Broadway
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Men in White, Sidney Kingsley, and Ancillary Thoughts
I recently read Sidney Kingsley’s play, Men in White (1933), and last night I watched the 1934 film adaptation directed by Richard Boleslawski. (Interesting that Boleslawski directed the film version of a work that had been directed on Broadway by one of his students, Lee Strasberg.) As was the case with Street Scene, the film Continue reading
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From “Crime in the Streets” to “West Side Story”
Watched a clumsy but fascinating film called Crime in the Streets. It started as a 1955 live TV play by Reginald Rose presented by the Elgin Hour, directed by Sidney Lumet. A young John Cassavetes starred as Frankie, a member of a street gang called the Hornets. Robert Preston was featured as an idealistic social Continue reading
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Remembering Preston Jones
In the mid-1970s, I was assigned a piece by an in-flight magazine distributed on American Airlines. The story focused on three playwrights who first came to the theater community’s attention in regional theaters. The three playwrights were David Mamet, Marsha Norman and Preston Jones. I interviewed all three by phone. I was friendly with Mamet Continue reading
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Encountering Rose Franken
Continuing to wander through obscure corners of American playwriting, I have stumbled across a forgotten phenomenon. A writer named Rose Franken created a character who appeared first in a series of stories for Redbook, then in a series of eight novels, then as the leading figure in a Broadway play, then as the lead in Continue reading
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Both Your Houses
I was determined to witness the moment when Joe Biden overtook the Orange Thug in Pennsylvania. I plopped down on the sofa in the living room under the illusion that this might happen at 2AM (which is about the time I usually go to sleep). I didn’t want to watch TV nonstop, so I thought Continue reading
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Election Day Distraction
Don’t know if it’s true for anybody else, but I’m just trying to get this day out of the way. Latest avoidance tactic, an hour or so at the City Diner with my dog at my feet, reading some chapters in Jan Herman’s biography of William Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, about Wyler shooting Mrs. Continue reading
Abraham, Bill Bryden, City Diner, City Hall, democracy, Directors Guild of America, Ex Libris, Film Forum, Frederick Wiseman, Green Mansions, In Jackson Heights, Ira Krutch, Isaac, Jan Herman, Mrs. Miniver, National Theatre of Great Britain, New York Public Library, Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, PBS, Rex Ingram, Roark Bradford, television, The Bible, the Blitz, The Golden Age of Television, The Mysteries, Tony Harrison, William Wyler -
Two Contrasting Plays
I continue my casual tromp through plays of the past, alternating reading from an anthology of early Pulitzer Prize-winners and an anthology of postwar African-American plays. The two most recent plays I’ve encountered, by coincidence, are about flawed Black authority figures. The Amen Corner (published in 1954, premiered in 1965) by James Baldwin is about Continue reading
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TROUBLE IN MIND — Alice Childress
I continue to read plays from the past I’ve never gotten to see. Mostly, as I’ve said before, I’m alternating between an anthology of plays that won the Pulitzer Prize early on and an anthology of post-war plays by Black writers. Finally caught up with Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress. It’s been going through Continue reading
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Another obscure Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Continuing my lackadaisical progress through Pulitzer Prize-winners of the past, hit Hell-bent Fer Heaven by Hatcher Hughes. As the “fer” in the title suggests, this is a play written in dialect about hill people in the South (reportedly based on a branch of Hughes’s family). And yes, it is troublesome to plow through the dialect. Continue reading
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Terrence McNally Documentary on AMERICAN MASTERS
Having been involved in NY theatre since 1967, watching Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life stirred up decades of memories. Some of them involve Terrence. I can’t claim to be a close friend, but he and his work have been a constant presence for decades. He probably doesn’t remember it, but I played organ for Continue reading
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 