Jerry Portwood is the editor of the New York Press,
and he does a lot of theater reviews. Like lots of theater reviewers,
he gets free tickets for plays from publicists. But last week, he was
abruptly disinvited and taken off the list for the play “The Sexual
Neuroses of Our Parents,” just before he was scheduled to attend. The
reason: the play’s publicist didn’t like a NY Press story that pointed out that the play’s publicists were marketing it by hyping
up the fact that Meryl Streep’s daughter is a cast member. Losing a
pair of free tickets isn’t the world’s biggest tragedy, but it brings
up the interesting question: How are flacks supposed to handle bad
press? Answer: a lot better than this. Read on.
I mean, clearly you have to give the guy tickets and just complain to the friend you’re having drinks with that night about the story. That said, it does get a bit disrespectful, I think, when writers detail publicist’s approaches in their features or reviews. Publicists are given the task of selling tickets – a play title that includes the words “sexual”, “neuroses”, and “parents” helps with that, too – so obviously they are going to mention Meryl Streep in their pitches, unless clearly told not to. I think the pitch is a reflection on Mamie Gummer herself, not the publicist in question. If she didn’t want the publicist using her mother’s name to promote the play, she should have, or perhaps would have, said something.
Nonetheless, we do not take away writers’ tickets because we are mad at them, no we do not.
Ew, completely poor taste. Sounds like a very green publicist to me…I’m embarrassed for him.
As a publicist myself, I do feel behold to point out the flip side: certain members of the media who do ask for free tickets, and rarely (or never) cover. The corollary to this is media who aren’t covering, and get IRATE if you don’t offer them the prime aisle pair. For every publicist who is handing out freebies, there are media waiting in line to take those freebies for nothing in return. Cultivating media with press comps is one thing (and a good thing at that), but giving away the farm is quite another. I try to be as fair and generous as possible (knowing that those comps are potential lost revenue), but if one more 22-year-old secretary of an assistant to a junior producer asks for free tickets, I might just lose it. Whew, glad I got that out of my system.
Also, kind of off topic, but this reminds me of something I meant to bring up during the whole Don Rosenberg debacle: So first thing’s first, Don got screwed and removing him from the orchestra beat was unethical and highly disappointing. However, it raises the question: How much power does a critic–especially a well respected one at a major daily–wield? And over time, if you have a particularly persnickety critic, what is the effect of persistently negative reviews? Aside from being bad for an org’s morale, does it erode audiences and undermine potential audience growth? Another way to ask the question: How much do critics’ opinions matter? I definitely don’t have the answers, but I’d love to hear others’ thoughts.
I’m amazed that no one has bothered talking about the person who wrote the article!