NEW YORK CITY: There’s good news for theatre criticism at two of the nation’s most important outlets, The New York Times and The New Yorker. After holding the job of theatre critic and staff writer post at the latter weekly magazine since 2022, Helen Shaw will join The Times’s culture desk as chief theatre critic in mid-January 2026. She will be the first woman to hold the top spot in the newspaper’s history. Meanwhile, Pulitzer-winning TV critic Emily Nussbaum has been announced as The New Yorker’s new theatre critic.
In a statement from The Times, deputy culture editor Sia Michel described Shaw as “a must-read critic. She is authoritative, warm and passionate, adept at both capturing and setting the conversation around theatre, whether it’s Broadway or a promising new playwright.” Shaw will report to theatre editor Nicole Herrington. “I’ve long admired Helen’s beautifully written prose, in which she smartly engages with mainstream productions, experimental theatre and artists to watch,” said Herrington in a statement. “Her criticism not only reflects her deep expertise, but also her wit and curiosity.”
Shaw has written about theatre for Time Out New York, 4Columns, Artforum, The Village Voice, and American Theatre (read her past bylines for us here). She won the 2025 Grace Dudley Prize for Arts Writing and was a co-winner of the 2017-18 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. The Brooklyn-based critic grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, where her parents took her to plays at the local children’s theatre and University of Kansas’s theatre department. In college, she was a technical director and set designer (“Ask me to paint a parquet floor! I can still do it,” she said). Shaw eventually realized she was more interested in theatre criticism.
“Long before I came to New York in 2002,” Shaw said in a statement, “I developed a lot of strong opinions about shows I hadn’t encountered yet, largely thanks to reviews in The Times: In Kansas, I could read Mel Gussow on Edward Albee; in Massachusetts, I could read Frank Rich on Stephen Sondheim. I also developed a serious passion in the ’90s, in college, for the cut and thrust of Walter Kerr, reading him on shows that had been closed, at that point, for almost 20 years. Those reviews were my education and invited me into the long conversation about the theatre. My hope at The Times is to continue that conversation, with as many people as possible.”
Shaw’s hiring caps a period of speculation following memo from Michel in July, in which she noted that upon Jesse Green’s reassignment (later announced as culture correspondent), the newspaper would seek critics who could be “trusted guides to help them make sense of this complicated landscape, not only through traditional reviews but also with essays, new story forms, videos and experimentation with other platforms.” The hiring decision has been met on social platforms with praise and hope for the endurance of traditional theatre print reviews.
Meanwhile, in a letter from New Yorker editor David Remnick, he wrote that Nussbaum, who won a Pulitzer for her TV writing for The New Yorker in 2016, is “returning to criticism after several years of brilliant and wide-ranging reporting on everything from country music to Love Is Blind.” Nussbaum has profiled Keri Russell, Marielle Heller, and Fiona Apple, and is on the record as a fan of Smash! and Bunheads (but very much not a fan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Her book Cue The Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV was published last year. In a provided quote, Nussbaum said, “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to write about theatre for The New Yorker, my home since 2011, and a crucible for thoughtful and nuanced criticism. Ever since the pandemic threw this city completely out of whack, all I’ve wanted was to be back in a live audience, in front of artists opening themselves up to the world. I can’t wait. In the words of Nahum from the brilliant TV show Slings and Arrows, ‘I must confess, I love drama.’”
