Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Ewing Reviewing’

Review Fix chats with Ewing Reviewing author Jan Ewing, who lets us know how the project began and why any theater lover will enjoy having it in their book collection.

About Ewing Reviewing:

Following in the footsteps of Theatre Arts Monthly; TheatreWorld; and John Chatterton ‘s Off-Off Broadway Review, we have Mr. Ewing and William Cataldi, two elder statesmen from Eva Heinemann ‘s incredible TV/social media show Hi! Drama listing some of indie theatre’s most notable productions. This soon-2-be tradition allows the ever-transitory world of Off-Off Broadway to finally have concrete evidence. THIS IS THE NEXT CHAPTER THAT BEGAN IN 1957 AT CAFFE CINO IN NYC AND IS STILL UPHELD BY La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club AND American Theatre of Actors AND NOW THE TORCH WILL BE CARRIED BY EWING REVIEWING!

Check out Jan’s work on Amazon, Here.

Review Fix: What was your inspiration behind this project?

Jan Ewing: 2018 marks the beginning of my fourth career. Or, perhaps more correctly, a return to my first. In April of that year I was retired and looking for something to do when I was introduced to Eva Heinemann of the HI! DRAMA website. She asked me to write a review, and before I realized it, the world in which I had actually spent the first half of my life rose up out of nowhere. To keep this short, I am a member of AFTRA, AEA, and LOCAL 802. That’s enough bone fides for the moment.

I began writing reviews covering a wide variety of Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatrical events. As I did this, being fully aware that many of the plays I was seeing would be running, maybe, three times, in competition with literally hundreds of other performances going on every minute, I became concerned about the enormous amount of really superior theater work that was simply going to vanish. Over the course of 2018 and 2019 I wrote 137 reviews of works picked almost at random, and saw things that were absolutely stunning. It seemed my reviews were being well received, so I asked my friend Jay Michaels what he thought about publishing them, maybe helping keep some of this incredible work alive. He and several other people agreed it might be good thing to do, so I’ve decided to produce a yearly collection of reviews (sometimes including other reviewers) every year for the foreseeable future.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like? 

Ewing: I see something that intrigues me, tuck it into my head, and it comes out when it’s ready. That’s it, no notes, no outlines.

Review Fix: What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process/production?

Ewing: The greatest benefit I’ve gotten from all this is that I’m writing every day, and words are pouring out (as Mozart actually said about his music) like piss from a sow. It’s axiomatic, a writer gets better the more often he writes, and I learn new things every day. I have also learned how incredibly good I am. I’m 79 years old. If I don’t know that by now, I should just sit on the porch and drool.

Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this for the future?

Ewing: I have already begun laying out EWING REVIEWING 2020.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Ewing: EWING REVIEWING 2021.

mm
About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*