Isherwood Firing — Page 3

But outside of Broadway fans, nobody even knows who Brantley and Isherwood are. A national tv show based on those two are unlikely to attract enough ratings to stay on air.

Hell, I'd pay to see it, but only at Off-Broadway prices!

wonderfulwizard11 said: "I know it's sort of explained away in the article, but I do genuinely wonder if Isherwood tipped Rudin off to The Humans before it opened off-Broadway. Not that I think the play shouldn't have transferred or the reviews weren't deserved, but I've always found it odd that Rudin apparently agreed to transfer it without a single review being published. For a play with big stars, it makes some sense, but for The Humans? "

I've thought about a thousand different possibilities, and this one never crossed my mind. Good possibility, I think...

It could have to do with The Humans, but I don't think it has to do with some "tip off." For starters, Rudin doesn't need Isherwood or anyone else to fall in love with a show, as he did with this one, and if you know anything about how he operates you'd understand that. Second, the "tip" doesn't really make chronological sense: there would not have been more than 3-4 days between when Ish saw it and when it opened, and it is highly unlikely that in the interim Rudin marched in and got all the pieces in place without having already optioned it. Third, knowing what Ish was going to say would not have created a compelling argument for the transfer in and of itself. Rudin's shenanigans are usually about the competition, and the attention, not needing someone to tell him what to produce as if he lacks confidence. BTW, I think the Rudin-Times/Brantley "feud" goes back to The Testament of Mary. You can google it: it's another one of those illuminating chapters in the Book of Rudin.

Forbes says that Isherwood will have an uphill legal battle in arbitration. But, I guess that he doesn't have anything to lose at this point. http://www.forbes.com/sites/marchershberg/2017/02/22/fired-ny-times-drama-critic-fires-back/#40959f842885

@zainmax "Forbes says that Isherwood will have an uphill legal battle in arbitration."

As seems to be Forbes's standard when it comes to theatrical reporting, it once again embarrassingly misses the forest foe the trees and goes off on a wholly irrelevant tangent. While Ish certainly has an uphill battle, his dismissal has nothing to do with his gripes, and everything to do with his actions that affect the paper's integrity, They can either prove that, or they can't.

@Phantom "If this was [sic] in the financial industry, this would be akin to inside trading, then to gloat on your employers corporate email and to boot call your superior and boss a wanker, New York Times had no choice what's so ever."

Apropos of the above, this totally misses the point. Since no one has delivered the smoking gun, we don't know what it is akin to.

"This also could make it hard for Brantley reviewing a Rudin show negatively from now on."

That doesn't make sense even if we wrongly assume that Ben would be influenced by it in the slightest.

RippedMan said: "I think the Humans transferring was just a smart choice by Rudin w/o the insider trading. There were no strong play competitors, and look how it turned out.



"

Yeah, exactly. Rudin goes to the theater to fall in love, and when he does, he will go out of his way to deploy the considerable resources he has at his disposal in service of the show. By all accounts that is what happened here. I'm sure he was happy when the show opened to a rave from Isherwood, but all signs point to the transfer being a done deal without any influence.

Rudin doesn't need Isherwood or anyone else to fall in love with a show, as he did with this one, and if you know anything about how he operates you'd understand that.....Rudin's shenanigans are usually about the competition.????

That is exactly what was at stake if Isherwood was tipping off Rudin in advance. There were multiple parties in discussion about the transfer rights and if one party got the review in advance, then "The transfer, negotiated by producer Scott Rudin before the reviews had come out," is financial gain as a result of an insider tip.

It's all subjective anyway, we don't know the exact ballet that got Isherwood fired, I am sure it will come out in the wash or courthouse.

This thread hasn't seen much traffic and people aren't posting their opinions, so everyone has the same general consensus, what has been leaked out if true, that Isherwood's position was untenerable and if the New York Times didn't take action, it could have fatally damaged their reputation, if what happened came out a different way.

what cannon fodder? what spinning? I'm not following anything you are saying so it seems to make no sense.

The Vulture article said Heller wasn't a part of it, too, didn't it?

Heller does seem to be out front making sure no one thinks this was his call.

The story (which seems to be walking a tightrope between journalism and confession) seems to be suggesting all ethics breaches are non-actionable because of vagueness. That's a preposterous notion, and shocking for someone who purports to be a journalist. (As is the notion that critic/producer interaction is de riguer.) But it also seems to me that that article's attempted point about incosistency is suggesting that the grounds have to be one of the "known" acts, when that is patently unsupported.

He may as well just stay in his mother's basement and put out a blog; the readership would be the same, I imagine.