A terrific interview with playwright Terrance McNally and actress Tyne Daly (musical Gypsy; television Cagney & Lacey, Judging Amy) recently aired on the Charlie Rose show. The 30-minute program is well worth seeing for anyone passionate about theatre or opera or really any of the arts. (And if you’re not, [...] Continue reading »
Luck Falls From a Corner Of the Sky
You know those stories that consider how different one’s life would have been if that train had chugachugged out of that station five minutes sooner? Or if you had walked west on Bleecker St. that rainy July day in 1978, instead of east where your umbrella got tangled up with [...] Continue reading »
Doing the Box Office
Quick, which category has seen the sharpest drop in sales over the last ten years? • Plays at nonprofit theaters • Broadway theater attendance • Music albums/CDs • Rap albums/CDs • Movies While you’re thinking about that, I might explain that I’m a box office data nerd. Having spent over two [...] Continue reading »
Presenting the Intrepid and Independent Lucy Wainwright Roche
Flux doesn’t begin to describe the current business models for many artists in the U.S. Popular music was the first sector plunged into chaos. Book publishing, film and theatre soon followed. The chaos has been different for each sector, but chaos it has been. I try to follow developments in [...] Continue reading »
Spider-Man: Turn On the Miracle
While in New York last week, I felt it was my pop culture duty to check out the most expensive stage production in history. I suspect that every writer carries around in his head a small bag of maxims he has faith in most of the time. One such nugget [...] Continue reading »
Rossini + Ignorance = Bliss
A few days ago I went to Seattle Opera, sat myself down in a chair at the Barber of Seville and had my wintry mood lightened by a musical shave and a haircut. Rossini infuses Barber of Seville with a spirit of fun that I defy anyone to resist. Among [...] Continue reading »
Celebrating Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim is one of the great treasures of American theatre and music. Thanks to Roland Tec and the blog Extra Criticum I just enjoyed an amazing 11-minute video in which Seth Rudetsky shares his love of Sondheim and gives a keen analysis of a song from “Company.” You’ve got [...] Continue reading »
High Stakes, Indeed
In dramatic writing it’s usually helpful for the story to have rising stakes that peak at a high level. (“Othello, my dear, have you seen my handkerchief?”) Today I glimpsed this notion of high stakes in a whole new light. I was reading Alex Ross on Renaissance polyphony choral music (The [...] Continue reading »