Yule Log-Rolling

Manhattan's most frequently quoted newspapermen are the drama critics of its nine dailies. How the average play producer feels about them is summed up in a current comedy by a character who calls them "middleaged men on the aisle who hated Mickey Mouse when they were kids." Nevertheless, a producer or a playwright is usually glad to quote critics in large display ads when they have something good to say about his show.

Not so Veteran Dramatist Maxwell Anderson, who once took an ad to call critics "a sort of Jukes family of journalism." Even this season, when his Anne of the Thousand Days (TIME, Dec. 20) set critics to reaching for their superlatives, Anderson was not mollified. With fellow members of the Playwrights' Company and Co-Producer Leland Hayward, Anderson decided to put the critics in their place by not taking any display ads nor quoting a word of their praise.

Last week the New York Times's amiable Brooks Atkinson turned the other cheek. He paid to put a two-line blurb from his own review into the play's small daily ad in the Times. Before accepting it, the paper's finicky advertising department checked with Anderson, who said, "Why sure, if he wants to pay for it." Next day the Playwrights' Company happily announced: "Atkinson has initiated a welcome trend . . . [We] will welcome similar advertising contributions."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.