Esteemed Theater-Film Critic Hap Erstein Died Saturday

By Bill Hirschman

The theater community, the journalism community, our community as a whole has lost a force who helped forge all of them for decades. Our friend, our colleague Hap Erstein died Saturday at 10 p.m. at an Aventura hospital where he had been since Monday when he collapsed in a movie theater where he had gone to do a review. He was 74 years old.

He had been fighting COPD for years as well as a lung infection.

For more than 40 years in South Florida and Washington, D.C., he penned reviews and feature stories about theater and film for print and broadcasting with unique verve and insight.

His passionate love of theater and film was rooted in an unshakeable belief that honesty and integrity in criticism was a keystone to maintaining and improving an art form as it was practiced here. He had a droll wicked wit when quality flagged, but his raves proudly revealed a bottomless love for the arts.

He was theater critic for The Palm Beach Post from 1994-2008 and for The Washington Times from 1982-1994, where he won many awards and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. He was contributing weekly film reviews for WJNO radio’s airwaves and website. His reviews were regularly published by Palm Beach ArtsPaper.

He reviewed major shows locally and in New York, but he also took time to cover smaller theaters. Robert Goodrich, director-producer of The Alchemy Project, wrote, “He was from a journalistic culture and time when a reviewer writing an article about your no-budget theatre production the week before you opened in some converted garage, got people to come see your show. Hap filled many of my chairs, as he championed upstarts and those coloring outside the lines as well as established companies.”

Actor-playwright Michael McKeever added, “A terrible loss to the community. He was a good man and a terrific journalist who helped to make the region’s cultural scene stronger and better.”

Larry Adylettte, his editor at the Palm Beach Post, wrote, “From the day he left DC and arrived in South Florida, Hap lived and breathed culture 24/7. He greatly expanded the scope of our theater coverage throughout South Florida and beyond — from Louisville, Ky. for the annual New Plays Festival to Broadway reviews during Tonys season. Over the years, he added movie reviews, celebrity interviews and restaurant coverage to his beat.”

“He was prolific and inexhaustible in a way journalists will never be again. It was a rare week that didn’t include at least five of his bylines. His reviews could cut sharply, but Hap never lost his enthusiasm. I once asked him if he ever got exhausted going out every night to some event. He said no, he was always in search of the next great thing in theater or film. Culture’s possibility was the thrill for him.”

“What a life he led — from attending Woodstock as a college student to fulfilling a lifelong dream of appearing on “Jeopardy.”

During his career, Hap interviewed such show business legends as Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, George Burns, Stephen Sondheim, Woody Allen, Jethro Tull,  Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.

A trove of theater and film trivia, he gave lectures for the Hudak On Hollywood speech circuit and taught theater appreciation courses at Florida Atlantic University’s Lifelong Learning Society. He co-hosted Aisle Say, an year-long experiment in reviewing and interviewing for a live Internet television program.

For many years, he was a judge for the Helen Hayes Awards in D.C. and has been a longtime judge for the Carbonell Awards in South Florida. In 2022, he received the Carbonell’s prestigious Charlie Cinnamon Award.

Born in Washington, D.C., Harris Erstein went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he graduated with a bachelor of science in literature, but credited his real education writing for the school newspaper and putting on shows.  He later received a masters in journalism from American University in D.C.

He became sweethearts in high school with Elaine; they were together 60 years and they celebrated their 53rd anniversary last month.

His life went well beyond the arts including a love of tennis, backgammon and especially world travel with his wife Elaine Oksner.

Survivors include Elaine; sister Susan Bromly; nieces Amy, Frank Melissa; nephew Matthew.

A memorial will be held sometime in August.