James Seacat has served as marketing communications director at Actors Theatre for 17 years.

Actors Theatre may have some claim to a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the only nonprofit American regional theatre where, under one roof and over two consecutive days, 150 drama critics collectively review 13 plays.

Each year critics from across the country and around the world converge on Louisville for an exclusive weekend in search of the next Pulitzer winner, Broadway triumph or regional stage favorite.

Louisville area critics are the first to see festival plays as they open. Longtime Louisville Courier-Journal critic William Mootz, now retired, reviewed nearly 200 festival premieres—perhaps the most impressive oeuvre of print coverage of any journalist in Humana Festival history.

Dedicated Chicago Tribune critic Richard Christensen was the first out-of-town journalist to visit the festival. Back then, the performance schedule was not as intense as today, allowing time for then Producing Director Jon Jory to personally squire Richard around the city in his Volkswagen Beetle for a bit of leisurely sightseeing.

Now the critics’ weekend is a whirlwind of intense playgoing. But Southern hospitality continues to strongly prevail. Journalists are greeted at the airport by members of the communications staff, who turn their attention exclusively to media relations over the big weekend. The short escort to hotels allows just enough time for curious critics to probe for insider tidbits and gauge festival buzz. "What’s the festival favorite?" "Any shows optioned for future production?" "How’s attendance?" "Can I get an interview with Jane Martin?"

With a few members of the theatre’s press department, the foreign press contingency usually makes it to the Highlands neighborhood for dinner and lots of local color at Lynn’s Paradise Café. While theatre is their main topic, writers might squeeze in a trip to Churchill Downs or Fort Knox, with our help, in order to prepare a travel story on the Bluegrass State for their publications. We’ve driven folks to afternoon spa appointments during lunch breaks and carpooled to a downtown lounge famous for Mint Juleps.

Reviewing festival productions is the primary reason for the critics’ visit to Louisville each April. Many not only file reviews but also find behind-the-scenes angles for creative feature stories on playwrights, actors, designers or apprentices. An elaborate system accommodates scores of interview requests, which usually are conducted early Sunday—the final day of the marathon weekend. New York journalist and novelist Jimmy Breslin participated in 16 press interviews (as a playwright) one morning, when he was represented in the 1988 festival with his drama Queen of the Leaky Roof Circuit.

A week after the critics’ visit, we rush to Barnes & Noble seeking Sunday edition newspapers where it’s not uncommon to find extensive arts and leisure spreads on the festival, play reviews and stories capturing the Humana Festival experience.

To look back over the outpouring of three decades of Humana Festival stories and reviews is to feel a renewed respect for journalists, who recognized early on the importance of this event to the American theatre. That admiration extends to the many who make the pilgrimage to Louisville today to continue their distinguished tenure of covering our work.