Elizabeth Maupin, ’73, Theater Critic (retired), Orlando Sentinel
What’s been your career path?
I got a master’s degree in journalism at the University of California Berkeley, in the hopes of becoming an arts critic. I worked at two small newspapers, one in northern California and one in northern Ohio, and persuaded the editors in both places to allow me to write reviews. By the time I left the Ohio paper (when I was about 27 or 28), I was a full-time movie and theater critic. I then was movie and restaurant critic for the afternoon paper in Norfolk, VA, and moved to the Orlando Sentinel in 1983, when I was 32. I worked there as theater critic for 26 years and retired in 2010 (a little early, at the age of 58).
How did your English major prepare you for your career?
I knew a whole lot about literature, especially dramatic literature, which helped me write about theater. As a student at a liberal arts college, I also knew a whole lot about many other things, which helped me immeasurably as a journalist. I always said I loved being a theater critic because I was an English major at heart.
Were any internships particularly helpful to your job search?
I worked one summer during graduate school for the Washington bureau of McClatchy Newspapers, which was then a California chain but is now one of the country’s largest newspaper companies.