New York Times Theater Critic Mentors HPU Students

Ben Brantley, chief theater critic for The New York Times for more than 20 years, smiled as he spoke to students and faculty during a Q&A with Ken Elston, dean of the School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences.

HIGH POINT, N.C., Feb. 14, 2024 – Ben Brantley, chief theater critic for The New York Times for more than 20 years, mentored High Point University students during his recent visit to campus. A Winston-Salem native, this was Brantley’s first time returning to North Carolina in more than a decade.

While meeting with HPU students on Feb. 7-9, Brantley discussed his lifelong love of theater and William Shakespeare’s lasting impact. He provided a pre-show lecture for the Department of Theater and Dance’s production of “The Real Inspector Hound” and shared his expertise on its playwright Tom Stoppard.

Brantley wrote more than 2,500 reviews for The New York Times from 1993 to his retirement in 2020. He filed reviews regularly from New York and London. He is the editor of two books of New York Times theater reviews and the 1996-97 recipient of the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism, given annually to the American who has written the best piece of drama criticism during the theatrical year.

“Ben Brantley was arguably the most powerful voice of the American theater at the beginning of this century,” said Ken Elston, dean of the School of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences, as he introduced Brantley and led a Q&A session inside Phillips Hall.

“It was amazing how natural it felt to me from the beginning,” Brantley said of his career. “I came from a very critical family, and I think we were taught from a very early age to see things critically and to explain why we felt the way we did. It served me well in college, where I was an English major and was basically doing the same thing I did years later, which is taking a work of art apart and figuring out why it worked that way.”

Fundamentals of Acting students came with questions for Brantley. He discussed a variety of topics, including the changing roles of the theater critic versus the reviewer, the changing role of the theater as it teaches and entertains in plays and musicals and the influential role of artificial intelligence on theatrical productions and reviews.

“He was extremely knowledgeable, well-spoken, insightful and inspiring,” said Jesse Galas, assistant professor of musical theater and co-director of Creative Arts Fellows. “Truly, he was a wonderful guest speaker, and I look forward to future opportunities to have him work with our students.”

Before joining The New York Times, Brantley was a staff writer for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He reviewed fashions for Women’s Wear Daily, where he was the Paris bureau chief and European editor. He also reviewed movies for Elle magazine. He still writes reviews periodically.

“You wind up paying attention to everything because you’ve conditioned yourself while you’re at the theater to look really closely and to be aware of all the elements that go into the making of it,” Brantley said. “That’s a wonderful gift to be trained to look that closely at everything.”

Alli Iler, a senior journalism major from Albany, Georgia, was impressed by Brantley’s wealth of knowledge and years of experience.

“I felt very lucky to be hearing from someone with such an impressive and successful career,” said Iler. “I was very inspired to hear him say how even though right now is a difficult time to be a journalist, that also makes it very exciting. He told us that we are the next generation to pave the way for journalism, and that really resonated with me and made me feel proud to be a journalist. Using this information will motivate me in my future career objectives, and it will help me take responsibility for the role I will be playing in future journalism.”