The Golden Age of Theater Criticism: TOPIC: Brooks Atkinson GUESTS: Pat Kelly & Jerome Weeks

Brooks Atkinson was born on November 28, 1894 in  Melrose,Massachusetts. Mr. Atkinson was appointed chief drama critic for the NY Times in 1925 a post he held until 1960 when he began writing a broader column for the Times titled “Critic at Large’ which focused on nature, environment, and personal essays. During WW2 he spent two years reporting from China and in 1945 he wrote a series of articles from Moscow for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. In 1956 he was awarded a Tony Award for distinguished contributions to the theater and in 1960 the Mansfiled Theater was re named the Brooks Atkinson Theater. Arthur Miller said: “ There cannot  have  been another theater critic as trusted as Brooks Atkinson was by so large a proportion of the theater going public. He is the only critic who can be said to have presided over Broadway. He was theConscience of the Theater." Brooks Atkinson died on January 14, 1984 in Huntsville, Alabama.Patrick Kelly is Professor of Drama Emeritus at the University of Dallas where, with Judy Kelly his wife, they taught forforty-two years. Besides scores of campus productions he has directed plays at professional theaters around the country. He has also taught in such graduate theater programs as University of Washington, Denver’s National Theater Conservatory, University of Colorado at Boulder and Southern Methodist University. Jerome Weeks for 15 years was the producer-reporter for the NPR-PBS station KERA. A professional critic for morethan three decades, he was the The Dallas Morning News theater critic for ten years and  the book columnist for ten years after that. His writing has appeared in the San FranciscoChronicle, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and American Theatre  magazine.