Holidays
Happy Labor Day!
Time to reread the collected works of Hallie Flanagan, Maxine Klein and Bertolt Brecht. … while listening to the soundtracks of Pins and Needles and The Pajama Game. Other titles with which to “up the workers”: The Gut Girls by Sarah Daniels Singing Jailbirds by Upton Sinclair Beggar on Horseback by Kaufman & … Continue reading
Plays to Anticipate Hurricane Irene By
So how come nobody’s ever made Stormy Weather into a stage musical? No matter; here are ten stormy stage events for those in the path of the hurricane. Sturm und Drang by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. It’s the work that coined that phrase, in 1776. The play’s actually about the American Revolution. Dynamo by Eugene O’Neill. … Continue reading
“Some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant or antic or firework”
An Elizabethan theatrical manifestation of American Independence day. (This explosive device doesn’t need to fully title itself A Midsummer Night’s Dream; you wouldn’t set off fireworks except at night. If Eugene O’Neill plays were fireworks, they’d be called just Long Journey, or Becomes Electra). Here’s what Midsummer’s Dream looks like exploding. The frolicking figure at … Continue reading
Farren at Her Height: Painted by Thomas Lawrence at the Yale Center for British Art
Today is national Museum Day. For theater fans, allow me to strongly recommend a stroll around the Thomas Lawrence exhibit on the second floor of the Yale Center for British Art. The show is extravagantly labeled Regency Power and Brilliance, but the hype is warranted because Lawrence was the coolest celebrity portrait artist of his … Continue reading