[NEohioPAL] If We Want To Read Critiques, We'll Ask Your Opinions

[Jim Jarrell]

I absolutely CANNOT take it anymore...to everyone who feels compelled to
fill our email inboxes with unsolicited theatre reviews...

By what divine right do you suppose you are given the authority to pollute
our inboxes with your unsolicited opinions?  Good or bad, if any of us on
the NEohioPAL list wanted your opinions, we would ask for them or we would
go pick up the magazine or newspaper the should be published in.

Before I get accused of being defensive over someone's opinion, let me point
out that I just recently moved back to Northeast Ohio after a 10-year
absence and I have not yet appeared on a local stage again to be critiqued
by anyone.  So, my words aren't mixed with the bitter taste of a
director/performer scorned (nor am I one of the BFFs rushing to their
defense). Ill-tempered though they may be, my words ARE mixed with shock and
awe that people have the audacity to think they have the right to send
hundreds of people (some they may not even know) their unsolicited opinions
straight to their email inbox.  As if that weren't bad enough, the opinions
are filled with errors and give the impression that they are written for no
other reason than to embarrass anyone and everyone associated with the
theatrical production in question.

I'm all for "freedom of speech."  By all means, please, exercise your right
to have your own opinion.  Everyone is entitled to have their opinion,
whether I agree with them (or anyone else agrees with them) or not.  What I
don't agree with is polluting my inbox with your opinions if I don't ask for
them (especially if they're poorly written plagiarisms - as one recent
diatribe was).  If you want to express your opinion, do it responsibly.
Write something of quality that a newspaper or magazine would be compelled
to publish...and if you cannot manage that, there are any number of a
zillion free websites where you can start and write your own blog.  Even KJK
has a blog, for goodness sake!  It can be done!!

Then, once you have found a PROPER home for your unsolicited opinions, you
should feel free to share with the listserv a LINK to your opinion so that
we may have the CHOICE to visit it or ignore it.  But, please, if we don't
ask for your opinion, don't force it upon us.  Especially not these
embarrassing expressions that denigrate into online "flame" wars.  It's just
not cute.

Respectfully,
Jim Jarrell
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