The Blacklist in Reverse

...In much the same way, the weighty editorial names from the New York newspapers and the slick magazines will accept nothing less than what their critics enjoy--front-orchestra treatment at first nights One high-ranking man on the New York Times used to insist on sitting closer to the stage than his paper's daily critic In the theater status is measured horizontally ). The responsibility for accommodating first- and second-nighters--an experience comparable to waging different pitched battles on two successive evenings--falls on the press agents And m spite of all their crises these (mostly) good-natured, harried people let me into many of their shows, list or no list They have enough on their hands without opening debates on the size and median income level of this magazine's theatergoing readership...

...No reply...

...I propose that Leonard Sang or some other Shubert spokesman come out into the open, bring the second-night list with him, and attempt to justify it...

...Other people who bulk out second-night audiences are one-timers These consist of friends of somebody connected with the show Or an angel who has just flown into town, an oilman from Dallas, perhaps, who may have black gold to burn on the producer's next musical Or a banker with a decisive vote in a Hollywood company that is going to bid for motion-picture rights All these freeloaders are not satisfied with a seat, they want one of the seats...

...ON STAGE By Albert Bermel The Blacklist in Reverse One of the long-term puzzles of the New York theater is the rationale behind the second-night list So far as I can discover after four years of erratic investigation, the list is a document drawn up by the Shubert organization It amounts to a reviewers' blacklist in reverse It names people who are automatically invited by press agents to all Broadway and many Off-Broadway second nights (There is also a first-night list, but that is a separate puzzle ) Every theatrical press agent m the city either has a permanent copy of the Shubert list or else receives revised versions of it from time to time...

...But no producer would like the adverse publicity that could result from an exclusion So why should the Shuberts have been spared criticism on this score for so long...

...Nine months after our letter had been dispatched to Sang, I tried writing to a young man named Lawrence Shubert Lawrence, who had inherited the Shubert empire (17 Broadway playhouses and other interests) after the demise of the older Shuberts, Lee and J J Young Lawrence had been conferring Shubert fellowships on young playwrights and generally trying to remake the Shubert image, so I looked forward to some action...

...In the meantime, I noticed that certain of my reviewing colleagues, among them Harold Clurman of the Nation and Robert Brustein of the New Republic, were occasionally bamshed from a second night when some producer or other threw a tantrum Brustein was once struck off the list altogether and later restored Did this mean that producers have a hand in the list...

...During the busy periods of the season this routine usually takes up an average of eight hours a week, or about one-fifth of one's working time Meanwhile, those who are on the list merely have to open an envelope when their tickets come in the mail or pick them up at the box office...

...The truth is, critics who were not on the list have not wanted to spoil their chances Any arrangement, even a haphazard one, would probably be more logical and equitable than the present stupid, anachronistic nuisance Producers might, for instance, set aside one night for all reviewers whatever their credentials, who steadily and conscientiously cover theater in print or any other medium--from the concocters of two-line summations in the New Yorker and Newsdav to the disquisitory occupants of the quarterlies, from the misanthropes to the people who are quoted in every theater ad yet probably believe, like all critics, that they are harder to please than the next man Having disposed of that contingent, the producer could then leave room on a separate night for fur-bearing friends, influence-peddlers and schnorrers...

...Many of the regular second-night communicators are not writers They must be professional talkers, or rather talkers-up, who have persuaded Sang they can do a phenomenal word-of-mouth job They tend not to turn up at a show which has received bad notice m the New York dailies However, for some shows they may well pay back their $7 95 admission price in silver rhetoric I hold no grudge against these fortunate, glib souls, if they have talked their way onto the Shubert list, they're probably capable of selling a Broadway flop to their enemies...

...Press agents accept the Shubert list because producers don't tell them not to accept it This means that unless he is unusually assertive, a producer, who after all pays the rent, does not control the press admissions to his own productions It he did, he would of course have the right to exclude The New Leader and whomever else he wanted (even though it would be futile for him to exercise that right because The New Leader would then sneak into the house from a fire escape or a heating duct, or disguised as the reviewer from Life Magazine...

...In April 1964 this magazine learned from some press agents that the master-compiler was a Shubert employe named Leonard Sang We wrote to Sang to have The New Leader included on the mysterious list...

...Who knows...

...Two months later I phoned Sang to inquire if he had received the letter He wasn't sure He also seemed unsure about who drew up the list But he said our request would be considered "at the next meeting" We would be informed accordingly The situation did not look entirely bleak At least, there were "meetings ". Another three months slid by I phoned Sang again He said I had been rejected by the press agents, he was sorry, there was nothing he could do about it...

...The next step was to check back with some press agents to discover the grounds on which we had been rejected The seven I approached knew nothing about any meetings--who attended them, when or where they took place, and for what purposes The list, they affirmed, came from Sang They had no say in it One agent, whom I spoke to in the lobby of a Shubert theater, looked with mock nervousness over his shoulder as he whispered the word "Sang ". I phoned Sang again several times but he was out I then sent Variety a letter intended for publication, hoping one of that journal's aging showbiz figures who exult over the glories that were Broadway in the days of Jimmy Walker would attack me, defend the list, and accidentally let fall a few working facts The letter went unprinted and unacknowledged...

...Today, threc-and-a-half years and some 80 theater columns after we made our overture to Sang, The New Leader has still not reached the list Among those who have are a fair number of theater correspondents for out-of-town and overseas newspapers Critics for some smaller magazines appear to have passed whatever test is required of them There is also an assortment of what might be loosely called "communications people"--columnists, public relations executives, and so on But whenever I have been handed last-minute tickets it was because somebody surprising had given them up Max Lerner, say, whose kindness in letting the box office know he wasn't coming put me in the fourth row on the center aisle (the best seat I ever had), or Walter Win-chell's secretary, who once caught a second-night cold...

...Failing this (and when was a sensible suggestion ever followed in the theater...

...In the end I get to see most of the plays I want to review The difference between being on and off the Shubert list consists not so much in whether one gets seats as in how The routine is roughly as follows Find out what is opening, where and when, keep calling the box-office in question until the line is free or the personnel get to work, in order to learn which press agent is in charge, call him and get told by an underling to write a formal request, write and mail the request, call his office again at the most panicky time, immediately after opening, to make sure the tickets are available If they aren't, try to get them for an evening that won't clash with another second night...

...In other words, the existence of the list does not prevent The New Leader from covering theater, it merely makes it difficult and costly Now comes the paradox The slick magazines don't have to go through the ticket-procuring process Yet they, with their multi-million-dollar budgets, are the ones who could afford to do so by assigning the task one day a week to a junior research girl or an assistant caption editor Or--hat the hell--hey could afford to buy tickets...

...Ostensibly the list is a courtesy, it offers a pair of free tickets to critics and other people who may transmit favorable publicity In fact, it turns out to be an instrument of discrimination And as the representative of a magazine that has been discriminated against, I badly want to know how the list is figured out, whether The New Leader is excluded for any special reason, and why there is something conspiratorial about the business of deciding who gets press tickets...