But we’re excited to see what this Corsican spark plug—who will be the first woman ever to serve as first-string critic for one of the three Manhattan dailies—can bring to the Post, whose theater coverage is currently a mix of dullish reviews and jauntily fictionalized gossip.
(Bold type mine.) I mean, I guess technically Linda Winer at Newsday doesn't count as one of the big three. If so, this is a milestone so long overdue, I'm not even sure it qualifies as a milestone. More like a shamestone—which just got rolled away.
UPDATE: As Adam fesses up in the comment below, Elisabeth is not in fact the first woman first-stringers for one of the big three--records show that Wilella Waldorf served as the first-string critic the Post in the early 1940s while the menfolk were off a-warrin'. Still, six decades is a long time between lady reviewers.
Ugh. Sorry, Rob, this was entirely my mistake. Elisabeth is not in fact the first woman to serve etc. As I wrote in a correction to my blog post today:
ReplyDelete"CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post, I rather too hastily noted that that Vincentelli was to be "the first woman ever to serve as first-string critic for one of the three Manhattan dailies." As president and unofficial archivist of the New York Drama Critics' Circle, I ought to have checked my records before yapping. In fact, the marvelously named Wilella Waldorf served as the first-string critics at, yes, New York Post for several years in the early 1940s. Mea culpa."
Apologies for the error.