David Rooney
The aftershocks continue from Monday’s bombshell announcement that Variety had let go some of its most respected staffers, including its theater editor and chief reviewer, David Rooney. At last night’s press preview for Broadway’s Next Fall, the aisle was seething; Rooney is widely liked and respected in the community, and his dismissal was discussed with a tense combination of fury and worry. From the center of the storm, Rooney took time yesterday for a gracious interview by phone.
On his time on the theater beat: “I had covered film for 14 years for Variety and I switched over to theater six years ago. Theater had been my childhood and teenage passion—I had been involved in amateur and professional companies, and I had always seen as much theater as I could, but I’d never written about it before. It’s been a really wonderful experience, and I’ve never had cause to regret making the transition. I’ve found it tremendously rewarding.”
On the response to his firing: “The flood of support in this last 24 hours since the news went out—really there’s no other way to describe it but overwhelming. I mean, from every level of the industry, everyone I’ve ever worked with—colleagues, stringers, publicists, producers, one after the other—the most generous, heartening statements, and just what I needed on a terrible day.”
On media and the arts in general: “As you said in your blog, we all have reason to be concerned about this ongoing erosion of arts coverage. In every way the critical voice is being undervalued. And if people feel they can take away editorial supervision and replace it with random freelancers filing to a copy desk where whoever happens to be there is editing that copy with no expertise and no experience in that field—you know, you start to wonder, Where is the authority in this coverage? What is there to set any paper apart as the paper of record? How is it different from people just filing random articles on blogs?”
On the future: “It’s been a tremendous experience working in the New York theater community and covering such a vibrant scene. And I hope I have the opportunity to keep doing that. I have a couple of little overtures out about work and I’m certainly gonna explore them, but I don’t know if they’re going to pan out or not. But I hope I’m going to resurface somewhere, not too far away. I want to be around to review American Idiot.“
Wonderful interview from the best critic around. Variety is SO short-sighted for letting him AND Todd McCarthy go. They both are institutions for a reason. No doubt both will wind up getting snapped up by someone with more brains and vision. Variety is a shell of what it once was — I agree with Roger Ebert: Cancel your subscription. These two firings instantly make it irrelavant
Even if I disagree with Rooney, I’ve always enjoyed reading his reviews and can always understand where he is coming from. There’s nothing didactic or mushy about his reviews, no personal revelations - rather, he is always focused on the production. I”m sure some other media outlet will snap him up - it’s Variey’s loss.
Along with Mr. Feldman, Ms Stasio, Liz V on the Post and the sadly underused Jason Z on The Times, the best of the best. Rooney’s got to resurface, AND SOON!