strini: "no one is pushing me out the door."

milwaukee journal/sentinel music and dance critic tom strini, who has accepted a buyout from the paper and will be stepping down at the end of july, has a touching farewell in today's paper. as he goes, he delivers what might be a backhanded jab to the current management of the skylight opera theatre (my italics):

All of my bosses at the old Journal and the Journal Sentinel were wonderful to me. I'm leaving at my own choosing with a nice parting gift; no one is pushing me out the door. I have nothing to complain about; everyone should be so fortunate.

yes, they should.

strini has been an indispensable voice in milwaukee's artistic community for the past 27 years, and when the skylight firings happened last month he took the somewhat controversial step of actually taking a public stand in the situation, calling for former artistic director bill theisen to be reinstated and current managing director eric dillner to step down.

while strini may have gotten some flak for not staying neutral, he was only doing what any good critic does: reviewing the drama at the theatre.

head over to tom's blog at the journal/sentinel and wish him well.