Drama Desk drama update: Murray's back in!
The Drama Desk leadership dragged its heels all day but finally relented tonight and reinstated the rights of previously gagged member Matthew Murray to access the group's e-mail listserve. Early this morning, its board of directors promised to reinstate both members who'd been censored because they spoke critically of Drama Desk leaders to Gold Derby — Leonard Jacobs and Murray — but cleared only Jacobs in the morning. For the rest of today, Gold Derby waited and waited for leaders to make good on their separate promise to Murray, who frequently checked the listserve and gave us lack-of-progress reports. At 8:11 p.m. we received this e-mail from him: "I have finally been reinstated on the Drama Desk mailing list." Congrats, Matthew!
Murray was among several notable members who spoke candidly to Gold Derby about their leaders' dubious activities, which the chiefs refused to discuss when I contacted them again and again. Instead, the president of this media organization comprised of theater journalists responded by striking back at two members, cutting off their access to the Drama Desk listserve after one of them sent members a link to Gold Derby's report. An outcry ensued, and growing publicity forced the Drama Desk to reconsider its censorship of journalist members.
So long as someone keeps bringing it to your doorstep, I'll be watching to see how it's covered here. And I will continue to post comments--something I cannot as yet do on the Uncensored board.
Posted by: Robert Cashill | May 23, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Cashill -- Just b/c you, Siegel and Wolf don't seem to know who I am, don't make the mistake of thinking your membership is so clueless. I've had professional dealings with many DD members for years. Indeed, I can even say that I've got quite a few good pals among your ranks. As I mentioned in my original article, I've been attending the Drama Desk nominees reception for years -- up until your censorship-loving president banned me this year. Not only do many chummy members keep me posted on whazzup, but the fast-growing gang of rebels within DD send me email updates constantly, and whether I want them or not. I can't get away from this story -- too many of your disgruntled members keep bringing it to my doorstep every day.
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | May 22, 2008 at 09:08 PM
My dear Mr. Cashill:
I never slammed the Drama Desk organization -- though I have been critical of its hide-bound, too often myopic leadership.
I'm sorry, Sir, that my handle doesn't meet with your agreement. Given the air of farce the Drama Desk leadership has lent this contretemps since Riedel first published and O'Neil dug deeper, I could maybe have gone with Pseudolus -- but being a little more high-minded, I'll stick with Palonius, thank you.
As to your difficulty with the public spotlight and the attendant scrutiny, may I suggest that you and others acquaint yourselves with reality -- and then get over it?
The Drama Desk is a *media* organization comprised -- ostensibly, anyway -- of working journalists whose mission is to inform the public. Like it or not, that makes you quasi-public figures and your actions (good, bad or indifferent) fair game for accountability, comment, criticism, examination and inquiry.
And in any event, as the saying goes, Sunshine is the Best Disinfectant.
Posted by: Palonius | May 22, 2008 at 05:44 PM
At the DD listserve, you cannot possibly be more concerned than the many members so stunned and amused by what you're saying to other members that they send me copies pronto. I get them from many sources minutes after you, say, alert Matthew Murray that "Gold Derby is using you" or McMorrow trashes me with an ethnic slur ("shanty Irish"). None of the people I interviewed in my original article are sending me your posts. They come from a new gang of rebels extremely concerned about what's going on. Some are your most notable members.
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | May 22, 2008 at 03:25 PM
It concerns me that you have access to our private listserv, or are being fed information from it.
The Uncensored listserv, as touted on your site, is no delusion of mine. Go to the link you yourself provided and see.
As only two of us are talking here, and no one is chiming in very much (a positive development, I think) I don't think either of us need worry about our respective reputations. Mine is not in "dire straights," whatever those are.
I'll likely be sleeping through your show. What happened to Saturday am cartoons? Bloggers for cartoons seems a poor trade-off to me.
Posted by: Robert Cashill | May 22, 2008 at 02:11 PM
One more thing, Cashill. It's very clear to me and others that you, Siegel, Wolf and some others who run your showbiz award have no idea who I am. That's very revealing, you know. I've been covering showbiz awards as a specialty for more than 20 years for L.A. Times, Variety, New York Times and other major media. Variety and Penguin Putnam published my books on Oscars, Globes, Emmys, Grammys, etc. -- I've written the definitive histories of most major showbiz awards. When you dismiss me as a "third-rate blogger" (as you did at the Drama Desk listserve today) and make the hilarious claim that I've written about the Drama Desk Awards over the past week because, of all things, I want publicity (I'm on national TV more than a dozen times per week and could be on a lot more if I wanted) -- are you aware of how funny that is? Others are.
Tune in to "CBS Early Show" this Saturday morning. I'll give you a little wave.
But don't be too disappointed. I won't be talking about the Drama Desk Awards. Believe it or not, its viewers aren't interested.
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | May 21, 2008 at 10:19 PM
Cashill, Again, you prove that you don't know what you're talking about. How can you be pre-banned from a listserve that doesn't exist? Secondly, if I was interested in whipping up publicity, I certainly wouldn't bother writing about an obscure theater award that's in such a drastic state of decline that TV stations no longer wish to televise its ceremony, which isn't even attended by many of its top nominees and winners. It's in such dire straights, in fact, that many of its top sponsors have fled and full-time staffers from major media like Playbill and NY Daily News, Post and Times will no longer sit on its nominating committee (lucky you) and its president is a guy who is such a model journalist that he thinks nothing of gagging fellow journos belonging to a media org. Yes, I definitely decided to turn my attention away from the Tonys and Emmys and Oscars -- topics that generate big traffic here -- because of all of the hits that I'd get writing about the . . . oh, what are they called? . . . oh, yes, those Drama Desk Awards. Today one of the reigning titans of Broadway told me that this is what New York's theater leaders really, secretly think of Drama Desk members: "They're a bunch of freeloaders, desperate for their tickets and should be ignored."
I write about the Drama Desk because I'm an awards journalist who thinks that -- however far they have fallen in esteem -- they're an interesting story. Unfortunately, they're interesting because of a crisis of leadership that members like you should address instead of spending your time attacking others who point to the crisis you're ignoring.
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | May 21, 2008 at 09:44 PM
My, my, O'Neil, feeling the oxygen of publicity ebbing away? Not that anyone who comes here looking for American Idolatry needs to see more headlines about New York theater from a blog appended to a West Coast entity, or lectures on free speech and censorship.
You have clearly staked a claim in all this, and I am merely commenting on it. In no way am I fanning flames from fires set by others. Want a headline for the day? As mentioned below, I have been pre-gagged, as it were, by not being allowed to join the new Uncensored listserv, though it had been briefly open to all members. I have asked about this privately and publicly but have received no answer.
But perhaps we can tackle this and other Drama Desk issues without you. That is my sincerest wish. My thoughts on those are not for public consumption; it is the continual airing of all this outside our group in our high season that I object to. And I am not alone in this.
I look forward to the day when I won't have to wade through this thicket of posts to respond to this or that bias, agenda, or inaccuracy, and I hope that day is coming soon.
Robert Cashill
Drama Desk Nominator 2007-2008 season
Posted by: Robert Cashill | May 21, 2008 at 08:54 PM
My, my, Cashill -- You relentlessly lash out at everyone except your leaders who were accused of 1.) serious misdeeds by notable DD members 2.) then of punishing those members for speaking up. Those leaders refused to answer questions from the L.A. Times even though DD PR rep Les Schecter urged them to, then your leaders -- in charge of a journalist group that should hold free speech sacred -- got caught gagging members who questioned their leadership. Whatever you think of the original charges brought by those members, why do you avoid taking aim at your own leaders for how they've behaved in response? Are you proud of them? Do you approve? How do you think your outbursts look here -- you as a member of the nominating committee that's accused of inappropriate actions -- to people reading your comments?
Posted by: Tom O'Neil | May 21, 2008 at 10:53 AM
Such lovely sentiments from the ever-anonymous Palonious, who had previously been slammiing the Drama Desks hard. With friends like these, and the hardly unbiased and wantonly publicity-seeking Gold Derby forum backing them up, who needs enemies? But if there is a sincere and impartial way to mend fences, outside relentless public scrutiny, I'm for doing so.
Posted by: Robert Cashill | May 21, 2008 at 10:27 AM
I see that Murray is now back in. The initial item does not have a llink to his posting. (Wherever one stands on the issue, I think it can be agreed by all that the number of posts that need to be sorted through is confusing at this point.)
I looked at DramaDeskUncensored, the new Yahoo listserv, this morning, and found that it is not accepting new members. Why is this, when it was open to all with an interest in the organization's activities, and was hyped with such fanfare? I think it is only fair that if the official Drama Desk listserv has accepted members back, then the new one be open to any fellow members who might want to comment and report on Uncensored's activities, which are at the moment under heavy wraps.
Robert Cashill
Drama Desk Nominator 2007-2008 season
Posted by: Robert Cashill | May 21, 2008 at 07:48 AM
Tom O'Neil's investigative journalism shows the value of both a legitimate free press (as opposed to the vainglorious vanity variety) and free speech.
Maybe now the two (or more) sides in this dispute will get together in an atmosphere of mutual respect, commit to righting what's wrong and work to preserve the historic and noble goals of the Drama Desk.
The Drama Desk organization is, after all, one of theatrical journalism's few venerable institutions and before it devolves into a less-than-fabulous invalid caught in a bonfire of the vanities, can't cooler heads prevail?
In my dreams? Well, maybe not.
And aren't dreams what the theatre is -- blissfully, at its best -- all about? The trick is in making those dreams reality.
So, if "all the world's a stage -- and all the men and women merely players," each has to play its part -- honestly, respectfully and responsibly.
In the award-winning revival of "South Pacific," Nellie Forbush sings, "I'm stuck like a dope with a thing called hope ... and I can't get it out of my head." For members of the Drama Desk -- and the profession they chronicle -- are there any much better words to live by...?
Posted by: Palonius | May 21, 2008 at 07:15 AM