Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin, ft. Jack McGee
Hello and goodbye. The 2026 New Zealand Fringe Festival was a huge event with hundreds of artists involved but unfortunately very few reviewers. Anybody in the performing arts front line across New Zealand would probably tell you that there is pretty much nobody out here writing reviews.
Theatreview is a pretty reliable stalwart of the local reviewing canon (even if they are the centre of controversy every now and again). Wellyott has become quite popular but has been very vocal about how they won't be able to go and see everything that asks for him. There are a couple of young guns walking around recording themselves talking about shows on their way home from them. Regional News is good but also can't make everything. Art Murmurs were good for a time, before that they really weren't, and before that they sought to plug a hole they saw in the ecosystem.
Art Murmurs is a volunteer organisation that passes the mantle from one burnt out artist to a younger, soon-to-be burnt out artist in the effort to practice our critical voices in exchange for free tickets. Reviewing has been an activity in coordination between what I think and what I can put online forever in such a small community.
I've gotten into hot water for some of the things I've written- we all have! Many who don't review anymore quote that the anxiety around others responding to their work so personally is a key reason why they stopped reviewing. We crave pull quotes, award laurels and star ratings to slap on posters but a vocal minority of us find the other half of reviewing (the part called The Critic) a pill too bitter to swallow.
Being jaded is not why I'm not reviewing anymore, however. I'm not reviewing any more because I don't need to and I'm leaving the country soon. I started reviewing because I didn't have enough disposable income to get into all the shows I wanted to see and reviewing offered me free tickets. I am an opportunist and also saw it as a way to hone my writing skills and practice giving thoughtful feedback in a largely one-sided conversation medium.
Years of reviewing later I am very certain that when I apply myself I can muster up some pretty decent writing. The will to muster up that writing has been hard to find recently. Alongside the reviewing, I’ve been busy at my day job and creating art myself. This has come so far as to allow me the cash to spend on seeing shows without having to wear a critics hat to the theatre. Now I can just sit back and enjoy rather than sit forward and write.
It has been no small honour to be a part of and eventually run Art Murmurs. It feels so small in many ways but is still a part of the conversation locally. Quotes pulled and scandals gossipped about, any review can become something to talk about. It's been great fun being a part of the conversation.
And now the time has come for the end of the second age of Art Murmurs. I fly to London mid-2026 (T-minus about three months now) and I won't be doing this via correspondence. Austin, Emilie, Evee and Jenny all resuscitated Art Murmus in the early 2020's after it went dormant the first time. I still don't know much about who began the thing and maybe one of you will inform me.
The point being that dying does not mean it ends. Another group of young people who need free tickets to dozens of shows will rear their pretty heads and raise their hands full with energy to take the reins and do their best impression of professionalism. They will consider conflicts of interest and will eventually give up on trying to uphold that because who cares anyway…
Some more thoughts from Jack.
Is Art Murmurs going back on hiatus a recession indicator?
I’ve spent a lot of time beating the drum about the importance of thorough criticism over the past couple of years. The elevator pitch boils down to: theatre is ephemeral, the only way we can see it (slash-ourselves) with any perspective and context is through reviews, otherwise everything exists in isolation for four nights and a matinée, never to be seen again.
I think Art Murmurs has always been an odd platform for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s built on artists reviewing other artists which is obviously weird. It’s far from unprecedented, if we’re being wanky you can point to Cahiers Du Cinema, but it brings an inherent vulnerability. There are stories performers that were critiqued harshly showing up to the reviewer’s shows stone-faced and arms crossed. Reviewing the people who you hope to one day hire you isn’t exactly the most upwardly mobile move.
Secondly, it’s never really had an individual editor. It works on peer-review, and everyone has a different idea of what a good review looks like, so there’s no consistency in voice or even punctuation. Really, it’s like fifteen different review sites depending on which reviewer you get. I always approached reviews with a pretty heavy, self-indulgent, attitude. I’ve heard in-direct feedback from artists that they saw my writing more as essays than reviews. Sean, meanwhile, was the master of the light touch, quickly capturing the energy and tone of the work they saw, and then sprinkling in a bit of feedback. I think the variety here actually made it something special, as much as it drove people on both sides of the platform insane at times. I really liked Sean’s point that Art Murmurs reviews always generated a lot of discussion.
Near the end of last year I made the call that I had to step back from reviewing, when I realised just how much time I’d been spending working on it. As an artist I decided I needed to prioritise my own work, and that’s really all there is to it. It’s easy enough to draw a time - labour - money - recession graph and make all sorts of contextual conclusions, but in a vacuum I, along with pretty much all of our reviewers, have just run out of time.
If you’re reading this, I wholeheartedly implore you to consider taking over the platform. I think the fundamental curse of Kiwi art is that we don’t take ourselves seriously. We don’t think it’s worth anything. I think reviews, preferably honest and introspective ones, are the best tool we have for fighting the apathetic malaise. Anyway, back to Sean…
If you are still reading this then good on you. We reviewed over 100 productions in 2025 and yet we could only get to two shows in the NZ Fringe Festival at the start of 2026. Most of the team has had a strong shift of mind over New Years and instead of reviewing have set their sights on more profound creative pursuits.
Please consider the fact that we are volunteers who once looked at Art Murmurs from the outside just like you. Maybe you even think that you're not a good writer and that's why you wouldn't put yourself forward to write. I did that too. You only get good at it by doing it- you'll find your voice. If you think it's terribly risky then do the smart thing and just write nice stuff about people. Save all the criticism in a private journal to reflect on when you make art so that you benefit from the mistakes of other people.
And if anyone is out there still reading and thinking that they could be the ones to take over: heed my warning. The administration takes about 10 minutes a day- that’s all it takes to read emails, update a spreadsheet and send out a call to your reviewer pool. The tricky thing is having someone running the social media, making tiles, pulling quotes. This job is busier some weeks and is very much dependent on when writers are hitting shows.
Also the website kinda sucks. I am not sure who made it but it was uniquely coded by somebody and very difficult to get into and change unless you’re adept yourself. It also costs about $350 a year to keep up which requires a yearly boosted campaign.
If you want the site, responsibility, opportunities, yadda yadda yadda then send me an email:
[email protected]
Art Murmurs is a volunteer organisation that passes the mantle from one burnt out artist to a younger, soon-to-be burnt out artist in the effort to practice our critical voices in exchange for free tickets. Reviewing has been an activity in coordination between what I think and what I can put online forever in such a small community.
I've gotten into hot water for some of the things I've written- we all have! Many who don't review anymore quote that the anxiety around others responding to their work so personally is a key reason why they stopped reviewing. We crave pull quotes, award laurels and star ratings to slap on posters but a vocal minority of us find the other half of reviewing (the part called The Critic) a pill too bitter to swallow.
Being jaded is not why I'm not reviewing anymore, however. I'm not reviewing any more because I don't need to and I'm leaving the country soon. I started reviewing because I didn't have enough disposable income to get into all the shows I wanted to see and reviewing offered me free tickets. I am an opportunist and also saw it as a way to hone my writing skills and practice giving thoughtful feedback in a largely one-sided conversation medium.
Years of reviewing later I am very certain that when I apply myself I can muster up some pretty decent writing. The will to muster up that writing has been hard to find recently. Alongside the reviewing, I’ve been busy at my day job and creating art myself. This has come so far as to allow me the cash to spend on seeing shows without having to wear a critics hat to the theatre. Now I can just sit back and enjoy rather than sit forward and write.
It has been no small honour to be a part of and eventually run Art Murmurs. It feels so small in many ways but is still a part of the conversation locally. Quotes pulled and scandals gossipped about, any review can become something to talk about. It's been great fun being a part of the conversation.
And now the time has come for the end of the second age of Art Murmurs. I fly to London mid-2026 (T-minus about three months now) and I won't be doing this via correspondence. Austin, Emilie, Evee and Jenny all resuscitated Art Murmus in the early 2020's after it went dormant the first time. I still don't know much about who began the thing and maybe one of you will inform me.
The point being that dying does not mean it ends. Another group of young people who need free tickets to dozens of shows will rear their pretty heads and raise their hands full with energy to take the reins and do their best impression of professionalism. They will consider conflicts of interest and will eventually give up on trying to uphold that because who cares anyway…
Some more thoughts from Jack.
Is Art Murmurs going back on hiatus a recession indicator?
I’ve spent a lot of time beating the drum about the importance of thorough criticism over the past couple of years. The elevator pitch boils down to: theatre is ephemeral, the only way we can see it (slash-ourselves) with any perspective and context is through reviews, otherwise everything exists in isolation for four nights and a matinée, never to be seen again.
I think Art Murmurs has always been an odd platform for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s built on artists reviewing other artists which is obviously weird. It’s far from unprecedented, if we’re being wanky you can point to Cahiers Du Cinema, but it brings an inherent vulnerability. There are stories performers that were critiqued harshly showing up to the reviewer’s shows stone-faced and arms crossed. Reviewing the people who you hope to one day hire you isn’t exactly the most upwardly mobile move.
Secondly, it’s never really had an individual editor. It works on peer-review, and everyone has a different idea of what a good review looks like, so there’s no consistency in voice or even punctuation. Really, it’s like fifteen different review sites depending on which reviewer you get. I always approached reviews with a pretty heavy, self-indulgent, attitude. I’ve heard in-direct feedback from artists that they saw my writing more as essays than reviews. Sean, meanwhile, was the master of the light touch, quickly capturing the energy and tone of the work they saw, and then sprinkling in a bit of feedback. I think the variety here actually made it something special, as much as it drove people on both sides of the platform insane at times. I really liked Sean’s point that Art Murmurs reviews always generated a lot of discussion.
Near the end of last year I made the call that I had to step back from reviewing, when I realised just how much time I’d been spending working on it. As an artist I decided I needed to prioritise my own work, and that’s really all there is to it. It’s easy enough to draw a time - labour - money - recession graph and make all sorts of contextual conclusions, but in a vacuum I, along with pretty much all of our reviewers, have just run out of time.
If you’re reading this, I wholeheartedly implore you to consider taking over the platform. I think the fundamental curse of Kiwi art is that we don’t take ourselves seriously. We don’t think it’s worth anything. I think reviews, preferably honest and introspective ones, are the best tool we have for fighting the apathetic malaise. Anyway, back to Sean…
If you are still reading this then good on you. We reviewed over 100 productions in 2025 and yet we could only get to two shows in the NZ Fringe Festival at the start of 2026. Most of the team has had a strong shift of mind over New Years and instead of reviewing have set their sights on more profound creative pursuits.
Please consider the fact that we are volunteers who once looked at Art Murmurs from the outside just like you. Maybe you even think that you're not a good writer and that's why you wouldn't put yourself forward to write. I did that too. You only get good at it by doing it- you'll find your voice. If you think it's terribly risky then do the smart thing and just write nice stuff about people. Save all the criticism in a private journal to reflect on when you make art so that you benefit from the mistakes of other people.
And if anyone is out there still reading and thinking that they could be the ones to take over: heed my warning. The administration takes about 10 minutes a day- that’s all it takes to read emails, update a spreadsheet and send out a call to your reviewer pool. The tricky thing is having someone running the social media, making tiles, pulling quotes. This job is busier some weeks and is very much dependent on when writers are hitting shows.
Also the website kinda sucks. I am not sure who made it but it was uniquely coded by somebody and very difficult to get into and change unless you’re adept yourself. It also costs about $350 a year to keep up which requires a yearly boosted campaign.
If you want the site, responsibility, opportunities, yadda yadda yadda then send me an email:
[email protected]