Letter from the editors

This magazine is the brainchild of countless conversations with artists, viewers, and believers of/in the Chicago Theatre Community.

Born from a desire to do better for artists who want to do better, The Plotter seeks to frame criticism not as a negative nor as a make-or-break factor for ticket sales.

Criticism should be the long-term memory of an arts community. It is how we can remember what came from before and engage deeply with what’s in the present. Every review, every production, every installation is a point on a plot. Over time, as credits roll and sets go up and come down, we see more points populate the chart. We see the trend they form.

That is why we launched this magazine: to plot our past so we can chart our future.

As AI content and otherwise lowest-common-denominator “slop” takes up space on our feed, it’s incumbent on us, as consumers, to resist. We believe that resistance happens with thoughtful dialogue: writing it, reading it, and responding to it.

Thank you, to our incredible cohort of writers, for sharing your talents and time. You are/were instrumental in turning this idea into a concept and then into a fully-fledged project. We are so proud of the work you’ve created, and we are even more proud of what we know will be the many compliments you receive on it.

Thank you, reader, for clicking. Whether you stay for every article or skim headlines, you are proving why this magazine was created.

Keep plotting,

A + C