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A critic or reviewer functions as a member of the audience with special knowledge of theatre. The good critic is trained in theatre literature and production and will judge a production for the general public, s/he may make reference to his or her body of knowledge, but only as an aid in explaining a production for a general audience.

The function of critic has existed for centuries in Europe, but it is relatively recent as a job in and of itself. Today the Broadway critic writing for the major New York newspapers has a great deal of influence over the fate of a production. The general public will not see a show in large enough numbers for the show to turn a profit if the critics' reviews are unfavorable. Although the critic has training in areas of theatre literature and production, his or her job is not to promote a specific production, but, by judging the quality of productions, he or she should serve the art form generally.

In a review, a critic evaluates a theatrical production using some or all of the following techniques:

1. The critic puts the production in a context, which should help the audience to appreciate the more subtle aspects of the play. For example, the critic might focus on the relationship between this play and a playwright's body of work, might expand on the historical context of a play, or might explain the production's performance style in artistic or historical terms.

2. The critic examines the goals of the particular performance being reviewed. One production of Hamlet may take a completely different performance approach from another.

3. The critic evaluates the success of the writer and the production of the playwright's work.

4. The critic discusses the worth of the artistic team's attempt. For example, a restaging of a popular Broadway musical that adds no new interpretation may be highly entertaining without being as artistically worthwhile as a second production that rewrites or updates some music and lyrics, finds stars who will interpret the characters in a new way, and hires a director who applies a whole new unifying concept that makes the musical particularly relevent to us today.

Most major newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and many magazines employ either a theatre critic specifically, or an arts critic who may cover several of the performing arts.

Another kind of critic is the academic critic. These scholars have less influence on the success of individual theatrical productions, but perhaps more influence on the history of the art form. These critics put together anthologies of play texts; analyze actors, directors, and designers for a specialized audience of theatre practitioners and scholars; and examine play texts and performance texts in their cultural contexts, also for a specialized audience. Being in academia, these are the critics who teach you about theatre in university classrooms, selecting what plays you read and influencing your taste and the terms of analysis you apply to dramatic events. In other words, these critics help to determine what plays and artists are remembered from generation to generation, and they analyze what cultural issues are embodied in the theatre practice of a given generation.

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