Henry Hewes, one of the leading citizens of the American theater and a dear friend, died Tuesday. Here is the informal talk I gave at his induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame at Broadway's Gershwin Theater, Feb. 3, 2002.

For a teenager growing up in R.I. in the '50s, there were several ways to keep up with New York theater. The photo spreads in Life Magazine; Theatre Arts; "Best Plays" - only the last of them still here. And Henry Hewes, erudite and supportive critic for the Saturday Review - also still here.

For me, Henry was an essential window on the larger world. Critics are read mostly by people who have no chance to see the play under review, but who want to keep up with the world of art. Good critics like Henry are like good teachers, doing the day-by-day job for the sake of a future they cannot predict.

	Hewes family photo
	Henry Hewes, right, with playwright Tennessee Williams in a 1950's photo.

Henry served from 1951-1979 as drama critic for the Saturday Review. Early on, he covered a short story reading by Tennessee Williams and wrote that if he turned it into a play, it might be his best. A year later Tennessee told him, "I've done what you said - it's called 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.'"

Henry was the first influential New York critic regularly to review the growing off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and regional theater movements, and he was the only one to cover all four posthumous premieres of Eugene O'Neill in Sweden. John O'Hara called him "the only first-rate critic to come along since Gibbs took over from Benchley."

But it is not just as a critic that Henry joins the Hall of Fame, but as a useful servant of the American theater. The root of this is his personality: Many critics are loners, but Henry is clubable. For 50 years, if you've wanted something done that needed an energetic, articulate theater critic, Henry was the one, a one-man theatrical network.

A few particulars:

Along with David Hays and George White, Henry was involved in the start of the O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Conn. As an O'Neill regular, Henry called the founding meeting of the American Theatre Critics Association, which he then ran for many years.

As a president of the New York Drama Critics Circle, Henry arranged for critics to do the annual voting for the Hall of Fame, and he broadened the criteria for Hall membership to reach beyond Broadway and then beyond New York.

Similarly, it was Henry, as a frequent Pulitzer Prize juror, along with Dan Sullivan, who persuaded the Pulitzer Prize Committee to consider plays not yet produced on Broadway. And he helped bring about the annual Tony Award for regional theater.

In 1968, Isabelle Stevenson invited Henry to join the Board of the American Theatre Wing, where he initiated their "Working in the Theater" seminars. He served on the Tony Nominating Committee and still serves on the Tony Administration Committee.

In 1960-63, Henry edited "Best Plays," broadening Burns Mantle's essential brainchild from its focus on Broadway to cover theater off-Broadway, off-off, regional and European, as well.

In 1964, Henry joined Mel Gussow, Harold Clurman and Eddie Cook to start the Maharam design awards, which, unlike the Tonys, celebrate work equally on Broadway and off - awards recently re-named the Hewes Awards in his honor. In 1968, Henry devised the Drama Desk Awards on the same model.

You can see the pattern. The constant themes of Henry's service have been education, celebration and reaching out - breaking down artificial walls.

To all this nurture, add creation.

	Hewes family photo
	Henry Hewes

In 1954, Henry started the ANTA Matinee Theatre Series, and in 1957 he directed Siobbhan McKenna in "Hamlet." As a playwright, he adapted an old French farce into "Accounting for Love," produced at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in 1955. And in 1973, he created a Watergate version of "Measure for Measure" - although he leaves it to future scholars to determine what role that played in the resignation of President Nixon 8 days later.

Today, Henry is still working the phone and the fax machine. Recently, he brought Roy Somlyo and Betty Corwin together to produce the Theater Wing's "Careers in the Theater" video tapes.

He is a dear, sweet man, nobody's fool, funny and smart, who loves a good story, and not just those he tells himself. He has a million of them: He's seen everything, he knows everybody, or at least about them, and he continues to love the theater both wisely, and well.