The Painter Principle

I hired her as an editorial assistant back in 1995, but she quickly became a fixture at Back Stage West and duly ascended the ranks, from writer to Features Editor, then to Editor in Chief. And now Jamie Painter Young has been named National Editor of Back Stage and Back Stage West, replacing publishing veteran Julia Kagan (whom I wrote about when she took the newly created job, just eight months ago). I send my congrats to Jamie, and I wonder if this decisively shifts the focus of the Back Stage "brand" from the East to the West Coast, and from theater to film.

My beef with the direction the paper started going around the turn of the millennium, in case anyone cares anymore, was never a theater vs. film thing so much as a movie-publicity vs. acting-jobs focus. The former emphasis has coincided with large movie ad revenues, to be sure. The latter emphasis, though, is what the Back Stage and Back Stage West brand was always about. Well, there are still casting notices and such. But have you seen anything like this in BSW lately, for example? A free tip: I think that just may be an actor's trade story.