Walter Kerr (1913 – October 9, 1996) was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was a writer, lyricist, and director of several Broadway musicals.

Kerr was born in Evanston, Illinois and graduated from Northwestern University. He became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951, then began writing theater reviews for the New York Times in 1966. He wrote for the New York Times for seventeen years. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1978.

In 1990, the old Ritz theater on West 48th Street was renamed the Walter Kerr Theater in his honor.

Kerr's books include:

• How Not to Write a Play (1955)
• Criticism and Censorship (1957)
• Pieces of Eight (1958)
• The Decline of Pleasure (1962)
• The Theatre in Spite of Itself (1963)
• Tragedy and Comedy (1967)
• Thirty Plays Hath November (1969)
• God on the Gymnasium Floor (1971)
• The Silent Clowns (1975)

His wife, Jean Kerr, is also a writer. Together, they wrote the musical Goldilocks, which won two Tony awards. They also collaborated on Touch and Go and King of Hearts

External links

• Gene Doll Clothes samples of some of Kerr's dramatic criticism