Dan Sullivan (October 22, 1935 – October 4, 2022) was a widely-read American theater critic with columns in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Minneapolis Tribune, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He was the director of the Eugene O'Neill National Critics Institute, and co-founded the American Theater Critics Association. He was a founding member of Brave New Workshop, which for more than half a century continues to be a theater venue for satiric comedy in Minneapolis.^[1][2]

Sullivan had a theater column in Minneapolis at a significant moment of the city's cultural history — the arrival of the Guthrie Theater. Sullivan witnessed and reported the birth of the theater itself, with its innovative design, and the founding tenure of artistic director Tyrone Guthrie.^[3]

At the New York Times, Sullivan was a theater and music critic. His focus was off-Broadway, which included for example, his reporting on The Open Theater^[4] on the pioneering Cafe Cino, after the death of its founder,^[5] on plays by Edward Albee^[6] and Lanford Wilson,^[7] on a new play that starred Mildred Dunnock,^[8] and on a Broadway production of Hello Dolly, that starred Martha Ray.^[9]

For the New York Times, he reviewed notable productions of Minneapolis, which included plays from the Guthrie Theater, and more experimental fare, including the Firehouse Theater's production of Jack Jack, by Megan Terry. Sullivan noted:

Yes, there is a nude scene in Jack Jack, and it is far more explicit than anything on the New York stage this season. But at the same time, it is so much like a classical painting come to life — of nymphs and satyrs frolicking on the green — that no one in Minneapolis seems to have objected loudly enough to attract the censors.^[10]

In 1969 he became the primary theater critic for the Los Angeles Times when theater there was growing. He kept that post for 22 years. At the end of every year he would write a traditional column summarizing theater's highlights, and he would counter that with a humorous column called "Bah-Humbug Awards", which pointed out some low points. Sullivan would end his Bah-Humbug columns with a confession of mistakes that he himself had made during the year.^[11][12]

Sullivan was devoted to mentoring and teaching theater writers, and was a founding member of the Critics Institute, which in 1968 became part of the annual Playwrights Conference of Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. The conference is a place where playwrights, actors, and directors gather, and where playwrights learn their craft as new plays are read and developed.^[17][18] The Critics Institute was founded with the belief that theater critics played a part in the theatrical experience, and could learn and benefit from the conference experience.^[19]

At the first meeting of the Critics Institute, a play was read, and received a negative reaction from one of the critics. This angered the playwright, because he felt his play had been misunderstood. The playwright was also bothered by the fact that Sullivan was taking notes, for his next-day column in The New York Times. In that column, Sullivan would include a description of the critical reactions to the play.^[20]

The next session of that inaugural meeting of the Critics Institute involved a different playwright; and it began with the playwright pulling out a gun, pointing it at Sullivan and his fellow critics, and saying that he was "ready for them". This was meant as a joke, though no one laughed. At the end of the 1968 conference the playwrights were united in opposition the inclusion of critics. Things improved as the conference continued to develop and learn, and the Critics Institute was not alone in encountering fraught relationships among the various disciplines in the conference setting.^[21] Sullivan was the director of the Critics Institute from 1999 to 2013.^[22]

Sullivan co-founded the American Theater Critics Association, and created the organization's statement of purpose: To increase communication among American theater critics, to encourage freedom of expression in the theater and theater criticism, to advance the standards of theater by advancing the standard of theater criticism, to increase public awareness of the theater as an important nation resource, and to "reaffirm the individual critic's right to disagree with his colleagues on all matters including the above".^[23]Speaking to the association in 1998, Sullivan said:

I do not believe in pussy willow criticism. The motto of the theater is not "darling, you were wonderful"…If it entails saying no, firmly, that's the job. But I do think it's wise to avoid the gleeful tone of an avenger grinding his enemy, the actor, into the dust…Don't come off as a person whose basic joy is to inflict pain. You don't need to be loved by theater people, but you want to be respected…When it comes to fraternization, aka sleeping with the enemy, there's no right answer. It depends on temperament. Independence is the most important thing for a critic. I remember Brooks Atkinson's rule: "don't go out drinking with John Barrymore." Avoid doing lunches with directors who want to share their "concept" of the piece. It can be too much information. You just want to see the play, and let it happen to you. You're not a collaborator.^[24][25]

Sullivan taught arts reviewing and reporting at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism.^[26]

Sullivan was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross. He then attended graduate school and later became a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota. He studied music at the University of Southern California, and then at Stamford University where he studied under Virgil Thompson.^[27]

In 1965 Sullivan married Faith Sullivan, an author, who has won the Midwest Book Award, the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the Ben Franklin Prize, and is a Minnesota Book Award Finalist. Her novels include: Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse (2015), Gardenias (2005), What a Woman Must Do (2002), The Empress of One (1997), The Cape Ann (1988), Mrs. Demming and The Mythical Beast (1986), Watchdog (1982) and Repent, Lanny Merkel (1981). They have three children.^[28]

Sullivan appeared as himself as a theatre critic during a talk show on an episode of The Odd Couple television show. Critic John Simon and author Neil Simon also appeared on the show as themselves.^[29][30]