drama
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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 I would try to tell stories about cities that hadn’t already been represented a lot Continue reading
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 -
Review: “The Visitor”
For about the first half of its 90-minute running time, The Visitor, the new musical playing at the Public Theater based on Tom McCarthy’s 2007 film, works very nicely indeed. Kwame Kwei-Armah and Brian Yorkey’s script effectively translates McCarthy’s screenplay to the stage with understated encounters and the songs Yorkey (as lyricist) wrote with composer Continue reading
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Returning to the Scene
To be simultaneously separated by masks (I wear two) and joined in responding with laughter with hundreds of others is to experience the contradictions of going to the theater these days. Of course, you can’t see the mouths, but maybe you see someone’s eyebrows dance or a tiny backward jerk of the head. In olden Continue reading
A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet, Alex Wyse, Ben Fankhauser, Bridge Theatre, Bryonha Marie Parham, Charlotte Bydwell, covid, Dan Wagoner, Hal Prince, Jay O. Sanders, Lakawanna Blues, Martyna Majok, Maryann Plunkett, National Theatre, Porch, Prince of Broadway, Rhinebeck, Richard Nelson, Robert LePage, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Stratford Festival, What Happened? -
Review: “Sanctuary City”
Movie trailers today mostly are constructed the same way – a line or two of characters yelling or a violent incident quick cuts to another violent incident or line or two of characters yelling. And accompanying each cut is a loud thudding or whomping sound designed to jolt the audience to attention. Using these noises Continue reading
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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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Ride Share
In 1992, a former cab driver named Will Kern drew on his experience to whip up a bracing entertainment called Hellcab. An actor played the driver and an ensemble of six played something in the neighborhood of 30 passengers who occupied the back seat during one shift on Christmas Eve. It didn’t pretend to be Continue reading
Alan Bennett, Hellcab, Judgment at Nuremberg, Kamal Angelo Bolden, Marty, Philco Playhouse, Playhouse 90, Reginald Edmund, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Ride Share, Simeilia Hodge-Dallaway, Talking Heads, The Days of Wine and Roses, The Miracle Worker, The Trip to Bountiful, Twelve Angry Men, Will Kern -
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
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 