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Another school holiday, another Play in a Day project. This time we managed to adapt Augustin Daly’s 1867 spectacular Under the Gaslight. This insanely popular Victorian melodrama created the enduring cliche of a damsel tied to railroad tracks as a speeding locomotive approaches. Another large cast; in fact, even larger than you see here, since … Continue reading »

Hard to look past all those Pierce Brosnan Bond films that have just popped up on Netflix, but they haven’t swayed me from compiling my latest occasional list of the some of the service’s new offerings which happen to have a theatrical aspect to them (however slight). My own random musings, in no particular order. … Continue reading »

The eleventh Play in a Day project comes just eight days after the tenth. We pick one school holiday a month on which to operate, and Three Kings Day it shall be. Kids come at 2 p.m. to Never Ending Books, 810 State St., New Haven. I see who’s come, pick an appropriate theater classic … Continue reading »

Showtune and bloated dance spectacle references from recent installments of Charlie Podrebarac’s Fat Cats, Paul Gilligan’s Pooch Cafe and Eric Scott’s Back in the Day. Found on the comic strip trove gocomics.com.

There’s a grating greeting-card-platitude poem called “After a While,” apparently by Veronica A. Shoffstall, which has been credited on websites and YouTube videos as being by William Shakespeare. It’s decidedly not. That’s one Veronica/Shakespeare mix-up. Here’s another: from Veronica #145, December 2003. Script and pencils by Dan Parent, inking by Jon D’Agostino, lettering by Bill … Continue reading »

Harry Shearer had a concluding bit on the Jan. 1 “Year in Rebuke” episode of his radio spectacular Le Show mocking the Obama slogan “We can’t wait.” To a ‘60s jazz backing groove, Shearer intones: We can’t wait Although we’ve waited before Now the time is late We can’t wait anymore. Towards the end comes … Continue reading »

The national tour of the musical Memphis, coming to the Bushnell Jan. 10-15, is bursting with Connecticut connections—seemingly slight, some of them, but adding up to an intriguing mix which befits the show’s blend of old traditions, new musical concepts, old hands with long Broadway, nationally touring and regional resumes and precocious young talent who’ve … Continue reading »

Yesterday at Never Ending Books, the largest Play in a Day gang yet assembled staged an epic 12-minute adaptation of Ben Jonson’s 1614 social satire Bartholomew Fair. One of Jonson’s greatest comedies, the play is renowned for its lack of a coherent plot, something we certainly honored here. We made sure to keep the fourth-wallbreaking … Continue reading »

The Archers, the British radio soap opera I’ve been stuck on for over ten years—and which has been around for 60—goes all play-within-a-play every year or so, with subplots about the rural village of Ambridge’s hallowed holiday pageant. This entertainment has taken many forms. This year it’s a dinner-theater revue of “Christmas Around the World.” … Continue reading »