11,833 stories by "Trav S.D."
Today is the birthday of the late George Peppard (1928-1994). Peppard’s checkered acting career came in a series of well-known peaks and valleys, with the peaks occurring at rough ten …
Happy Halloween! I know it is only October 1, but I can’t wait. I’ve come to think of the entire month of October as Halloween MONTH, and I know the chain drugs stores will back …
We are very excited to report that our friend Todd Robbins’ show True Nightmares on the Investigation Discovery network, has been renewed for a second season and that the season premie…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: 2016, New York Burlesque Festival
Today is the birthday of William Conrad (John William Cann, 1920-1994). Conrad was one of those figures I frequently write about who were cheated of respect by their times. Conrad was a show…
Tomorrow night, Turner Classic Movies wraps up its monthly slapstick series with a look at the 1980s and beyond. It’s a notably strong line-up, and heartening to those who care about t…
Just got wind that the “Godfather of Gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis has passed away. Â An interesting dilemma for his afterlife: shouldn’t his “heaven” be some …
Tomorrorow, Turner Classic Movies will be continuing their slapstick series by pressing farther into the future than you might have thought possible. 8:00pm (EST): Bananas (1971) To appropri…
December 25, 2016 will mark the 70th anniversary of the passing from our plane of the great stage and screen comedian W.C. Fields. To mark the occasion we have organized Fields Fest, a mini-…
Opening tonight at New York’s Film Forum: an exciting screening series entitled the Marx Brothers and the Golden Age of Vaudeville. They actually seem to have lumped two series ideas t…
An excellent time was had by all assembled (I decree it) at last night’s celebration for the Windows on the Bowery exhibition at the historic HSBC bank on the lower Bowery in Chinatown…
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Comedy, Hollywood (History), Movies, PLUGS Tagged: City Reliquary, movie, screening, The Good the Bad and the Ugly of Early Talking Comedy, The Slapstick Showw
Originally posted on The Old Hollywood Garden: In many ways, Merrily We Live (1938) is the neglected, younger brother of My Man Godfrey (1936). See if you can spot the similarities: The Kilb…
 Today is the birthday of that great theatrical man John Houseman (1902-1988). We’ve already done a biographical post on him (read that here), and we’ve done one on his late c…
Well this is only nine months late! When Pat Harrington passed away nine months ago I briefly considered writing a brief tribute, but couldn’t really muster a meaningful link. He was m…
I caught opening night of Tammy Faye Starlite in Holy War 2016Â at Pangea and it was every bit as dazzling as I knew it would be. Read my rave here in Chelsea Now:Â http://chelseanow.com…
Tonight Turner Classic Movies continues its month-long salute to slapstick, with a look at the 1960s. On the menu: 8:00pm (EST): It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) This all-star co…
We expressed no little excitement here and here regarding the advent of a show calling itself The Black Crook at the Abrons Arts Center. Marketing materials strongly implied a revival,…
All things considered we give our plays short shrift here (and elsewhere,I think) and one of our New Year’s resolutions is to make amends by plugging them aggressively. The best way to…
Tomorrow evening, Turner Classic Movies continues its month-long series on movie slapstick with a look at the 1950s (and one from the early ’60s). As I wrote in Chain of Fools, with ce…
Today is Constitution Day, celebrated annually on the anniversary of our founding document’s final adoption at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 (it was finally ratified two years …
Filed under: Bowery, Barbary Coast, Old New York, Saloons, Indie Theatre, LEGIT, EXPERIMENTAL & MUSICAL THEATRE, PLUGS Tagged: How to be an American, Indie Theatre, T. Cat Ford, Tammany …
It’s taken me a little while to post on this subject because I wanted to nail it down a bit and get my ducks in a row. But I had a revelation the other day that made things click into …
Much like New York’s German American community itself, the German American Steuben Parade maintains kind of a low, dignified profile. As compared with, say, the St. Patrick&#…
In 1866 (150 years ago), a show called The Black Crook opened at Niblo’s Garden that has been credited with everything from being the first musical comedy, to having been the Cradle of…
