Ben Brantley, the former longtime chief theater critic for The New York Times, sits down for a public conversation in Colorado Springs Sunday at 2 p.m., speaking about criticism and Stephen Sondheim with University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professor Kevin Landis. The talk lands at the Chapman Foundations Recital Hall at the Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave. It’s free, though organizers say advance registration is required because space is limited.
The visit comes as TheatreWorks stages Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Ent Center for the Arts, running through October 4, according to The Denver Gazette. Brantley saw the original 1979 Broadway production of Sweeney Todd starring Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou, and he first encountered Sondheim’s work at 16, when he saw Follies on Broadway in the 1970s. He has praised actress Annaleigh Ashford’s original interpretations and what he called her heartfelt performance; Ashford, a Wheat Ridge High School graduate, has starred in Broadway productions of both Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George and won a Tony Award for You Can’t Take It With You. Sondheim died in 2021.
A Critic’s Career Bookended by Mentorship
The Gazette’s own senior arts journalist, John Moore, wrote the piece announcing Brantley’s appearance, noting that he and Brantley both spent years as daily theater critics. Moore has said that Frank Rich, The New York Times’ chief theater critic from 1980 to 1993, advised him in 2001 to accept the Denver theater critic job — advice Moore says came directly from a mentor. Brantley has said Rich was the reason he went to the Times, where he was hired in August 1993 and, by 1996, had become what the Gazette’s report describes as the most influential theater journalist in America.
Moore became The Denver Post’s chief theater critic in 2012. He has said that when he left the Post that year, he became the last salaried critic fully dedicated to covering live theater in Colorado — a status that, per the Gazette’s reporting, still holds for the state today. Brantley, for his part, left professional theater criticism during the pandemic shutdown. He has said that the gates of theater criticism are now open, and that social media and the internet have eroded the influence of professional critics like the one he once was.
An Industry That Kept Shrinking After Moore Left
The thinning of arts journalism in Colorado didn’t stop with Moore’s 2012 departure. Moore, who now works as the Denver Gazette’s senior arts journalist after accepting a full-time role in February, has described a stark before-and-after: when he left The Denver Post, 14 writers covered arts, culture and entertainment full time there, he has said, and now there is only one, according to the Colorado Theatre Guild. A separate count, cited by Colorado Media, found Moore tallying 17 writers and editors covering arts, entertainment and features at the Post on his final day there — a figure that may reflect a broader group than the full-time arts, culture and entertainment writers he separately counted…