Theatrecriticism.com theatre reviewer Edward Rubin is dead at 84

EDWARD RUBIN, an iconoclastic theatre critic, arts critic and curator, who wrote for decades about theatre and the visual arts, died after a protracted battle with bladder cancer at Calvary Hospital on June 15, 2025. He was 84.

Rubin, who went by the nickname “Fast Eddy” was a long-standing member of the New York Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle and a longtime member of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association (ATCA). Through the years, he was a regular contributor to a number of theatre websites including Theatrecriticism.com, the New York Theatre Wire, Hi Drama, Theatrescene.com and Berkshire Fine Arts.

Additionally, he was a senior editor for Manhattan Arts International and a regular contributor to the New Art Examiner and The Hispanic Outlook. He was also a member of the prestigious American Section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).

Through the years, Rubin’s writings have also been published in many North American magazines such as Art & Antiques, ArtUS, dART International, Canadian Art, ArtNexus, Flash Art, and Sculpture, as well as other foreign magazines.

He maintained several email lists for arts lovers that numbered into the hundreds. “Fast Eddy” gave his take on most everything he considered in arts, theatre and sometimes politics, passing along jokes and, sometimes, cartoons on a daily basis.

A New York based writer, he was a fixture in the New York arts community and lived for most of his life in an East Greenwich Village rent-controlled walkup apartment that was home to numerous books on the arts and a place to curate his love for art.

In 2015, while attending the ATCA Conference in New Orleans, he received news that his building had sustained significant damage from a gas explosion in an adjacent building and that his window had been knocked out by the force of the blast. He was unable to return to his apartment for several months, sleeping on friends’ couches and trying to reestablish his writing career while dealing with the building administrators, city officials and a steady stream of insurance agents. It took nearly a year for him to be fully returned to his apartment, but the ordeal did not sour his upbeat take on life, undertaking the second of two terms he was elected to the ExCom (executive committee) of ATCA just two years later.

Born Edward Rubinstein in Tampa, Florida in 1941, he was the product of parents from the disparate Cherokee Indian nation of his mother and the local Jewish community of his father. A smart writer, he obtained his bachelor’s degree and began his writing career in earnest once he moved to New York.

He most always wrote his reviews in the first person, stating for the record that he was writing to codify his own opinions and not necessarily for the benefit of his readers. A throwback to theatre critics of the past, he might leave a performance at intermission if he deemed it not worthy of his time for review.

Nevertheless, he would oftentimes take weeks to compose a single article or review, engrossed in copious volumes of research he would conduct on his subjects prior to publication.

Jovial and always the life of the party, Rubin enjoyed cocktails with friends and was a lover of fine foods at grand restaurants whenever he traveled, which he did extensively until just prior to the COVID pandemic years. His health began to fail seriously over the last two years.

Rubin never married or sired any progeny, so his healthcare was overseen this past year by his caretaker and friend,Vittoria deBruin, an award-winning filmmaker. Grateful for her intercession, friends additionally set up a GoFundMe campaign to assist her financially during this period of uncertainty.

A memorial gathering will be held at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, at 630 Amsterdam Avenue, in New York, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time (11:30 Central/9:30 Pacific).

For those that cannot attend in person, please use this link.

A burial service coordinated by Plaza Jewish Community Chapel will follow at Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations are suggested online to the ATCA Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit that operates for the benefit of ATCA

Or by checks sent to:
FOUNDATION ATCA
c/o Tim Dodson, administrator
145 Bermuda Lakes Dr.
Meridianville, AL 35759

Compiled by Alan Smason