Shrek: These people are not making art. They're in it for the money. Period.

A couple of weeks ago, in a column about a sneak-peek at the upcoming Broadway musical "Shrek," I made some minor - and, of course, constructive - criticisms of some of the songs, namely that the music wasn't tuneful and the lyrics weren't clever. (OK, maybe my criticisms weren't that minor.)

The column prompted an e-mail from someone whose address I didn't recognize and who objected to what I wrote.

Thinking my correspondent was some cranky old Broadway geezer, living in the past and longing for the old ways and rules, I fired off a quick response.

Turns out the "old geezer" was John Weidman, the 60-ish president of the Dramatists Guild of America and the co-creator of "Pacific Overtures," "Assassins" and the Tony-winning "Contact."

Since our e-mail exchange is making the rounds, I thought I might as well make it public today.

Dear Michael:

I don't suppose there are many rules, unspoken or otherwise, left in the world of the Broadway theater, but it has always been understood that a show would not be reviewed until its opening night.

In a letter to the Times several years ago, I took one of their Sunday feature writers to task for, in effect, reviewing a show which was to open later that week. In your column yesterday, you seem to have gone the Times one better by reviewing a show - a significant element of a show - before that show had even gone into rehearsal.

Inappropriate, irresponsible, and completely unfair.

John

I responded:

The world has changed. With tickets going on sale months and months in advance of a show's opening - and with prices at $200 to $450 - I don't think it's inappropriate for columnists to give their impression of a show. I hope people read my reports on "Young Frankenstein" and "The Little Mermaid" out of town. I would have saved them lots of money.

These people are not making art. They're in it for the money. Period.

Let the chips fall where they may.

Incidentally, I ran into Jeanine Tesori, the composer of "Shrek," the other day at Joe Allen's Bar Centrale.

"I'm not in it for the money!" she exclaimed, obviously having read the exchange.

Well, that was certainly true of her last show, the arty "Caroline, or Change," which, I believe, lost its entire investment on Broadway.

But "Shrek"?

Come on, Jeanine.

Surely this one's for the country house.

THE old guard and the new guard were one Thursday at the opening-night party of "Passing Strange," the hip new musical by rock musician Stew that's being produced by the venerable Shubert Organization.

A rave review was read aloud, like in the old days before BlackBerrys.

(The Shuberts don't have BlackBerrys. They still "hold the wire.")

The reader was the great Marian Seldes, an actress more attuned, you'd think, to an Edward Albee drawing room than to a rock musical about a black man's sexual and artistic awakening in Europe in the 1980s.

But Seldes, 79, is a big fan of "Passing Strange."

"I adore Stew," she says.

Seldes read the rave with her usual flair.

When Shubert president Phil Smith complimented her reading, she replied: "Thank you, darling. The material you gave me was wonderful!"
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