Otis Guernsey; Author, Theater Critic Edited Annual ‘Best Plays’ Yearbook

Otis L. Guernsey Jr., critic and author who chronicled Broadway theater for decades as the editor of the “Best Plays” yearbooks, died Wednesday at 82.

Guernsey was a drama and film critic for the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune from 1941 to 1960, but was best known in the theater world for his nearly 40-year association with the “Best Plays” annuals.

Guernsey edited the annual tribute to the best new American plays from the 1964-65 through the 1999-2000 season.

“The ‘Best Plays’ yearbook is the theatrical community’s bible,” said composer Jerry Herman, whose Tony Award-winning musicals include “Hello, Dolly!” “We’d be lost without it.”

Three months ago, Guernsey was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City, one of a series of honors recognizing his dedication to the theater.

He took over “Best Plays” in 1964 after 19 years as critic and editor with the Herald Tribune. He said he preferred the celebratory criticism in the annual survey over his former job of “hurling thunderbolts at people I admire.” Yet it was a thoughtful compilation that did not always include the season’s Pulitzer winner. In the 1980 compilation, for example, he omitted Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child,” calling it “a dismal, unstructured exploitation of both our malaise and our patience.”

Under Guernsey, the annual volume, which includes excerpts, cast listings and reviews, expanded its reach beyond the New York stage to include regional productions from around the country.

Guernsey wrote or edited more than half a dozen reference books and periodicals, including Directory of the American Theater, 1894-1971; Playwrights, Lyricists and Composers on Theater and Broadway Song and Story.

Once dubbed “the Boswell of the American theater” by the late Garson Kanin, a director and writer, Guernsey was a member and chairman of the New York Film Critics and the New York Drama Critics Circle and was a founding member of the American Theatre Critics Assn.

Born half a block from New York’s Carnegie Hall, he graduated from Yale University, where student groups produced three plays he wrote.

He dabbled in screenwriting and contributed a key portion of the story on which Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film “North by Northwest” was based.

He moved to Vermont in 1960, living in North Pomfret until last year, when he moved to Woodstock.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Dorianne Downe Guernsey, and two brothers.