New York Times Names Helen Shaw as Chief Theater Critic

Shaw joins the Times after working as a theater critic and staff writer at The New Yorker and working as chief theater critic at New York magazine. Her appointment to the high-profile job comes after the Times announced in July that four of its critics, television critic Margaret Lyons, music critic Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green and classical music critic Zach Woolfe, would be taking on new roles, prompting speculation about the future of criticism at the paper.

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Green, who had been chief theater critic since 2020 and co-chief since 2017, has now been a culture correspondent at the paper since September. The chief theater critic is a particularly high profile position within the theater community as New York Times reviews have been seen as making or breaking the fate of Broadway shows.

Shaw has also written about theater for Time Out New York, 4Columns, Artforum and The Village Voice. She won the 2025 Grace Dudley Prize for Arts Writing and was a co-winner of the 2017-18 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.

“Long before I came to New York in 2002,” Shaw said, “I developed a lot of strong opinions about shows I hadn’t encountered yet, largely thanks to reviews in The Times: In Kansas, I could read Mel Gussow on Edward Albee; in Massachusetts, I could read Frank Rich on Stephen Sondheim. I also developed a serious passion in the ’90s, in college, for the cut and thrust of Walter Kerr, reading him on shows that had been closed, at that point, for almost 20 years. Those reviews were my education and invited me into the long conversation about the theater. My hope at The Times is to continue that conversation, with as many people as possible.”

Shaw is based in Brooklyn and teaches at New York University and Yale. She begins in mid-January.