New York
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Thoughts on MAESTRO
One of the many posters on Facebook said he didn’t see where the drama was in Bradley Cooper’s film about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro. Here was an enormously successful and talented guy who had one artistic triumph after another who managed to hold onto his family and still shtup whoever he wanted. Where were the obstacles 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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Homeless, Lizzie Borden and Three Plays With Brooklyn Connections
A few days ago, as I was leaving the Upper West Side building where my wife and I live, I ran into one of our neighbors, a former state Supreme Court judge. She knows I’m a playwright and a theater journalist and she wanted my take on a play. A minute or two later we Continue reading
A Doll's House, A Raisin in the Sun, Alexander Zelden, Anne Kauffman, August Wilson, Becomes a Woman, Betty Smith, Brooklyn, Crumbs From the Table of Joy, David Mamet, Eric Tucker, Fall River Fishing, Frederick Wiseman, Herman D. Farrell III, Jamie Lloyd, L:loyd Richards, Lorraine Hansberry, Love, Lynn Nottage, Mint Theater, National Theater of Great Britain, Oscar Isaac, Rachel Brosnahan, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window -
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 -
“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 and, to the surprise of its author, received a rave review in the Chicago Tribune Continue reading
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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 to his northern colleagues’ concern for black people held in bondage in the south by Continue reading
"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 -
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 dresses up as a woman. As You Like It is about a woman who gets Continue reading
Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 