Don Aucoin is Theater Critic and Arts Critic-at-Large of The Boston Globe and a coauthor of the The New York Times top-10 best-seller “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy” (Simon & Schuster, 2009). His story on race relations in Boston is included in “Best Newspaper Writing 2006-2007.” In 2000, Aucoin was one of a dozen U.S. journalists selected to be a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. As a member of the Globe's City Hall and State House bureaus, he covered mayoral, gubernatorial, and congressional campaigns as well as the 1994 and 1996 contests for US Senate. As a TV critic and reporter, he covered the news and entertainment sides of the television industry from 1997-2000. His story for The Boston Globe Magazine about the struggle of an intellectually disabled man to live independently in the community earned a national award from the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, and he has won two United Press International awards, for breaking-news coverage and column-writing. Aucoin was among the Globe reporters who earned the 2003 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers for coverage of the sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic church. Follow his reviews online at www.bostonglobe.com
Jules Becker reviews theater for South End News, Bay Windows, and the Jewish Journal as well as his own blog Boston Theatre Wings. While obtaining a B.A. in English at Boston University, he wrote for the BU News. While completing a bachelor's degree at Hebrew College, he won a talent show singing Israeli songs. Becker also holds an M.A. in English from Brown University (his thesis on British dramatist John Arden). Returning to Hebrew College, he obtained a Masters in Hebrew Literature (his thesis on Hebrew poet Yehuda Al-Harizi). Becker has frequently reviewed Broadway and Off-Broadway. He served as a critic for the Worcester Telegram, Patriot Ledger and The Jewish Advocate. His reviews and features have appeared in Hadassah Magazine, American Theatre Magazine, Bay State Banner, and The Boston Phoenix. He has also reviewed theater on Newton and Cambridge Cable.
As a veteran Cantor, Becker has led services at synagogues in Maine and Rhode Island, as well as Massachusetts. Becker was a member of the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) for virtually its entire history and a member of its executive board for many years. He is now honored to join the Boston Theatre Critics Association.
Jared Bowen is the host of the daily radio program The Culture Show on 89.7 GBH. He is also the Emmy award-winning Executive Arts Editor at GBH exploring the creative process through a lively mix of local and national artist profiles, performances and exhibitions. Jared is a special correspondent for the PBS NewsHour covers the latest happenings in the region’s theater, art, music, dance and film scenes on GBH’s Morning Edition and Boston Public Radio. He is also the moderator of the Boston Speakers Series at Symphony Hall, facilitating conversations with everyone from world leaders to Oscar-winning actors. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
He has won four New England Emmy Awards and two Edward R. Murrow Awards for his arts reporting and is a recipient of the Commonwealth Award, recognizing achievement in the arts, humanities and sciences. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and a member of the American Antiquarian Society. Jared began his career at Dateline NBC in New York, is a graduate of Emerson College and holds an honorary doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. https://www.wgbh.org/shows/the-culture-show
Christopher Ehlers is Vice President of the Boston Theater Critics Association. Formerly the Theater Editor at DigBoston and the Style Editor at EDGE Media Network, his reviews, criticism, and theatrical musings have also appeared in The Monitor, TheaterMania, WBUR’s The ARTery, and as a sometimes guest on GBH with Jared Bowen. In his other life, he has spent the last 17 years managing fundraising and sales campaigns for the country’s leading arts organizations including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, Theatre Under the Stars, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Detroit Opera, and the Guthrie.
Joyce Kulhawik is President of The Boston Theater Critics Association. Best known as the Emmy Award-winning Arts and Entertainment Critic for CBS Boston (WBZ-TV1981-2008), Joyce has covered local and national events from Boston and Broadway to Hollywood, including the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Grammys. She is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, writes for RogerEbert.com, and is a contributor on GBH radio 89.7’s The Culture Show. Nationally, Kulhawik has co-hosted syndicated movie-review programs, and hosts the Simmons University Leadership Conference here and abroad, the longest-running conference for women in the world.
As a 3X cancer survivor, Joyce testified before Congress on the 20th Anniversary of the National Cancer Act and received a National Bronze Medal for her advocacy from the American Cancer Society. The recipient of countless awards for her work, Kulhawik received the N.E. Emmy’s Governor’s Award in 2010 for her distinguished career, and in 2007 was an inaugural inductee into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Kulhawik also holds an Honorary Doctorate in Communications from her alma mater Simmons University and has an endowed scholarship in her name at the Berklee College of Music. Look for her reviews online at JoycesChoices.com.
Charles (Charlie) Munitz founded the online journal Boston Arts Diary, a repository of his reviews, interviews and other pieces related to the arts “in Boston and sometimes beyond,” now containing almost one thousand entries. He holds a BA from YaleUniversity and a PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University and has taught philosophy and aesthetics at Stony Brook, Emerson College and Wheelock College. As a software developer and president of Solar Software, he has consulted with organizations in numerous fields, including technology, health care, academia, publishing, and environmental studies. He has also served as an independent developmental editor for authors of fiction, nonfiction, film, drama and poetry. He has published articles and reviews in general philosophy, environmental studies, and the arts in miscellaneous journals. His feeling that philosophy as the love of wisdom is for everyone, not just for academics, has led to his explorations in aesthetics, and to an ongoing participation in cultivating civil cross-boundary political dialogue. He was a member of IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England), the former long-standingtheater awards granting organization, and now is very pleased to be a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association.
R. Scott Reedy began covering theater and the arts in Boston in 1982 for his college newspaper, The Suffolk Journal, for which he subsequently served as editor-in-chief. He earned both a Bachelor's degree in journalism and a Master's in education from Suffolk University. From 1992 to 2023, his work – including theater reviews and feature interviews with Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award winners – appeared in The Patriot Ledger, Middlesex Daily News, the TABs, the Providence Journal, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and other Gannett Media outlets nationwide. He was also a longtime contributing writer for Soap Opera Weekly and Soaps In Depth magazines. Currently, he is a reviewer and feature writer with BroadwayWorld/Boston.
Shelley A. Sackett (member since 4/1/25) is a freelance journalist and arts and theater critic who writes for Theater Mirror, Jewish Journal, JTA, Salem Gazette and Swampscott Reporter. Her blog, “Insights” (https://shelleysackett.com/), which she started after an editorship at the Jewish Journal, is a compendium of all her published works. She is an attorney who practices divorce mediation and has been an organizer and member of the selection committee of Salem Film Fest for over a decade. She is thrilled to be a member of Boston Theater Critics Association.
She received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a J.D. from Denver University. Her article on conversion of not-for-profit health care providers was published by the Stanford Law & Policy Review and cited by the S.J.C. She has taught law at the Bertolon School of Business at Salem State University and yoga at various studios on the North Shore. In addition to being a “culture vulture,” she ocean kayaks, reads voraciously, plays mah jongg and regularly chants Torah at her synagogue.
Jacquinn Sinclair is a Boston-based freelance journalist and critic. Currently, she’s a contributing performing arts writer for WBUR The ARTery. Her writing typically highlights creatives and organizations whose work centers on the intersection of art and activism. As a critic, she’s reviewed theater and restaurants. Jacquinn’s work has been featured in various publications, including DigBoston, The Philadelphia Tribune, and Boston.com. Find here reviews at WBUR.ORG.
Bob Verini is Secretary of The Boston Theater Critics Association. He covers New England for New York Stage Review and Variety, with periodic reports from Broadway and London. From 2006 to 2015 he covered Southern California theater for Variety, serving as president of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. He has written for American Theatre, ArtsInLA.com, StageRaw.com, and Script, and will emphasize Boston and environs in the content on his website, VeriniViews.com.
Lynne Weiss (she/they) covers Boston-area theater and performance for Stage and Cinema, a national arts site. Weiss has received residencies and fellowships from Yaddo, the Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center as well as the Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, with fiction and essays published in various literary publications and sites and bylines in the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, Radcliffe Magazine, and Atlas Obscura, among others. Weiss earned a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from UMass Amherst, with additional studies at Goddard College and the University of Montana, where she/they studied the works of Shakespeare and Ibsen. Born into a military family, Weiss grew up in France, Germany, and the D.C. suburbs before settling in Massachusetts forty-five years ago.
For many years, Weiss was a volunteer usher for a number of local theater companies. Weiss began sharing her excitement about local theater on their former blog site before starting to write for Stage and Cinema, which added coverage of Boston after numerous reviews convinced the L.A.-based publication that Boston’s theater scene was worthy of attention.
2024-25 Nominating Committee Members
LARGE
Corey Martin Fitzgerald: coreymartinfitzgerald@gmail.com
Geoffrey Kocks: gkocks@mit.edu
Taylor Robinson: tjaerob@gmail.com
Cyndi Rubino: cyndi.rubino@gmail.com
Yiu Wing Wu: yiuwing6788@yahoo.com
MIDSIZE
James Montaño: phillipjamesmontano@gmail.com
Givan Allison Hinds: givanhinds@gmail.com
Nate Shu: naterossshu@gmail.com
Kai Terrell Evans: kendrick.evans25@gmail.com
Alison Trude: moodsformoderns@gmail.com
SMALL
Gokul Sriman Thanigai Arasu: gt2220@nyu.edu
Jeanne Denizard: jmdenizard@yahoo.com
Kitty Drexel: blognetheatregeek@gmail.com
Katherine Wallace: katherine.m.wallace@gmail.com
Jason Hair-Wynn: jhairwynn@gmail.com