Michael Feingold, whose learned writing about the theater was a fixture of The Village Voice for decades, and who was also a dramaturge, a translator, and a Tony Award-nominated lyricist and adapter, died on Nov. 21 in Manhattan. He was 77.

Mr. Feingold had an encyclopedic knowledge of plays and musicals, which he drew upon as he sized up productions, beginning in the early 1970s and continuing until recently. He did not pull punches, even if his target was a venerable veteran.

He once dismissed Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose music is often said to be derivative, with this line: “Webber’s music isn’t so painful to hear, if you don’t mind its being so soiled from previous use.”

He translated numerous European works for the American stage, especially those of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. He was at one time literary manager for the Yale Repertory Theater, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, roles in which he would read scripts and often help shape ones that were accepted for production. He wrote for The Voice from 1971 to 2013. “He was, above all, a champion of theater that is bold and challenging,” The New York Times said.