Douglas Watt (critic)
Encyclopedia
Douglas Benjamin Watt was an American
theater critic
who spent nearly six decades covering Broadway theatre
— and then Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway
— for the Daily News and also reported on classical music
and opera
for The New Yorker
. He helped establish Porgy and Bess
as a classic after it failed in an earlier Broadway run and helped foster the careers of playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill
and Tennessee Williams
.
. He grew up in New Jersey
, in both Hackensack
and Ridgewood
. After graduating early from high school, he enrolled at Cornell University
and graduated at age 19.
trial in Flemington, New Jersey
.
Beginning in the paper's drama department, he worked his way up to become its theater critic and he remained with the Daily News for over 50 years. After seeing a New Jersey revival of Porgy and Bess in 1941, he encouraged producer Cheryl Crawford
to bring the show back to Broadway in a second run that doubled the length of its failed 1935 Broadway debut, and helped earn the play "its landmark place in theater history".
He served in the United States Army
during World War II
, stationed on Okinawa as a reporter for Stars and Stripes
.
Wallace Shawn
of The New Yorker
tried to hire Watt for the New Yorker in 1945 however Watt was unwilling to give up his beat as a newspaper theater critic and Shawn gave him a column at the New Yorker as a music critic.
In 1971 a favorable review from Watt of Jesus Christ Superstar
helped director Andrew Lloyd Webber
overcome a negative review from The New York Times
and led the play to a lengthy run.
Watt not only covered Broadway, he was also a pianist and songwriter whose songs "After All These Years" and "Heaven Help Me" were recorded by Doris Day
and Frankie Laine
. He also worked with Duke Ellington
on a play adapted from George Bernard Shaw
's Caesar and Cleopatra
. He was friends with composers Frank Loesser
, Richard Rodgers
and Kurt Weill
, and helped spur the careers of Eugene O'Neill
and Tennessee Williams
. During his career at the Daily News, he was able to attend the 1949 debut of Death of a Salesman
starring Lee J. Cobb
in the title role of Willy Loman, as well as the 50th-anniversary production of the play with Brian Dennehy
in the lead.
One of the founders of the Drama Desk Award
s, Watt served on the nominating committee for both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
and the Tony Award
s.
because of pneumonia
. At the time of his death, he resided in both Southhampton and Manhattan
. He was survived by his second wife, the former Ethel Madsen, as well as by two daughters, two sons, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His first marriage had been ended by divorce.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theater critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
who spent nearly six decades covering Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
— and then Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
— for the Daily News and also reported on classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. He helped establish Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
as a classic after it failed in an earlier Broadway run and helped foster the careers of playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
.
Early life and education
Watt was born on January 20, 1914, in the BronxThe Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
. He grew up in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, in both Hackensack
Hackensack, New Jersey
Hackensack is a city in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States and the county seat of Bergen County. Although informally called Hackensack, it was officially named New Barbadoes Township until 1921. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 43,010....
and Ridgewood
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village population was 24,958. Ridgewood is an affluent suburban bedroom community of New York City, located approximately northwest of Midtown Manhattan.The Village of Ridgewood was...
. After graduating early from high school, he enrolled at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and graduated at age 19.
Theater critic
Watt was hired as a copy boy by the Daily News in 1936. One of his first tasks at the paper was to transport images to the Daily News offices in Manhattan from the Lindbergh kidnappingLindbergh kidnapping
The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was the abduction of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The toddler, 18 months old at the time, was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of...
trial in Flemington, New Jersey
Flemington, New Jersey
Flemington is a borough in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2010 Census, the borough population was 4,581. It is the county seat of Hunterdon County....
.
Beginning in the paper's drama department, he worked his way up to become its theater critic and he remained with the Daily News for over 50 years. After seeing a New Jersey revival of Porgy and Bess in 1941, he encouraged producer Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford was an American theatre producer and director.Born in Akron, Ohio, Crawford majored in drama at Smith College. Following graduation, she moved to New York City and enrolled at the Theatre Guild's school...
to bring the show back to Broadway in a second run that doubled the length of its failed 1935 Broadway debut, and helped earn the play "its landmark place in theater history".
He served in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, stationed on Okinawa as a reporter for Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes (newspaper)
Stars and Stripes is a news source that operates from inside the United States Department of Defense but is editorially separate from it. The First Amendment protection which Stars and Stripes enjoys is safeguarded by Congress to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers' interests,...
.
Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn
Wallace Michael Shawn , sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, author, voice artist, and intellectual. His best-known film roles include Wally Shawn in My Dinner with Andre , Vizzini in The Princess Bride , and debate teacher Mr...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
tried to hire Watt for the New Yorker in 1945 however Watt was unwilling to give up his beat as a newspaper theater critic and Shawn gave him a column at the New Yorker as a music critic.
In 1971 a favorable review from Watt of Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
helped director Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
overcome a negative review from The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and led the play to a lengthy run.
Watt not only covered Broadway, he was also a pianist and songwriter whose songs "After All These Years" and "Heaven Help Me" were recorded by Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
and Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...
. He also worked with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
on a play adapted from George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Caesar and Cleopatra
Caesar and Cleopatra (play)
Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw, was first staged in 1901 and first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in his 1901 collection, Three Plays for Puritans. It was first performed at Newcastle-on-Tyne on March 15, 1899...
. He was friends with composers Frank Loesser
Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
, Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
and Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, and helped spur the careers of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
. During his career at the Daily News, he was able to attend the 1949 debut of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
starring Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
in the title role of Willy Loman, as well as the 50th-anniversary production of the play with Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy
Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
in the lead.
One of the founders of the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
s, Watt served on the nominating committee for both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
and the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
s.
Death
Watt died at age 95 on September 29, 2009, in Southhampton, New YorkSouthampton (village), New York
Southampton is a village in Suffolk County, New York, USA. The village is named after the Earl of Southampton. The Village of Southampton is in the southeast part of the county in the Town of Southampton...
because of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
. At the time of his death, he resided in both Southhampton and Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. He was survived by his second wife, the former Ethel Madsen, as well as by two daughters, two sons, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His first marriage had been ended by divorce.