City & Shore Magazine |

Theater critic Christine Dolen answers all of our questions

If theater critics were to receive reviews in addition to giving them, Christine Dolen would draw nothing but raves. In the modern history of South Florida theater, it’d be near impossible to find a voice that has projected as resoundingly as hers.

Traversing her fifth decade as a theater critic and journalist — mostly for the Miami Herald but now for artburstmiami.com — Dolen has played an offstage role as enduring, definitive and acclaimed as any in the tri-county theater community. One number pretty much says it all: 3,000. That’s the estimated total of regional productions she’s reviewed — not counting the over 1,000 Broadway and off-Broadway shows she’s taken in.

Late last year — for the second time — Dolen was honored with the George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts from the Carbonell Awards, which annually honor excellence in resident professional theater and the arts. In its 46 years, the only two-time recipients of the award are Dolen and Jack Zink, the late Sun Sentinel theater critic and Carbonell Awards founder.

In presenting her with the award during the November ceremony at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, celebrated Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz delivered an anecdote that intimates Dolen’s influence in South Florida theater — an attribute affirmed by her recognition as one of the country’s 12 most influential theater critics by American Theatre Magazine.

“When I thought that I was going to be an actor,” Cruz said, “I acted in a theater company here called S.E.A.T., South End Alternative Theater. And Christine gave me a bad review! But that bad review was a blessing, because then I decided to be a playwright and also to be a director. Much later, years passed, I invited Christine to a reading of my play, ‘Anna in the Tropics.’ And she came to that reading. And it was Christine who suggested to a judge for the Pulitzer Prize to nominate my work.”

Cruz went on to win the 2003 Pulitzer for that play, which he’d written as a playwright-in-residence at the New Theatre in Coral Gables.

“That I landed at the Miami Herald and became its theater critic in 1979 was such a blessing,” said Dolen as she accepted the Abbott award. “Along with Jack Zink and others, I got to tell the story of South Florida’s theatrical evolution. Show by show, story by story and review by review, we helped theater-loving audiences understand the region’s evolution.”

Dolen’s association with Abbott extends well beyond her acceptance of the award named in his honor. The American theater luminary known as “Mr. Broadway” lived in Miami Beach for nearly the last third of his 107 years.

“I spent a lot of time interviewing Mr. Abbott during the last decade of his very long life,” she said. “His late wife, Joy, and I became close friends, and for many years we presented the Abbott Award together. So this feels beautifully personal as well as professional.”

Dolen’s fascination with theater runs in her blood. Her father, Bill Hindman, was an actor who appeared in numerous movies and plays, including an off-Broadway production of “The Iceman Cometh,” replacing Jason Robards in a lead role.

“I fell in love with theater as a kid,” said Dolen, who grew up in Ohio. “I was amazed by the actors who rehearsed one play during the day, performed another one at night, then moved on to yet another play the following week. What theater artists do seemed magical. It still does. I don’t possess that skill set. But after discovering in high school and college that I can write, I found a different way to play a role in the theater community.”

Before stepping into that role as the Herald’s theater critic in 1979, Dolen was a pop music writer for the Detroit Free Press. Among her most memorable assignments involved a day spent at the circus with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Dolen, who was a contributor to the Sun Sentinel for three years after leaving the Herald in 2015, is the wife of former Sentinel arts and features editor John Dolen. The Davie residents are the parents of Sean, a teacher in Fort Lauderdale.

The critic did us the honor of turning her esteemed critical eye inward to answer our standard set of Quote Unquote questions.

Aside from the weather, what do you enjoy most about South Florida?

I love that the state is green year-round, that the sunsets so often look like vividly colored paintings.

Aside from the weather, what do you dislike most about South Florida?

I dislike the abundance of under-construction roads, a population that has grown way too large for the infrastructure and censorship that purports to be anything but political.

Are you a beach person or a pool person?  

I am a pool person, 100 percent. Although I love looking at the beach and hearing the sound of the waves, I will NOT get in that water with its assorted hidden creatures.

When in your life are you or have you been the happiest?  

I’ve been happy in many different periods, but I have to say that the falling-in-love days with my husband, John, and the birth of our son were pretty spectacular.

What do you do when you’re stuck in a traffic jam on I-95?  

I listen to talk radio, call whomever I’m meeting to say I’ll be late, realize there’s nothing to be done so I try to chill.

What music are you listening to now?  

Billie Eilish, Bruno Mars, Bruce Springsteen, anything by Marvin Gaye, the cast album of ‘Hamilton.’

Are you a fan, and if so, of what?  

I’m a huge fan of theater (obvious but true) and movies.

If you had to choose: Beatles or Stones?  

Beatles for the way they changed music (but props to the Stones for their fierce and thrilling tenacity).

What are your social media usernames?  

Facebook: Christine Dolen.

Apple or Android?  

Apple.

Who is your real-life hero or heroine?  

My late mother, who showed me that meeting the very difficult day-to-day challenges of raising and providing for her children on her own was her unwavering commitment.

What car are you driving now? 

Hyundai Sonata.

If you had to choose: ‘Rocky’ or ‘Raging Bull’? 

‘Raging Bull,’ because of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.

What do you like most about yourself?  

I like that I have just as much enthusiasm for watching and writing about theater as I did when I started, while still at The Ohio State University.

What places in South Florida do you recommend to guests visiting from out-of-town?  

I always suggest Key West, Vizcaya, the Pérez Art Museum (and NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, plus the Norton in West Palm Beach), Frost Science Museum, Little Havana, dining at a restaurant overlooking Fort Lauderdale Beach. And theater – lots and lots of theater.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 

I would be 100 percent healthy.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?  

I’m proud to have helped illuminate the work of so many South Florida theater artists for more than four decades.