Critic's dual role as playwright raises conflict of interest question

Creative Loafing theater critic Mark Leib is also a playwright, and that can be a good thing. Leib's reviews in the Tampa-based weekly newspaper are often insightful because they are informed by his experience as a practitioner of theater. However, Leib crosses an ethical line when his plays are produced by theaters that he also reviews.

Last Thursday, Leib's play A River in the Desert was performed in a staged reading by Gorilla Theater in Tampa. His Art People will be produced in the spring by Studio@620 in St. Petersburg.

To me, this is a terrible conflict of interest. Lawrence Bommer, a theater critic in Chicago and chair of the ethical standards committee of the American Theatre Critics Association, agrees. "A serious publication would not allow a writer to risk such a blatant conflict of interest,'' Bommer said in an e-mail. "His readers deserve better.''

Readers might wonder, for example, about Leib's review this month of Tommy J and Sally, a play by Mark Medoff at the Studio@620. It was basically a rave, and Leib does a good job of explaining his positive assessment in the review. But I can also imagine a reader saying, "Sure, Leib liked it. He's got one of his own plays coming up at the studio.''

Jobsite Theater might also wonder. The Tampa company had a production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin open the same weekend as Tommy J and Sally, but there was no review of it by Leib in the next edition of Creative Loafing. Who's to say that the Studio@620 production didn't receive priority because of the reviewer's connection there? The timing of a review can have an impact on business.

You can argue that the Medoff play deserved the attention, but when your critic is in Leib's position, choosing to review it over the Jobsite production could be open to another interpretation.

Leib, whom I've met many times at plays, defended his dual role as critic and playwright when I phoned him. "I review plays, not theaters,'' he said. "I have been uncompromising in my reviews, and I have no doubt that having my plays read or produced will not affect my uncompromising attitude.'' (After I called Leib, he raised the issue in a post on the arts blog at tampa.creativeloafing.com.)

Well, of course he's going to say that, and it's undoubtedly true at some level. Leib is no shill. But even the appearance of a conflict of interest must be avoided by critics.

"However objective and disinterested this critic attempts to be (and it's a goal that eludes us all), the act of writing about a theater that may one day produce your work looks like an invitation to corruption,'' Bommer said. "Here, appearances are enough.''

Leib was not paid by Gorilla for the staged reading, which cost the theater about $1,000 to produce, said managing director Bridget Bean. She added that Gorilla has done staged readings of other Leib plays in the past.

The critic-playwright will receive some kind of royalty payment for the full production of Art People at the Studio@620, said co-artistic director Bob Devin Jones. The play is unpublished, and Jones said he asked Leib for a copy and then after reading the script decided he wanted to produce it.

Leib said in his blog post that Jones asked to put on the play during a public question-and-answer session at the studio. "My reasoning was that I hadn't sought out the production, and therefore there could be no question of my trying to use an unfair advantage,'' he said.

"I like the play,'' Jones told me. "It fits within our mission of cultivating a strong local playwright like Mark. It shows another side of him to our audience. If there's an appearance of a conflict of interest, I think it's sometimes okay to be out front of an issue rather than saying, 'Is this politically correct or not?' ''

I agree that it might be interesting to see Leib's work onstage. He's a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and his plays have been produced off Broadway and elsewhere. Nor is it unheard of for critics to be playwrights. The most prominent example is probably Michael Feingold, longtime theater critic of the Village Voice whose plays and adaptations of classics have been produced in New York.

But in the Tampa Bay area, Leib's conflict of interest as critic and playwright calls into question an influential voice and makes local theaters look amateurish in their dealings.

John Fleming can be reached at fleming@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8716.