I have a hard time believing that theater reviewers, especially those that review Community Theater, don't actually have to be tied to a lead weight to avoid being blown away. Not saying that they're all thin, but they're so full of their own air that any slight breeze would just carry them to OZ.
I was just reading a "review" of a production of "The Foriegner" as done by the Topeka Civic Theater. I am extremely familliar with the script and production in question as Will did the lighting design.
The reviewer did not pan the lights, or even mention them, so my ire with the reviewer is not based in personal anger. Its placed in the fact that the piece that spewed forth from the computer of Phil Grecian could have been written with out ever having been in the theater at all and only having read the cliff's notes on the play.
He panned the bad plot devices, rather than commenting on the quality of work done by the actors and directors in using said script. He spoke of how playwrights need editors because they fall in love with their own characters. He should know.... he is an "internationally performed playwright" funny thing is, that he hasn't come up with an original idea, ever. The play that he is internationally known for is a stage adaptation of a Christmas Story, a movie.
I've seen other things that Phil has "written" He "adapted" a play for another community theater, which I'm sure was in the playbill and was definately on the copies that the actors had, because he typed out the script. There were no changes made to it, as it is the classic "The Importance of Being Ernest" but as he is a buffoon, he gets credit where none is due. I guess thats why he's a marketing professor in the mass media department at Washburn... he knows how to promote his own bullshit.