter and send it on. We changed the format successfully in the past many years in Region IV, giving promising critics more opportunity to examine and evaluate professional critiques, and positively to respond to the shows that have advanced to the regional festival. And our region has attracted a record number of 33 critics who seemed extremely pleased with the workshops and the community established in four days. The emphasis in the past few years has been more on critiquing efforts and intentions behind each production, and even involved brief interviews with directors and actors. This prevented some of the hurt feelings that have been associated with the O'Neill Critics Institute, and made the reviews a more positive learning experience for both writers and performers.

Rather than implement a system where students send us samples of their writing, we would prefer that you look within and without of your theatre programs for promising writers. Since 1997, we have visited random state festivals and conducted Critics Institutes there, where we had the opportunity to recruit and encourage student writers on the state as well as the regional level, but at the moment, this is not established at every state competition. Several states, as you know, offer no festival, so if you could look to student newspapers, newsletters, expository and creative writing classes, and even rhetoric classes, you may find students who are interested in critiquing, even if they have no extensive experience in theatre.

Please feel free to write Mark Charney or Crosby Hunt if you have any questions or suggestions. We'd love to see you at the Critics Institute in Daytona this February. If you have work from students that you would like us to look at ahead of time or are unsure of the talent of particular students, please send any critical reviews to either Mark Charney (cmark@clemson.edu) or Crosby Hunt (chunt@mtsu.edu) ahead of time, and we will be happy to make a recommendation.

We look forward to working with you and reading the works of your best undergraduate and graduate writers—from theatre, journalism, English, or any related programs. Thank you.