I returned to the Village Vanguard recently. At last. It had been quite a while—three years, at least; pre-pandemic for sure. It felt good. I was a…
Lorraine Hansberry knew. The poignant insufficiencies of well-intentioned political activism was a blindered secret of the activist 1960’s that we can…

February 2023

Among the many modest pleasures I missed during the depths of this Pandemic was the simple kick of hanging with New York theatricals — at the West Bank…
In 1979 I moved into a rent-stabilized apartment on Riverside Drive — just a year after “Pops,” the fictional main character in Between Riverside and…

January 2023

I exited Ohio State Murders recently speechless with admiration, and sorrow. I remain so. The play, by Adrienne Kennedy, and the lead performance, by…

December 2022

I’ve got to get a word in on Becky Nurse of Salem, which will close this week at Lincoln Center Theater. Reviews of this show were pretty dismissive. I…
I still believe that no movie — good, bad, or even great (especially) —needs to be made into a musical. Musicals of movies (as opposed to movie…

November 2022

There are “smashes” in the theater and then there are “flops.” Audiences can usually tell one from the other. Everything in between is a mystery…

October 2022

For at least a week now (it already seems a lifetime), you (and I) have been bombarded with news of self-identified “climate activists” flinging refuse…
By God, I have had this Congress. The line keeps rattling in my head —hollered by a hellion John Adams at the outset of 1776 — crying me home as I read…

September 2022

I actually invested in the original production of Into the Woods. My memory of this has long since faded (along with my dough), but the memory, at…

July 2022

A Skyscraper Jazz Luminary