What do stars and recommended mean?

There's a lot of debate about whether to use stars or not in reviews. Opponents of using stars tend to say things like it presents a review as objective, or it discounts parts of the show that were good or bad in service of an overall rating.

And, of course, a bad star rating can tank a show and that sucks.

I agree with all of this, but, at the end of the day, when someone is reading a show I'm reviewing, they want to know if I thought it was five stars.

Star ratings give me a quick shorthand to express how much I loved a show, good and bad.

Roughly, the ratings translate as follows:

Stars	Meaning
★★★★★	Go to the show. It's rad.
★★★★☆	Still go! But I enjoyed it slightly less than a “five star” show. Usually I’ll add some commentary in the review. But we need four stars because when everyone’s super, no one is.
★★★☆☆	I still tend to enjoy these shows a lot, but there’s usually something about them that requires improvement or holding them back from having a better rating. My downsides may be upsides for you.
★★☆☆☆	Probably don’t go, unless you have a reason to think I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am.
★☆☆☆☆	Show’s pretty shit.
☆☆☆☆☆	I walked out. This has only ever happened twice.
Recommended	I haven't seen the show yet, but I have reason to recommend it to you
Not Recommended	I haven't seen the show yet, and I probably won't. I don't recommend you see this one.
Improv	It's an Improv show, so you get what you get! My personal hot take is that the best way to Fringe is to minimize the amount of improv - which we have all year - and check out some of the unique shows "Fringe" has to offer. But if you want improv, these are the ones.