Helen Shaw, longtime critic at Time Out New York, has taken over from Sara Holdren as the theatre critic at New York Magazine and its entertainment site, Vulture. Holdren, who had been at the publication since 2017, has left to return to full-time directing.

Shaw will write reviews and related cultural commentary beginning October 15.

“When we began looking for a critic, an extraordinary number of people immediately told us ‘You should hire Helen Shaw,’ and I’m very happy that we did,” said Editor-in-Chief David Haskell in a statement. “Her taste is broad and interesting, and she writes with the absolute expertise and enthusiasm of a great critic but also an understated dose of wit that we’ve all loved reading.”

As well as writing for Time Out, Shaw was most recently the theatre critic at 4Columns.org. She is the winner of the 2018 George Jean Nathan Award for theatre criticism (the previous year’s winner was Holdren), and has written for ArtForum, American Theatre, The Guardian, Art in America, the New York Times, and TheatreForum, among other outlets. She is an instructor at New York University’s Tisch School of Drama and a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle. She received a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. from the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

New York's theatre critic before Holdren was Jesse Green, who is now at The New York Times.