As discussed earlier on the Daily Loaf, St. Petersburg Times performing arts critic John Fleming recently questioned Creative Loafing theater critic Mark E. Leib about a possible conflict of interest in Leib's relationship with two theaters. Now Fleming has published his criticisms in the Times.
Here's the situation: Gorilla Theatre recently hosted a staged reading of Leib's new play, A River in the Desert, and this spring the Studio@620 will stage Leib's Art People. Fleming, backed up by the ethics chair of the American Theatre Critics Association (Lawrence Bommer, a Chicago critic/playwright who has written reviews for CL sister paper the Chicago Reader), points out that because Leib reviews plays at both Gorilla and 620, having his own plays produced at these venues gives the appearance of a conflict of interest.
There are valid questions to be asked here, and Mark answered them on the Daily Loaf, generating a debate in the comments section between past and present CL staffers. But the Times article tries to pump up the controversy further with a question I find bogus:
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2009.