Elliot Norton

[1][2] Norton practiced a style of criticism known as "play doctoring", where he made suggestions on how to improve a show.

Boston was a major pre-Broadway tryout town, and Elliot's criticism was taken seriously by producers, directors and playwrights, including Joshua Logan, Mike Nichols, and Neil Simon.

[1] Baker's most famous student was Eugene O'Neill, whose plays were revolutionizing Broadway theater at the time Norton became a drama critic.

“I can remember Barrymore's stabbing the king [in Hamlet in 1922] as vividly as if it were yesterday; it still raises the hair on the back on my hands,” he said.

Frank Rich, who became prominent as a theater critic for The New York Times, wrote about how Norton's role as a "play doctor" was part of its times: What people should remember was that in his heyday ... the Josh Logans and Rodgers and Hammersteins looked to out-of-town critics for informed advice about how to 'fix their shows.'

It would be considered highly inappropriate today to talk to the writers and producers outside of columns, but it was a different world.

Norton helped shape the first collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II during the tryout of as Away We Go at Boston's Colonial Theatre.

Appearing on the show Eliott Norton Reviews, in his conversation with Simon, Elliott said that the play went "flat" in its final act.

[5] His show, Elliot Norton Reviews, received the Peabody Award, one of television's greatest honors.

The year he retired in 1982, he was honored by the establishment of the Elliot Norton Awards to recognize theatrical excellence in the Boston theater.