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To: vocalist
Subject: Re: First Bad Review
Date sent: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 14:55:36 PST
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>From: "Sara Clout"
>
>Hello listers, I am in need of cheering up as I have had my first bad
>review. "During the band's set a dolled-up opera singer slinks onstage and
>vomits
>over two songs"

>From the viewpoint of one who has been on the OTHER side, here are possible
causes of the bad review (other than a bad performance):

1)The show started more than 20 minutes late, with no explanation.
2)The reviewer had to sit on a nasty folding chair that left his back
screaming for mercy.
3)He just paid his income tax.
4)He's genuinely stupid, ignorant, prejudiced, whatever.

Me, I would usually give the artists the benefit of the doubt, unless the
show bored me silly or was genuinely stupid, ignorant, etc. But I can
second the poster who said that you sometimes can't tell that the critics
all saw the same show! There was one play I reviewed on the Walnut Studio
series in Philadelphia, which was also reviewed by the two daily papers.
One liked the play, and one thought it was dreadful. Me, I thought the play
was dreadful, but pretty damn entertaining all the same.

And I was once in a show (a comedy about the Holocaust) which one critic
called "theatrical vomit." But that only reflected what the actors were
saying backstage!



Elizabeth Finkler
mightymezzo-at-hotmail.com

"An enemy can partially ruin a man, but it takes a well-meaning and
injudicious friend to really finish the job and make it perfect." --Mark
Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson"

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