Adding his voice to the recent media memoir frenzy, New York Times columnist Frank Rich '71 read from his book Ghost Light, the story of his childhood infatuation with the theater, last night at WordsWorth Bookstore in Harvard Square.

"It was a personal mission to tell a story about a kid, me, who had a somewhat dark childhood and escaped it through the theater," Rich said.

Ghost Light focuses on Rich's parents' divorce, his childhood in Washington, D.C., and, of course, his yen for the stage.

" I wanted to act, write, direct. I was so glad just to be around the theater, I didn't even think of it as a vocation," Rich said.

He first put his discriminating eye for theater to work as an arts writer for The Crimson.

"I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember what [my first review] was," he said. "I'm sure it was a great show."

Rich, who was editorial chair of The Crimson in 1970, went on to found a weekly newspaper in Richmond, Va. He said he wrote about everything from "school board meetings to senior proms for Seventeen magazine" before working at The New York Times.

After 13 years as the chief theater critic for The Times, Rich shifted gears in 1993 to write a column for the op-ed page, which he described as an ideal but daunting job.