Author Archives
Lover of ghost lights, movies, stories of creative lives, magic of live performance, storytelling in song.
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“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 her by Kay Thompson and Mort Lindsey as the opening… Read More ›
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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 thousands of colleted images (stills, on set candid images, posed… Read More ›
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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 take a look and report back. Here are her thoughts…. Read More ›
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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 solidified, remaining unchanged once designers move to the next project…. Read More ›
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Halley Feiffer: Writing New Roles One Play at a Time
[Full article 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 Belligerence, a world premiere running at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons, directed by her longtime collaborator Trip… Read More ›
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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 Israel in 1996. It tells the story of a small… Read More ›
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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 by veteran performer Joanna Gleason at 54 Below. This Broadway baby… Read More ›
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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 work on Broadway, Off-Broadway and across the country. While building his portfolio, Patton… Read More ›
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‘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 teenager and in London offices in her twenties and thirties,… Read More ›
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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 — what is relevant; who is and is not a critic; the audience… Read More ›
