It’s not worth calling him out and starting some ludicrous flame war, but today on his blog, a fellow critic posted an anecdote that essentially mocked a woman for not knowing Chekhov’s The Seagull. The play is currently on Broadway (starring Kristin Scott Thomas) and it’s an indisputable masterpiece of modern drama, but it saddens me that someone would belittle a person for not having read it. To do so suggests that theater is a special club, and that if you don’t have certain knowledge, you can’t come in.

And that? Is a sucky way to behave. If people feel forbidden to learn about an art form, then all of us lose.

I’m making a complementary point to the one I made last week, about not mocking those who know more than you do. It’s just as unnecessary to make yourself feel bigger by belittling people who don’t know what you know.

I mean, I understand the impulse. If you get teased in school, or nobody at the bar asks you out, or your stupid boss yells at you… then you want to do something to make yourself feel better. And often, that means inflating the importance of your own expertise.

Case in point: I used to get hankty about the Oscars. Like, if someone in my seventh grade class didn’t know that Kathy Bates won Best Actress for Misery, then I would judge them. It made me feel better about that kid who poured grape soda on me in gym class.

But eventually, I got over that. And then when I was twenty three, I got a taste of someone else’s judgment.

Whew. Let me get ready. This story still makes me mad.

Okay, I used to be the literary manager of this theater company in Atlanta, and the summer before I went to graduate school (for theater), my company was hosting this big playwriting festival. All these other literary managers came to see the work we were presenting, and one day, we all went to lunch at a local restaurant.

And boy did I feel excited. Not only was I going to school to study criticism, but I was also eating with a bunch of people I respected. There was one guy at the table, let’s call him John, who had been my internship supervisor in college. The artistic director of my theater was there, too, and so was a woman who had taken me under her wing and taught me how to work with playwrights. And now I was sitting with them as a peer. A peer!

Oh, and also? There was another woman there. We’ll call her Elphaba.

So you see… As I enjoyed my chicken finger platter, dipping  golden-brown meat sticks into a vat of barbecue sauce, someone asked if I was excited about school. I said, “Totally! And I’m getting all prepared, you know? Like, I’m finally reading these plays I missed in college, like A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

And look, I know that for a theater student, those are two major plays. But that was my point. I was reading them before I got to school, and I was loving every page of it.

But right after I said that, Elphaba snorted, then leaned over and whispered in John’s ear. Then she giggled.

I asked her what was funny.

Elphaba said, “I can’t believe they let you into school. Graduate students are supposed to add something to the conversation, not be excited to finally read the plays.”

Those were her exact words. Exact. Words.

Right there in front of my mentors and my boss, I got slammed for not knowing what Elphaba knew. I felt like I’d been punched in the throat.

That taught me a lesson: If I know a great play (or song, or movie, or TV show) that someone else doesn’t know, then I am not superior. I am lucky. And shame on me if I don’t share.

That reminds me of why I love Andrew: He’s a fantastic voice teacher to musical theater performers, and he’s confident enough to admit it when he hasn’t heard of a particular song or composer. He knows it doesn’t lessen his ability to acknowledge that he still has things to learn.

So there you go. That’s why I will never laugh at someone for not knowing The Seagull. And let me add this: I’ve never seen or read Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and tomorrow I’m seeing it on Broadway. I’m excited to finally experience this classic play.