Broadway
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“The Honey Trap”
I first saw English, The Buena Vista Social Club, Eureka Day, Prayer for the French Republic, Dead Outlaw and Liberation at small non-profit venues before they were picked up for critically-praised productions on Broadway. If I were going to place a bet on current off-Broadway offerings that might make the move, I would put my Continue reading
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James Earl Jones
I wouldn’t presume to call James Earl Jones a friend, but I had four encounters with him that immediately leap to mind. Some years ago, I was involved with a group attempting to revive the theater in Stratford, Connecticut. If the outfit had been successful, I was told I would become literary manager, a gig Continue reading
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Playing With History
One of the things that theater is supposed to do is to give us a way to tell ourselves stories about ourselves. A bunch of us gather together in a public place with some other people who get up in front of us and show us behavior that, with luck, may help us understand better Continue reading
1776, A Hundred Circling Camps, Andrew Hamilton, Arthur Miller, Bonus Army, Caroline Sherman, Cole Escola, Dogteam Theatre Project, Donald M. Miller, Empire, Hamilton, Iphigenia in Aulis, Irve Tunick, John Peter Zenger, Lenny Bruce, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Marian Seldes, Mary!, Peter Stone, Rebecca Wear, Robert Hull, Sam Collier, Sherman Edwards, Sidney Kingsley, Studio One, Supreme City, The Crucible, The Patriots, The Trial of John Peter Zenger -
Thoughts on “Aristocrats” and “Appropriate”
Brian Friel’s Aristocrats is set in Ireland and Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate is set in the American South, but they have similar things in mind. Aristocrats takes place in and near a crumbling Irish manor house. Appropriate takes place in a crumbling Southern mansion. The two are crumbling because of a lack of money and will Continue reading
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Immmigrants
It’s been a while since I’ve heard anybody use the term “the melting pot.” If I remember my high school history correctly, the idea was that people arriving in this country would bring with them the cultures they had left (or fled). They and/or their children would inevitably meet, socialize with, marry and produce offspring Continue reading
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“Days of Wine and Roses”
Popular culture has stamped the Fifties in our minds with images of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Mickey Mantle and Annette Funicello. The war was over, the economy was booming, bebop and abstract expressionism were bringing new ideas to music and art, and musicals like Guys and Dolls, Bells Are Ringing and The Music Continue reading
Broadway, film adaptation, Golden Age of Television, movies, musicals, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, television, theater12 Angry Men, 1950s, Adam Guettal, Atlantic Theater, Blake Edwards, Cliff Robertson, Craig Lucas, Criterion, Executive Suite, Fred Coe, Jack Lemmon, John Frankenheimer, JP Miller, Judgment at Nuremberg, Lee Remick, Leonard Bernstein, Mad Men, Marty, Michael Greif, Patterns, Philco Playhouse, Piper Laurie, Playhouse 90, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The, The Apartment, The Trip to Bountiful, United States Steel Hour, Westinghouse Studio One -
Jamie Lloyd Reminds Us of Some Essentials
A New York Post writer named John Oleksinski recently wrote an article in which he chided Broadway producers for productions that charge big money but offer skimpy production values. Oleksinski claims that chintziness in scenery is based in a desire to cut budgets. If you go to Broadway (or any theater) for the fun of Continue reading
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Chasing Stories
If you took a census of all of the characters who are alive in my mind, it wouldn’t surprise me if the number reached into the thousands. Sherlock Holmes and Mama Rose, Clytemnestra and Walter Lee Younger, Jackie Brown and Zatoichi – leading, supporting and cameo characters reside uneasily in an ever-expanding repertory company and Continue reading
Bedlam Theater, Chris Chibnall, Christopher Walken, Doctor Who, Eric Tucker, Henrik Ibsen, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jodie Whitaker, Liba Vaynberg, Mike Birbiglia, Othello, Pygmalion, Rattlestick Theater, Saint Joan, Sense and Sensibility, Shakespeare, Susannah Millonzi, The Gett, The Old Man and the Pool, The Winter's Tale
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 