About Last Night…

The Dallas Morning News’ TV spots for the paper’s “Overnight” page promise reviews of “last night’s performances,” but it ain’t necessarily so.

Arts and entertainment editor Tom Kessler says “Overnight” critiques what was on stage the night before, not necessarily last night’s performance of it. Kessler agrees that the quality of live performances can change nightly, but he’s obviously caught between the rock of what’s possible on deadline and the hard place of what the ad people think “Overnight” ideally would be.

The day after we talked to Kessler. Robert Abele’s week-old “Overnight” review of the Dallas Children’s Theatre noted the show was “reviewed earlier in the play’s run.” Earlier, Jerome Weeks saw Broadway’s Five Guys Named Moe in a March 21 preview. His “Overnight” review ran after the show’s April 8 opening.

The News isn’t likely to spoil a catchy ad campaign by changing the page’s name to “A Few Days Later,” But in mid-May, a Thursday review of Casa Manana’s Lettice and Lovage noted, in fine print at the bottom of the review, that “the performance reviewed was Tues-day, opening night.”