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Category Archives: Broadway
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, Chekhov, drama, film adaptation, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, Second City, The Sea Gull, theater
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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 … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater
Tagged 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
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“Raisin in the Sun” at the Public
The first grown-up straight play I remember seeing was Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun in Chicago. I didn’t see it the first time it played Chicago, when it stopped there on its way to Broadway in February 1959 … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, Chicago theater, drama, film adaptation, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater
Tagged Claudia Cassidy, Claudia McNeil, Danny Glover, Diana Sands, Esther Rolle, Francois Battiste, Jonathan Miller, Lloyd Richards, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Lorraine Hansberry, New York Public Theater, Phylicia Rashad, Raisin in the Sun, Robert O'Hara, Sean Combs, Sidney Poitier, Tonya Pinkins
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A New “1776”
I’m going to guess I’m not the only person who learned about the triangle trade from a musical. Late in the action of the show of 1776, a delegate to the Continental Congress from South Carolina named Edward Rutledge reacts … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, film adaptation, musicals, New York, Uncategorized
Tagged "Molasses to Rum", 1776, AnnMarie Milazzo, Benjamin Franklein, Carolee Carmello, Clifford David, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Declaration of Independence, Diane Paulus, Eddie Sauter, Edward Rutledge, Jeffrey L. Page, John Adams, John Cullum, Patrena Murray, Peter Hunt, Peter Stone, Roundabout Theater, Sara Prokalob, Sherman Edwards
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As You Kink It
Because of serendipitous scheduling, I saw Kinky Boots on a matinee and the New York Shakespeare production of As You Like It that night. Kinky Boots is about a guy who gets to say and do some things because he … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, Chicago theater, drama, improvisation, musicals, New York, off-Broadway, theater, Uncategorized
Tagged Adrian Lester, As You Like It, BAM, Beauty and the Beast, Callum Francis, Cheek by Jowl, Christian Douglas, Cyndi Lauper, Danielle Hope, Harvei Fierstein, Henry V, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Darien Julie Taymor, King Boots, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Shaina Taub, Viola Spolin, William Shakespeare
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“The Bedwetter” and “Mr. Saturday Night”
Two new musicals are co-written by people who came to fame via stand-up comedy. Mr. Saturday Night, the Billy Crystal vehicle (which he co-wrote with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, composer Jason Robert Brown and lyricist Amanda Green) is about … Continue reading
Telling it Clearly — “Macbeth” vs. “Cyrano”
I’m a story guy. I think the roots of the theater lie in people sharing stories. I’ve written before about a conversation I had in the mid-Seventies with novelist Louis L’Amour that influenced my thinking. He described how Native Americans, … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, theater
Tagged BAM, Betrayal, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cyrano, Daniel Craig, Evelyn Miller, Harold Pinter, Ivo Van Hove, James Mcavoy, Jamie Lloyd, Louls L'Amour, Macbeth, Othello, Ruth Negga, Sam Gold, Shakespeare
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“American Buffalo” on Broadway
In 2001, I served on a grand jury. At one point, an ADA played for us a recording from a wiretap. It was a conversation between two members of a violent drug gang. One was assigning the other to kill … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, Chicago theater, drama, improvisation, playwriting, Second City, theater, Uncategorized
Tagged American Buffalo, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Neil Pepe, St. Nicholas Theater
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CULLUD WATTAH and CLYDE’S
My idea was to write a series of plays, each of which would take place in another American city. The stories would be specific to those towns, each arising organically out of the character and history of the location. And … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, theater
Tagged All My Sons, Arthur Miller, Clyde's, contaminated water, Crystal Dickinson, Cullud Wattah, Detroit, Dominique Morissea, Edmund Donovan, Enemy of the People, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Flint, Generl Motors, Henrik Ibsen, Kara Young, Kate Whoriskey, Lynn Nottage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, pollution, Public Theater, Reading PA, Reza Salazar, Rick Snyder, Roger Ailes, Ron Cephas Jones, Rosebud, Ruined, Skeleton Crew, The Detroit Project, Uzo Aduba, What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing
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