392 stories from The Wicked Stage
This frank diavlog between self-confessed media manipulator Ryan Holiday and Fark.com's Drew Curtis about how the media business really works in the age of HuffPo and Gawker is alternately d…
"Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people." -Berenger in Ionesco's Rhinoceros
Maybe because it was the first speech at the opening plenary of the recent TCG conference, maybe because it was more sobering nuts-and-bolts than rousing stump speech, maybe even because it …
How can you tell a masterpiece? It may be harder to recognize or even make them now, in an age of single-song downloads, longform episodic TV narrative, and multi-year film franchises; we s…
A few unrelated links and observations to start the week:Wisdom from the august Gus Schulenburg on how not to be a dick on the Intertubes (some warnings of which I could heed better).The act…
It was a busy spring and I feel like I'm only just caught up before the late-summer crunch begins, but I thought I should point out a few things that have made it into print at the publicati…
I'm here in Boston for the TCG conference, and last night Mike Daisey offered a two-hour presentation of his newest monologue, On the Orient Express, which he'd previously presented at Spole…
As my partner Isaac Butler points out, as much in amazement as celebration, it's been 3 1/2 years since he and I launched Critic-O-Meter, which just over two years ago morphed into StageGrad…
photo by Julieta CervantesI couldn't have been more on board for Soho Rep's indie-star-studded Uncle Vanya, and not just 'cause I got the chance to report on and contemplate it in advance. A…
A scene from As You Like It by Francis Hayman (c. 1750)Why do we keep returning with joy to As You Like It, one of Shakespeare's most plotless works? A delightful suspension of action may be…
Does the auteur theory stop at the stage door?The idea that playwrights shouldn't direct their own work is almost axiomatic; you can see it all over the reviews of John Patrick Shanley's Sto…
What happens if you hold an online chat about the Tony Awards and only five people turn up? Could it be a sign that you're in the wrong city?
The cast of Soho Rep's Uncle VanyaIn the spring of 2002 I appeared in an L.A. Classical Theatre Lab production of Uncle Vanya; I don't recall how they found me, but they needed a guitarist b…
I've little to add to the encomiums (encomia?) for the late Ray Bradbury, except to recount that he was a source for my first Arts & Leisure byline back in 2006, when Godlight Theatre wa…
(cross-posted at Train My Ear)I'm not entirely approving of the Tori Amos-ish direction of Regina Spektor's new record, but there's no arguing with the catchiness of "All the Rowboats." It's…
From crying to giving notes, the best of a month of American Theatre Facebook threads.Eric Grode notes Clybourne Park's possible debt to Norman Lear.Gotta say I'm enjoying the Orange Couch f…
1989, the number, another summer: I fell hard for Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing; I saw it maybe half a dozen times in the theater. For all its tendentious politics, I think what I most resp…
Well, this got my attention this morning:LADCC Award-winning California Repertory Company is thrilled to announce the world premiere of B.S.: Bukowski.Sondheim., featuring the words of Charl…
Food and Fadwa playwrights Jacob Kader and Lameece IssaqI didn't follow the New York Theatre Workshop/My Name Is Rachel Corrie controversy back in 2006 all that closely"I didn't have to, bec…
photo by T. Charles EricksonNot long after I moved to New York, I was on a bill with other singer/songwriters at a now-defunct Park Slope eatery called Night & Day, and among the standou…
Photo by Brigitte LacombeThough my good friend Jim Martin is no longer the culture editor there, I'm still contributing the occasional theater review to the Jesuit weekly America (and since …
In the current May/June issue of American Theatre, I sit down with Sarah Ruhl and Tracy Letts to talk about playwriting, with the pretext being that they've both recently done "versions" of …
photo by Ozier Muhammad for the TimesDon't have time to really tee this up, but it was my great pleasure to sit down with Clybourne Park director Pam MacKinnon this week for the paper of rec…
One of the pleasures of having a child is introducing him to my own childhood favorites; just a few days ago, Oliver discovered Spike Jones, and is now requesting songs by name. To hear him …
