My comments on the NYIT awards were censored for one reason - because the people who control the NYIT Awards web site don't agree with my opinion that it is ridiculous to ask Edward Einhorn to opine on the subject of "independent theatre" because he has done his best to squelch independent theatre through his lawsuit against me, which, if he had won, would have established a director's copyright and destroyed the rights of American playwrights.
Now, the NYIT Awards has every right to control the message on their web site. But the offensive aspect is their trying to portray this incident as one where I "shit on their floor", falsely claiming that my comments were spam; hate-filled or abusive; or wildly off-topic.
Obviously it was not spam.
My pointing out that Edward Einhorn omitted the part of his resume where he filed a fraudulent derivative copyright on my play TAM LIN is neither "hate-filled" nor "abusive."
And it is absolutely on-topic, the topic being the career of Edward Einhorn and independent theatre. It makes the people who run NYIT uncomfortable for me to point to such a controversial topic.
And just to give you an idea of what the NYIT Awards saw fit to censor - at one point I simply posted a link to the article I wrote for the Dramatists Guild about the case. That is an example of what the NYIT Awards considers "shitting on the floor."
It should also be noted that nobody at NYIT actually posted comments under their own name, but rather hid behind the corporate brand "IT Foundation." Because that's what corporations and public relations firms and marketing companies do - control the message and avoid personal responsibility at all costs.
The NYIT Awards group wants to be able to censor comments based on controversy, but falsely claim that the real reason they censor is due to civility or relevance concerns.
And these are the people who claim they want to promote Off-Off Broadway.
I volunteered to write a review for the NYIT many years ago. I gave the production a mixed review - I thought the production values were quite good and clever, and some of the acting was good, but I said that the story itself lacked coherency. I was told that my review was too negative. So I withdrew it and that was the end. But that gives you an idea of the NYIT approach to art - you can't be too negative. They share that philosophy with the people who run the reviews for NYTheatre.com - I know people who have written reviews for NYTheatre.com who were told their reviews were too negative too.
I also know for a fact that at least one reviewer for NYTheatre.com was allowed to review a performance of friends of his - and not disclose the relationship. No surprise, it was a glowing review.
Also no surprise that one of the Alumni Staff/Board for NYIT Awards members is Nancy Kim, a reviewer for NYTheatre.com.
NYITAwards, which gives more awards than I can count, gave something called "The 2008 Stewardship Award for significant contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support and leadership" to New York Theatre Experience, represented by Martin Denton and Rochelle Denton - the people who run NYTheatre.com.
These organizations are not about artistic excellence. This is what is known as "boosterism" the quintessence of commercialism.
Exactly the opposite intention of the founders of Off-Off Broadway.
And there is absolutely nothing "independent" in their approach to controversy or anything deemed to be insufficiently positive, nor the corruption of the NYTheatre.com review process.
