Lewis Segal

Lewis Segal (born 1941) is an American dance and performing arts critic. A long-time dance critic for the Los Angeles Times, Segal has written on various topics related to the performing arts, ballet, contemporary dance, and musicals.

Lewis Segal was born in 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated with a BA degree in Language/Arts. Later, from the same university, he earned an MA degree in Theatre History and Criticism, and an MFA degree in Theatre Direction. 

After graduation, Segal began working as a freelance writer for a variety of publications, including High Performance magazine, Los Angeles Times, Performing Arts magazine, Ballet News, and the Los Angeles Free Press.

In the early 1970s, he worked as a music publicist, first at Mercury Records, and later at ABC and Capitol Records. In 1976, he began working for Los Angeles Times as an assistant editor in the Book Review section, while continuing to do freelance work for Calendar, the arts and entertainment section. 

In 1984, he was promoted to the position of Dance Writer, eventually becoming the Chief Dance Critic for Los Angeles Times in 1996. He held the full-time position until 2008 and wrote full features and reviews on artists, dance companies, and performing arts organizations from around the world. He was one of the two American critics participating in the 1990 India International Dance Festival and was also the only American critic invited to submit a critical essay to Nina Alovert's study of Bolshoi Ballet star Nikolay Tsiskaridze, which was published in Moscow in 2010.

In 2008, after the Los Angeles Times downsized its arts section, Segal continued to publish performing arts features and reviews as a freelancer. He said of his departure from the position, "...my position is being eliminated in the latest round of staff layoffs and cutbacks...I have followed my supervisors' advice and applied for the Times buyout, which means I'll be off the staff as of the end of this month. However, there is some talk about my freelancing for the paper in the future."

In addition, in the years 1999-2008, he taught as an adjunct professor in the Department of Theater at the University of Southern California (USC).