Celebrating Sondheim’s Birthday with Garland and Others and “Songs I Wish I’d Written”
On the occasion of Stephen Sondheim’s 80th birthday a decade ago, I called upon a list of songs published on the occasion of his 70th that he said he wished […]
Women Count V: Women Hired Off-Broadway 2014/15 through 2018/19
[Selection from February 2020 report, published February 26, 2020 on the Women Count report series page.] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: WOMEN COUNT V, 2014/15 THROUGH 2018/19 The Women Count report series collects and […]
2019: excavation review themes
My travels this year were limited compared to travel in prior years: several days in Washington DC (where i lived in the late ’90s and early 2000s), ATCA-related trips to […]
2019: excavation review
I lived thousands of hours in roving artistic communities that move from theater to reading room to cabaret venue in the course of 2019. By my rough count, during 2019 […]
Fornés Documentary The Rest I Make Up Director and Editor Discuss their Artistic Marriage
[Full interview originally published in Contemporary Theatre Review, Backpages 29.2, August 5, 2019.] Martha Wade Steketee spoke with filmmaker Michelle Memran and film editor Melissa Neidich in October 2018 about […]
Chairs, Tables, and the American Theatre Critics Association
When I was 10 years old in East Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was in a class at Wealthy Street Elementary School comprised of kids selected for their smarts (maybe) and to […]
“Just in Time”: An Appreciation
Judy Garland performed a morphing and modulating arrangement of the Betty Comden and Adolph Green gem “Just In Time” for about seven years, between 1962 (when it was crafted for […]
Calm and Coiled: Musings on the Lolling styles of Hepburn and Garland
Back in 2010 and 2011 I played with a theme, a meme, of “lolling” through two of my favorite film divas Lolling served as a way for me to select among […]
Critical Eye: Rupert Murdoch on Broadway in Tony-nominated “Ink”
[Full article published in Quill Magazine May 10, 2019.] James Graham’s play “Ink” opened April 24 at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Quill asked New York-based arts journalist Martha Wade Steketee to […]
Honoring the (Re)Vision: Catherine Zuber on Adaptability in Costume Design
[Full article published in Dramatics on-line and appeared in the April 2019 print issue of Dramatics.] AS AUDIENCE MEMBERS, we may imagine that set, light, projection, sound, and costume designs are executed and then […]
Halley Feiffer: Writing New Roles One Play at a Time
[Full article by Martha Wade Steketee published in The Clyde Fitch Report, March 23, 2019.] Playwright-actor Halley Feiffer is currently shouldering both of her hyphenated roles in The Pain of My […]
THE BAND’S VISIT: A conversation on creating the Tony-winning musical
[Full article published in Dramatics on-line and appeared in the August/September 2018 print issue of Dramatics.] ERAN KOLIRIN’S 2007 film, The Band’s Visit, is set in the deeply political geography of rural […]
Joanna Gleason’s ‘Out of the Eclipse’ with a Song in Her Heart
[article as originally published in Theater Pizzazz, March 3, 2019.] Deep moody melodies, a dark Yiddish lullaby, a few standards, and a smattering of singer-songwriter staples inform the splendid cabaret offering […]
Of Sound Mind: Fitz Patton Sees Theater As Tonal Adventure
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, February 24, 2019.] Fitz Patton is a Drama Desk and Lortel-winning composer and sound designer who has built an extensive and varied body of […]
‘The Price of Thomas Scott’ Offers Social Themes, a Dutiful Daughter, and Dance Breaks
The Mint Theater will unfurl a trio of plays this season by Elizabeth Baker (1876-1962), a woman of religious upbringing who worked in her family dry goods business as a […]
Lear deBessonet Makes Theater as a Hopeful Public Proposal
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, January 20, 2019.] In a previous series of CFR stories called Critical I, theater critics were asked to reflect on their work — […]
