William Glover, 91; Editor and Longtime Drama Critic at AP

William Glover, a retired editor and drama critic for the Associated Press, died Friday after a long illness. He was 91.

In his 18 years as AP’s drama critic, from 1960 to 1978, Glover covered more than 3,000 openings on and off-Broadway.

During a time when first-night drama critics raced back to their desks to write reviews on deadline, Glover acquired a reputation for his agile exits from the theater the moment the curtain came down. Cue magazine once dubbed him “the Nureyev of the aisle.”

If Glover liked a show, he said so in the opening paragraph. “An exuberantly winning musical, ‘Mame,’ opened tonight to well-earned cheers at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater,” he wrote in 1966.

Glover graduated from Rutgers University, and served in the U.S. Maritime Service from 1943-1945. He was a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle, as well as one of its presidents, and was for many years on the nominating committee for the Tony Awards.