Lists
Twenty Bands Named After Shakespeare Plays
Summer is the time for multi-stage, stylistically diverse rock festivals. It’s also the time for multi-stage, stylistically diverse Shakespeare festivals. Why not combine the two? All the world’s a stage, after all. Titus Andronicus. Rabble-rousing rock/punk outfit from New Jersey. Their album The Monitor has Civil War undertones, and a character in the video “A … Continue reading
Five Rock Records Which Share Titles With 20th Century Plays
1. Madhouse on Castle Street, Chopper. While, to my knowledge, no specific song on the album builds upon these references, the Connecticut-based power pop band Chopper’s 1995 album Madhouse on Castle Street not only uses the name of a play as the album’s title but has a photograph of a playwright’s home on its back … Continue reading
Five Trashy Theater Novels
From the vast Christopher Arnott Collection of Trashy Theater Literature Dream Street (1946, Avon) by Robert Sylvester, the theater gossip columnist for the New York Daily News. From the back cover: Jake picked himself one luscious ingénue, Penny Farmer, from the thousand pretty faces on Broadway and set out to send her skyrocketing to fame … Continue reading
The Viewing List
A dozen stage-savvy flicks among the “new arrivals” on Netflix’s Watch Instantly list: 1. Orson Welles & Me. It’s a self-conscious period piece self-consciously presenting a teen idol, Zac Efron, in his first “mature” role (though he’s still playing a teenager). Yet it strenuously avoids dumbing down its story. Names like John Gassner and Brooks … Continue reading