392 stories from The Wicked Stage
Los Angeles skyscrapers & Echo Park lake from BigstockIt took me a while"about five or six years, I'd say"of trial and error to figure out where the best theater in Los Angeles was (it w…
The year is but three days old, and I'm already slammed with deadlines, so a link list is the best I can do at the moment...Charles McNulty (sort of) longs for the well-made play.Claudia La …
A block away from my sister's house in Valparaiso, Indiana, where, alas, I'll be just through the New Year. Otherwise I'd so be there.
Econo-blogger Tyler Cowen is a truly odd duck, and as such he says some intriguing things almost as often as he says deeply strange things. His weirdly contrarian TED anti-talk about his sus…
Can't explain why, but this Flanders and Swann's riff on Mozart's fourth horn concerto sounds like Christmas to me. And with that I sign off the Wicked Stage for a spell, until something sti…
These things aren't supposed to mean anything, but that Christopher Hitchens' thoroughly examined life ended on the same day as the misbegotten Iraq war for which he was the most vociferous"…
Nothing says Christmas like a Rent-a-Rat.
An extraordinary post by Ta-Nehisi Coates, urging us to take account of our own ordinariness when contemplating moral quandaries, happens to include a resonant illustration from my area of c…
A favorite I couldn't include in my piece on Maple and Vine, from playwright Jordan Harrison in answer to the question of when he fell in love with theater:In third grade, I was in this musi…
Apropos my thoughts on Stick Fly, I recalled this (unused) quote from Lynn Nottage, from when I talked to her about By the Way, Meet Vera Stark:One of my constant frustrations is that there …
Is the New York Post on some kind of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever jihad? First there was Riedel's vulture-circling notice, and now a preemptive slam from Jonathan Podhoretz, conservati…
I don't want to rehash my thoughts from my last post, about the way I think we often condescend to our own enjoyment of plays that entertain us, but it was on my mind even moreso with Lydia …
I've been wondering for a while whether StageGrade ruins my theatergoing experiences. When I saw War Horse, for instance, I had just read every review and was thus familiar with what purport…
Kendrick Brown and Estella Henderson in the Houston's Ensemble Theatre production of Stick Fly (photo by Nathan Lindstrom for the Houston Chronicle)I've seen Lydia Diamond around TCG over th…
Anthony Lane's pans can be a joy to read, though I think they leave him open to the common charge of shallowness and snark. I much prefer his raves and appreciations, because they require hi…
"Physical presence, the sound of a voice, gestures, the way people sit or walk can be more telling than writing. It is easier to tell a lie in writing because one can hide behind prose. Gest…
Quickly as I can:I'm as relieved as anyone about this news, though I've always thought Diamond Dogs would make a good musical.This is worth a whole post but for now I just have to say that I…
My review of the new Godspell is up at America, the Catholic weekly:If you couple the atmosphere of communal expectation this 40-year-old show stirs in its fans with the fact that the show i…
The December issue of American Theatre is out today, with two great main features: One is by David Barbour, editor in chief of Lighting & Sound America (and one of favorite critics over at S…
It has arrived. Have a great Turkey Day, dear readers!
Sam Robards as Jung, Harris Yulin as Freud in the Taper production of The Talking CureSounds like Christopher Hampton's script for A Dangerous Method is an improvement over the original play…
New Yorker illustration by Pascal BlanchetI was one of the few critics who unreservedly loved Jordan Harrison's last play at Playwrights Horizons, Doris to Darlene, a Cautionary Valentine. B…
At American Theatre, we often write about artists and plays before they reach the wider consciousness, or at least the stage of a major media town. When I was researching Tracy Letts last ye…
In my inbox this morning, this news stuck out:Steppenwolf Theatre said Wednesday that the actress Julianna Margulies will be the guest of honor of its annual Women in the Arts fundraising lu…
Buried under another deadline avalanche, so here are some stray links:Dominique Morisseau challenges the default whiteness of character breakdowns.One of the first reviews of Sondheim's lyri…
