Elliot Norton
William Elliot Norton (May 17, 1903 – July 20, 2003) was a Boston-based theater critic who was one of the most influential regional theater critics in his 48-year-long career, during which he who wrote 6,000 reviews and became known as "The Dean of American Theatre Critics".[1][2] Norton practiced a style of criticism known as "play doctoring", where he made suggestions on how to improve a show. Boston was a major pre-Broadway tryout town, and Elliot's criticism was taken seriously by producers, directors and playwrights, including Joshua Logan, Mike Nichols, and Neil Simon.[1]
Norton was called "the most valuable critic in America" by producer Alexander Cohen.[3] According to Logan:
Elliot had an absolute dead eye for a play. He could see it once and form an opinion that struck at the very core. He was very helpful to me on every show I brought to Boston. He had a gentlemanly manner, and even if what he had to say was rough, he could tell you without breaking your heart.[3]
Early life
Born William Elliot Norton in Boston to William L. Norton and Mary (Fitzgerald) Norton, he attended Harvard College (Class of 1926) after graduating from the Boston Latin School.[3] At Harvard College, he took George Pierce Baker's class for dramatists.[1] Baker's most famous student was Eugene O'Neill, whose plays were revolutionizing Broadway theater at the time Norton became a drama critic. Norton had been interested in theater before he was interested in writing. “I can remember Barrymore's stabbing the king [in Hamlet in 1922] as vividly as if it were yesterday; it still raises the hair on the back on my hands,” he said.[4]
Journalism career
Norton began his career as a newspaperman with The Boston Post after graduating from Harvard in 1926. By 1934, he was promoted from reporter to the editor of the drama section, where he began to make his name as a critic. The Post went out of business in 1956, and Norton was hired by the Boston Record American, which evolved into the Boston Herald American, which eventually became the Boston Herald after he retired in 1982.[1]
In addition to his newspaper reviews, he was a television critic on Boston television, including public TV station WGBH, where he hosted Elliot Norton Reviews.[1] The show ran for 1,100 episodes from 1958 to 1982.
Play doctor
Norton practiced drama criticism when the relationship between the regional critic and playwrights whose shows were undergoing tryouts in their towns were not as adversarial as they were to become. Frank Rich, who became prominent as a theater critic for The New York Times, wrote about how Norton's role as a "play doctor" was part of its times:
What people should remember was that in his heyday ... the Josh Logans and Rodgers and Hammersteins looked to out-of-town critics for informed advice about how to 'fix their shows.' Critics like Norton relished playing the role. They went back to see plays at the end of the run and that was just the way the Broadway theater worked. Newspapers and audiences accepted it as part of the process as critics would write columns that combined repertorial, critical, and advice-giving elements. It would be considered highly inappropriate today to talk to the writers and producers outside of columns, but it was a different world.[3]
Two major theatrical successes that Norton was credited with midwifing while they were in their Boston tryouts were Oklahoma! and The Odd Couple.
Oklahoma!
Norton helped shape the first collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II during the tryout of as Away We Go at Boston's Colonial Theatre. Norton provided input through his printed criticism and informally. Retitled Oklahoma! when it opened on Broadway, the musical not only was a smash but helped change the face of American musical theater.[5]
The Odd Couple
Neil Simon said that Norton's criticism of The Odd Couple helped him improve the play. Appearing on the show Eliott Norton Reviews, in his conversation with Simon, Elliott said that the play went "flat" in its final act.[6] As it appeared originally in Boston, the characters the Pidgeon Sisters did not appear in the final act.[1]
Simon told The Boston Globe:
He invited one of the stars and the writer. He loved the play and gave it a wonderful review but he said the third act was lacking something. On the show he said, 'You know who I missed in the third act was the Pidgeon Sisters,' and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. It made an enormous difference in the play. I rewrote it and it worked very well. I was so grateful to Elliot ... Elliot had such a keen eye. I don't know if he saved the play or not, but he made it a bigger success.[2]
Honors
Norton received the George Jean Nathan Award for drama criticism in 1964 and a Special Tony Award for distinguished commentary in 1971. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966.[5] His show, Elliot Norton Reviews, received the Peabody Award, one of television's greatest honors.
The year he retired in 1982, he was honored by the establishment of the Elliot Norton Awards to recognize theatrical excellence in the Boston theater. The American Theater Critics Association inducted him into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1988.[1]
Death
The centenarian critic died on July 20, 2003, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge.[7]
Publications
- Broadway Down East: An Informal Account of the Plays, Players, and Playhouses of Boston from Puritan Times to the Present (1978)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g "Elliot Norton, 100; Boston Theater Critic Wrote 6,000 Reviews". Los Angeles Times. 23 July 2003. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ a b Simonson, Robert. "Elliot Norton, Influential Boston Theatre Critic, Dead at 100". 21 Jul 2003. Playbill. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ a b c d Siegel, Ed (21 July 2003). "Elliot Norton, 100, legendary critic of American theater". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ Clay, Carolyn (15 June 1982). "Gentleman in retirement: Elliot Norton exits right". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
- ^ a b Jacobs, Leonard. "Elliot Norton, 100, Dies". Backstage. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ Collier, Jay (20 October 2003). "One of the Deans of Theater Criticism, Elliot Norton, Exits the Stage". WGBH Alumni: Pioneers in Broadcasting. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
- ^ Wilson, Scott; Mank, Gregory W. (forward) (2016). "Norton, W. [sic] Elliot #9436". Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3rd ed.). McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0786479924. OCLC 948561021.
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- Dora Chamberlain / Ira and Rita Katzenberg / Jules Leventhal / Burns Mantle / P. A. MacDonald / Vincent Sardi Sr. (1947)
- Vera Allen / Paul Beisman / Joe E. Brown / Cast of The Importance of Being Earnest / Robert W. Dowling / Experimental Theatre Inc. / Rosalind Gilder / June Lockhart / Mary Martin / George Pierce / James Whitmore (1948)
- No award (1949)
- Maurice Evans / Philip Faversham / Brock Pemberton (1950)
- Ruth Green (1951)
- Charles Boyer / Judy Garland / Edward Kook (1952)
- Danny Kaye / Beatrice Lillie (1953)
- No award (1954)
- Proscenium Productions (1955)
- Fourth Street Chekov Theatre / City Center / The New York Public Library Theatre Collection / The Shakespearewrights / The Threepenny Opera (1956)
- American Shakespeare Festival / Jean-Louis Barrault / Robert Russell Bennett / William Hammerstein / Joseph Harbuck / Paul Shyre (1957)
- Mrs. Martin Beck / New York Shakespeare Festival (1958)
- Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay / John Gielgud / Cast of La Plume de Ma Tante (1959)
- Burgess Meredith and James Thurber / John D. Rockefeller III (1960)
- David Merrick / The Theatre Guild (1961)
- Brooks Atkinson / Richard Rodgers / Franco Zeffirelli (1962)
- Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore / Irving Berlin / W. McNeil Lowry (1963)
- Eva Le Gallienne (1964)
- Gilbert Miller / Oliver Smith (1965)
- Helen Menken (1966)
- No award (1967)
- APA-Phoenix Theatre / Pearl Bailey / Carol Channing / Maurice Chevalier / Marlene Dietrich / Audrey Hepburn / David Merrick (1968)
- Leonard Bernstein / Carol Burnett / Rex Harrison / The National Theatre Company of Great Britain / The Negro Ensemble Company (1969)
- Noël Coward / Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt / New York Shakespeare Festival / Barbra Streisand (1970)
- Ingram Ash / Elliot Norton / Playbill / Roger L. Stevens (1971)
- Fiddler on the Roof / Ethel Merman / Richard Rodgers / The Theatre Guild-American Theatre Society (1972)
- The Actors Fund of America / John Lindsay / Shubert Organization (1973)
- Actors' Equity Association / A Moon for the Misbegotten / Candide / Peter Cook and Dudley Moore / Harold Friedlander / Bette Midler / Liza Minnelli / Theatre Development Fund / John F. Wharton (1974)
- Al Hirschfeld (1975)
- George Abbott / Richard Burton / Circle in the Square Theatre / Thomas H. Fitzgerald / Mathilde Pincus (1976)
- Cheryl Crawford / Equity Liberty Theatre / Barry Manilow / National Theatre of the Deaf / Diana Ross / Lily Tomlin (1977)
- Irving Berlin / Stan Dragoti and Charles Moss (1978)
- Walter F. Diehl / Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center / Henry Fonda / Richard Rodgers (1979)
- Richard Fitzgerald / Helen Hayes / Mary Tyler Moore / Hobe Morrison (1980)
- Lena Horne (1981)
- Radio City Music Hall / The Actors Fund of America / Warner Communications (1982)
- No award (1983)
- A Chorus Line / Peter Feller / La Tragedie de Carmen (1984)
- Yul Brynner / New York State Council on the Arts (1985)
- No award (1986)
- George Abbott / Jackie Mason (1987)
- Brooklyn Academy of Music (1988)
- No award (1989)
- No award (1990–1992)
- Oklahoma! (1993)
- Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy (1994)
- Carol Channing / National Endowment for the Arts / Harvey Sabinson (1995)
- No award (1996)
- Bernard B. Jacobs (1997)
- Edward E. Colton / Ben Edwards (1998)
- Uta Hagen / Arthur Miller / Isabelle Stevenson (1999)
- Dame Edna: The Royal Tour / T. Edward Hambleton (2000)
- Paul Gemignani (2001)
- Julie Harris / Robert Whitehead (2002)
- Cy Feuer / Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on Broadway (2003)
- James M. Nederlander (2004)
- Edward Albee (2005)
- Sarah Jones / Harold Prince (2006)
- No award (2007)
- Robert Russell Bennett / Stephen Sondheim (2008)
- Jerry Herman (2009)
- Alan Ayckbourn / Marian Seldes (2010)
- Athol Fugard / Philip J. Smith (2011)
- Actors' Equity Association / Hugh Jackman (2012)
- Bernard Gersten / Ming Cho Lee / Paul Libin (2013)
- Jane Greenwood (2014)
- John Cameron Mitchell / Tommy Tune (2015)
- Sheldon Harnick / Marshall W. Mason / National Endowment for the Arts / Miles Wilkin (2016)
- James Earl Jones (2017)
- John Leguizamo / Andrew Lloyd Webber / Chita Rivera / Bruce Springsteen (2018)
- Rosemary Harris / Marin Mazzie / Terrence McNally / Sonny Tilders and Creature Technology Company / Jason Michael Webb / Harold Wheeler (2019)
- The Broadway Advocacy Coalition / David Byrne's American Utopia / Freestyle Love Supreme / Graciela Daniele (2020/21)
- Angela Lansbury / James C. Nicola (2022)
- Joel Grey / John Kander (2023)
- Alex Edelman / Abe Jacob / Nikiya Mathis / Jack O'Brien / George C. Wolfe (2024)