Recently by Misha Berson
In the high-stakes, cutthroat world of New York commercial theater, critics can easily develop a wariness, a serrated edge of irony, a tinge of paranoia and cynicism. And who can blame them? It goes with the territory.
But what a pleasure it always was for me, when making the trek from Seattle to the Broadway eye of the storm, to run into the beaming, jocular and witty Michael Kuchwara, longtime theater critic for The Associated Press.
An unfailingly pleasant fellow, with a twinkling smile and always a kind word and a witty aside to share with a colleague, Mike was one of a nearly extinct breed of (pardon the gender bias) Gentleman Critics. Meaning: a pen-wielding mensch, who came up through the journalistic ranks. A man who genuinely loved his job, and the theater, who called them as he saw them, and cultivated no aura of self-importance or condescension. A warmly respected colleague, who at one time chaired the New York Drama Critics' Circle.
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