Chris Jones (drama Critic)

Christopher Nigel Jones (born September 10, 1963) is a British-American journalist and academic. He is the chief theater critic and Sunday culture columnist of the ''Chicago Tribune''. Since 2014, he has also served as director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Critics Institute. Jones has appeared on the news broadcast of CBS-2 Chicago as a weekly theater critic. In 2018, he was additionally named Broadway theater critic for the ''Tribune'' related publication, the New York ''Daily News''. In 2021 he was named Editorial Page Editor of the ''Tribune'', but he continues to review theater both in Chicago and New York.

In 2001, Jones was featured in an article in ''American Theatre'' magazine about the 12 most influential theater critics in America. In 2016, the ''New York Times'' cited Jones as an important reason that Broadway shows try-out in Chicago, noting the role his reviews have played in helping producers improve productions for New York runs.

Early life and education

A native of Bury, England, Jones attended the United Kingdom’s Bury Grammar School and University of Hull, from which he graduated with honors in 1984 with a joint BA in Drama and English. He moved to the United States to pursue his MA in Theatre at Ohio State University, which he received in 1986. He earned his PhD in 1989 with his dissertation ''Populism, the Mainstream Theatre, and the Plays of Willy Russell''.

Career

Academia

From 1990-2000, Jones taught at Northern Illinois University, rising from assistant professor, to associate professor and then as professor and associate chair of the School of Theatre and Dance. From 2000 to 2002, he served as associate dean of The Theatre School at DePaul University, where he remains an adjunct professor. He left his tenured post in academe to join the ''Chicago Tribune'' full-time in 2002.

Theatre and cultural criticism

Jones started his career as a critic in the 1980s by contributing film reviews, interviews, and reports for WCBE-FM in Columbus, Ohio, and also served as the long-time film critic for the ''Columbus Alive'' alternative weekly newspaper. Beginning in the mid-1980s, he began writing for ''Variety'' and ''Daily Variety'', developing a particular specialty in reviewing out-of-town tryouts of Broadway musicals, for which he became nationally known. During this time, his arts criticism was also often published in the ''Los Angeles Times'', the ''New York Times'', the ''Washington Post'', ''American Theatre'' magazine as well as other newspapers and magazines.Chicago Tribune