Finked

With her inimitable talent for bashing the LA Times from every angle, Nikki Finke weighs in on McNulty. Gordon Davidson's quotes remind me of something I noted here.

The Times on McNulty

Bret Israel, who supervises the LA Times' arts coverage, finally has an answer for those (including yours truly) who've wondered why the paper has taken so long to find a lead theatre critic:

It's been mortifying to go so long without a chief theater critic... But as I've told many people who didn't always believe me, the main reason for the delay was the very high standard the paper sets for its critics, who are the soul of our cultural pages. Charles [McNulty] will join an outstanding group, and I am confident he will shine a penetrating and entertaining light on the wide, unappreciated world of Southern California theater.

For his part, McNulty informs Los Angeles readers that "there's a compelling story to be told about L.A. theater... Those of us who have been working in the American theater already know what a fantastic theater town L.A. is. It's rich in all sorts of ways."

More in this story, which also answers the question about McNulty's Brooklyn job.

And if you're not confused enough, The New York Times puffs the Ahmanson's new show—for which, we are very interested to read, new CTG artistic director Michael Ritchie both raised an extra $1 million and struck a deal with Equity that allows "nearly half of the cast to be nonunion and work free, or nearly." Wow! He just keeps raising the stakes, doesn't he?

Closure at Last: It's McNulty

His name was mentioned to me last week as a possibility, and now it's confirmed: Village Voice senior editor Charles McNulty has been named lead theatre critic at The Los Angeles Times, ending the three-and-a-half-year standoff since Michael Phillips left. His qualifications are impressive; I'm wondering if he will continue to run the MFA program in Dramaturgy and Theatre Criticism at Brooklyn College (go here and type in "McNulty" to see his bio) while reviewing for the LAT. Maybe I should take a class from him.

UPDATE: Catching up with his writing, I'm encouraged. A fine example here. More here, here, here, and here.

Advances From the Coast

Richard Greenberg's A Naked Girl on the Appian Way is coming to Broadway in a few weeks. Here's my review of last year's premiere at South Coast Repertory, with a different but no less distinguished cast.

Pre-dating the Broadway run of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt was the Pasadena Playhouse production, which despite its flaws didn't entirely obscure the play's sophistication. My take is here.

And for what it's worth, in my opinion here's a show that deserves a New York run.

The I'm-Too-Old-for-This File

God bless the open mikes. I've played quite a few in my day, and I decided to try out NYC's purported finest, Monday night at the Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village. It wasn't just my late placement that had me beating a path to the door with my guitar before I had my turn (by my estimate, I would have gone on after 1 a.m., and I haven't had great luck with subways back to Brooklyn late at night). No, what hastened my retreat was the spectacle of exceptionally self-confident but minimally skilled amateurs happily stinking up the stage. My memory of the Highland Grounds "Open Mind" Wednesday nights in L.A. is of the reverse impression: mostly polished musicians with a loose, occasionally insecure edge.

I did hear one great Stephen Foster song, "No One To Love," that I'm going to look up. I also heard the worst cover of "Folsom Prison Blues" imaginable. The rest of the fare was, of course, original (in the literal if not descriptive sense), and I couldn't resist noting a few of the choice lyrics:

A gay hip-hop artist who confessed in song that "I'm still kinda grossed out by the dick."

An intense young man from Atlanta who shouted rather than sang his lyric about "the broken VCR of time/You can't fast-forward or rewind."

Another unspeakably intense young man who sneered through his teeth the lyric "This land was built on your guilt money."

That's entertainment! Maybe I'll have better luck next week.

Busman's Holiday Viewing

I had no review assignments over the weekend but I still found myself at three shows. Caught the second-to-last performance of Joe Mantello's remarkably clear and scathing Glengarry Glen Ross and was glad I did. I have to say I found Frederick Weller, as the callow young boss John, a bit of a blank, which took some of the sting out the play's final 15 minutes or so. I also noticed something about these moments I'd never felt before: There's a missing, or muddy, transition between Shelley's confession of the break-in and his plea for another chance—a fogginess which stands out all the more given the blinding precision of every other beat in the play. I wonder if Weller's impassive performance might have had something to do with it. As for the justly praised Liev Schreiber, I didn't notice him cutting his nails in Act Two (a much-noted bit of stage business I was told to watch for), but he still nailed Ricky Roma's offhanded, cock-walking pride. And Alan Alda deserves to be on a stage for the rest of this rich new phase of his career. Somebody give him an Arthur Miller play right away.

I was drawn back to the Fringe Fest for The Dirty Talk, Michael Puzzo's lovely odd-couple two-hander, played sharply and movingly by Sidney Williams and Kevin Cristaldi. Despite its LAByrinth Theater Company connection, it didn't get a Times review.


Finally, a friend had tickets to the opening night of the Public's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in Galt McDermot's groovy musical version from 1971. It took me about a half hour of bewildered acclimation, but I was eventually disarmed by the exuberance and shamelessness of Kathleen Marshall's production, by John Guare's daffy-like-a-fox lyrics, and by McDermot's piñata full of ear candy. Most striking was how much like a genuine time warp it felt, right down to the makeup and hair, the choreography and brass arrangements (which Ben Brantley aptly pegged as Herb Alpert-ish); rather than a too-hip retro nostalgia piece, this played as a perfectly out-of-fashion recreation of a Laugh-In-era artifact, and was all the more appealing for it.

The Glory Days

I won't be able to make this reunion, but maybe I'll send in some reminiscences of the late, lamented days of the Los Angeles Theatre Center when it had all four theatres running. I caught the tail end of that flowering, reviewing Jonathan Marc Sherman's Veins and Thumbtacks and The Joni Mitchell Project (an early jukebox musical with an extraordinary cast), among others. I also remember a ridiculous King Lear whose Norwegian lead's acquaintance with English was glancing, and Reza Abdoh's extreme, mesmerizing Bogeyman, which in the closing days of the Reagan-Bush interregnum had a kind of Weimar decadence. Like or hate what was onstage, I loved the place itself, and have many great memories of shows there after the producing company folded—Assassins, Harry Thaw Hates Everybody, various LA Weekly award shows, the very recent Waving Goodbye. I can only hope that this reunion gathering is not some kind of farewell to the place's continued operation in some fashion.

Light in August

When I interviewed him in 2000, I asked August Wilson, who has just revealed his dire, apparently terminal condition, what he would write after he was done with his 20th-century "decade" project. He said, "To go back over it and write about each decade again—I mean, there are still plays to be written." He and his family are in our prayers. I've written about this giant of the theatre here, here, and here.

Freelance Woes

How times have changed. I just read Louis Menand's bracing profile of Edmund Wilson, and this quote jumped out:

“To write what you are interested in writing and to succeed in getting editors to pay for it, is a feat that may require pretty close calculation and a good deal of ingenuity,” [Wilson] once explained. “You have to learn to load solid matter into notices of ephemeral happenings; you have to develop a resourcefulness at pursuing a line of thought through pieces on miscellaneous and more or less fortuitous subjects; and you have to acquire a technique of slipping over on the routine of editors the deeper independent work which their over-anxious intentness on the fashions of the month or the week have conditioned them automatically to reject.”

Elsewhere Menand refers to Wilson's "ingrained indifference to material comforts" as being among the factors that "allowed him, from almost the beginning of his career, to write about only the subjects he wanted to write about." I don't know if it's ingrained in me yet, but I'm getting there.

Contrast that with Ben Yagoda's despairing take on the current lot of freelancers in Slate:

Modern titles, formatted to within an inch of their lives, require freelancers to shape experience into small, breezy portions that extol the lifestyle or consumer culture the magazine and its advertisers are looking to promote. The ultimate upside isn't the creation of a cultural event, but the creation of buzz.

Time to polish up the resumé and look for a full-time gig. Or, in an entirely different vein, follow the advice of this book.

Quartet for the End of (Fringe) Time

So happy to end my 9-play tour of duty through the New York Fringe Fest with a bona fide winner.

A Cup of Joe

My second to last word on the offerings at FringeNYC.

meTunes

I have ever-so-gingerly eased some of my other output into the world of the Wicked Stage. The permalink is in the left column, just below "Writings" and above "Hot Links." Muse willing, there will be updates.

Ever Feel Like This?

The Way "Thick" Thinks

I wanted to like it, honestly I did. My newest Fringe review.

Heady Headline

Maybe I overstressed the heavy stuff in this review of the best thing I've seen at the Fringe Fest yet. I'm resigned to let my final pun go (yes, I did actually file the line, "I think the Norwegian would"), but I would hate the Times' sober headline to scare off theatregoers looking for a good tume. The Neo-Futurists' Ibsen cut-up isn't just meaningful, it's also madcap.

Messing With Jesus

So Brian Flemming, co-author of Bat Boy, the Musical, doesn't just disbelieve in Christianity. According to the LA Times, he questions that Jesus even existed. I haven't seen his new documentary, but my initial reaction is: Dude! You're moving the goalposts! Is the historical existence of the Nazarene some claim as a Messiah and others simply regard as a controversial preacher really what has divided and continues to divide Western culture? Seems to me that Flemming is picking a fight (admittedly, with enemies who are well worth fighting) that's beside the point. In much the same way that the did-Shakespeare-really-write-his-plays debate is a side show that diverts our attention from the substance of the plays themselves, the question did-Jesus-even-exist seems like a way not to discuss the heritage of ideas and practices that derive in his name, which is some pretty meaty, contentious stuff no matter what side you take. This heritage does exist, in both its fruitful and destructive aspects, and it's worth debating on its own terms.

I can only empathize with the purgative impulse of ex-fundamentalists, which Flemming is; like an ex-smoker who must disavow that cigarettes could ever possibly be enjoyed by anyone for any reason, or like the ex-Trotskyites who've become neoconservatives, these ex-fundies bring a feverish totality to their debunking that, to me at least, looks as Manichean and simplistic as the worldview they've left behind.

Full disclosure: As a liberal Lutheran with a Jesuit secondary education, I just don't share in my gut a radical, totalized experience of faith from which I've ever felt the need to deprogram. Weigh it, doubt it, tire of it, embrace it, rediscover it—Christian faith is a part of my life and my thinking as surely as music or theatre or being an American and a Democrat in a conservative but not entirely dark age. I don't feel like I even have a dog in the race between extreme fundamentalists and nonbelievers who see all religion, in all its variety, as dangerous superstition. The Jesus I've known is the one Bruce Bawer writes about in this impassioned polemic, which defends what's worth saving about the Christian mission against those who've distorted and abused it. Flemming's approach would seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Would I be wrong to wonder whether Flemming's Bat Boy co-author, Keythe Farley, who's an ordained elder at L.A.'s Wilshire Presbyterian Church, feels more or less the same?

(I've written about this topic, with more direct relevance to things theatrical, here, here, here, and here.)

UPDATE: This survey is fascinating but, to me, unsurprising.

Scream of the Crop?

Unfortunately not.

The Welcome Wagon

Does this mention make me an Official Brooklyn Theatre Blogger? Flattered to be among the ranks. Now I'll have to catch up with my colleagues' work.

And, since apparently this fabulous playwright was the one who graciously supplied the link, I am free to say here (since I wasn't reviewing it) that I very much enjoyed Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular, a Fringe offering from the acting interns at Actors Theatre of Louisville, with pieces by a clutch of talented writers (including Sheila Callaghan, Hilly Hicks, Bridget Carpenter, to mention the names I recognized) and directed by an old L.A. regular, Wendy McClellan (for a look back at my trip to see her and the Humana offerings during her first hectic year at ATL, look here).

The piece's seat-of-the-pants vaudeville stylings, which gave its liberal critique of the state of the union a diverting, occasionally moving patina of wistful irony, worked quite well in the rather narrow, unprepossessing Players Theatre in the Village. Given the notoriously brutal tech schedule afforded to these Fringe shows—3 to 4 hours, by most accounts—it comes off as remarkably assured, and even its bobbles and wobbles seemed planned.

Today I'm off to see show # 8 in my Fringe travels. Here's hoping I get out this much (for the Times or whoever) after the festival tent is folded.

Truth in Advertising

Now here's a transcendently bad idea. And I mean that as a compliment.

Rockies May Crumble

A brief and touching tribute to an overlooked bit of L.A.'s past. The city may draw the world's greatest composers, writers, and actors to its teat, but it can't seem to bring itself to remember them—unless they plant a flag in academia.

Western Fringe

The last of a flurry of reviews, till next week, dear readers.

Love Those Headline Writers

Gotta love the headline for this review. Meanwhile, the Fringe gets a whole batch of reviews; here's a page with another of my short takes (scroll down). I'd say, based on the fare I've seen and read about so far, that L.A.'s own fringe fest has nothing to be ashamed of.

On the Fringe Beat

Links to two new FringeNYC reviews: a Greek freak show and a slice of Deadhead noir. More to come.

The Archives Creak Into Action

After finally figuring out FTP and all that web-hosting jazz, I'm getting my print archives up and running. The Reviews link (scroll down, on the left) is now working with live links to about 80 percent of what's there. Stay tuned for more.

Double Standards and Geek Chic

I haven't seen either show, but I'm just wondering: Why is The Godfadda Workout being forced to close, while One-Man Star Wars Trilogy is riding high? Is proximity to Hollywood the problem? And yet Seth Isler has been doing his show for years and years. Why shut it down now? I'm baffled. (I always wondered about MacHomer, too.)

In light of Chris Wells' observation, I found this quote from Jason Zinoman's NY Times review telling:

"One-Man Star Wars Trilogy" may seem like just an oddball summer gimmick, but it is in some ways the logical extension of where commercial theater is headed. The crowds at "Spamalot," a highly polished imitation of old Monty Python skits, laugh before the punch lines. And the many jukebox musicals—which, don't fool yourself, are not going away—preach to the converted.
The element of surprise matters less than the comforting pleasure of seeing something familiar. The geek audience has become highly sought after by Broadway producers.

I can't pretend this is postmodernism in flower—it's more like the pop-culture tail wagging the the theatrical dog—but it would seem create an opening for an authentic dialogue about pop culture. Or, one could argue, an ominous flattening of the aesthetic horizon. You decide, dear reader.

After Regime Change

Just caught up with this fascinating discussion on the LA Weekly site. More questions than answers, and an almost dizzying number of participants. On a side note, I received an email from someone with intimate knowledge of the Taper's inner workings that the "ossification in that place was staggering" and that those who are skeptical of Michael Ritchie's new regime should give him a chance. I'll look forward to the verdict of others, since I won't be on hand to deliver one.

Some Postmodern Evening

Saw the multitalented Chris Wells and scenic savant Rachel Hauck last night, both of them originally Actors' Gang affiliates, now either settled here (Chris) or bi-coastal (Rachel). Both talked wistfully about Los Angeles theatre, noting that contrary to the romantic vision, it's actually easier to get by as a theatre artist in L.A., compared to New York's more codified commercial hierarchy. Not that either made a fortune, or even much of a living wage, toiling in the trenches of L.A. theatre, just that the struggle to live is much more arduous in New York—as Chris put it, "Money and work are so insane here." He's nearing his 2 1/2-year anniversary in the Apple, while Rachel and her partner Lisa Peterson are tiring, she said, of seldom seeing each other, in whichever city; she was recently working at the O'Neill Playwrights' Conference at the same time Peterson was at the Sundance Summer Theatre Lab. Hauck is off to Tokyo soon to design a production of The Dresser.

The occasion for the meeting was a workshop performance of Wells' unclassifiable, self-penned Olsen Terror, a cabaret-style piece in which he plays a middle-aged media-junkie schlub who believes he is turning into the Olsen twins. Sample lyrics: "I'm only one man/But I feel like two... little girls," or, "It's a full house/But I"m empty inside." He's got some tweaking of the tone to do but it shows promise as another showcase for his outsized yet finely shaded talent.

He did note, however, another N.Y./L.A. difference: "New Yorkers," he said, "aren't able to be as authentically postmodern," by which he means, in his case, that he may have trouble convincing people that a show about the Olsen twins could have anything serious to say about American culture, and more generally, that the distinctions between "high" and "low" seem more entrenched in New York than in L.A. One wonders how Ken Roht's pop-art confections (as opposed to his more serious work would fare here. But speaking of pop art, isn't this the city that gave the world Andy Warhol and The Beastie Boys—and where, as Chris mentioned, he recently saw Wyclef Jean at Avery Fisher Hall?

Obviously, I can only hold out hope for my new home, on both the money and culture fronts. This Thursday I'm reviewing something pretty postmodern.

L.A.'s Fade to White

Why is this devastating take on the future of multicultural theatre in Los Angeles in the New York Times? Why did it take a New York-based writer to put these words in print:

I find it distressing that Luis Alfaro, who had run the Latino Playwrights Initiative before being made director of new play development, lost his job. And I find it distressing that there is only one minority woman on Mr. Ritchie's artistic staff. No one should have to bear that burden, artistically or practically.

That's not a quote—that's the writer, Margo Jefferson, offering her own perspective amid a series of dismissive quotes from the Taper's artistic director, Michael "Lopakhin" Ritchie.

L.A.'s habit of under-rating itself can lead to some pleasant surprises. But it also has the unfortunate effect of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, of lower expectations yielding lesser results. It doesn't have to be this way; it very often hasn't been this way in L.A., despite the conventional wisdom. Just how many ways can a heart break?

Culture Gap

The death of L.A. Times media critic David Shaw has been duly and deservedly noted elsewhere. But on a memorial site, this comment from his colleague Jack Miles jumped out at me. Jack is recounting Shaw's relationship with a fellow Times staffer:

Then came a little story about his courtship of Ellen Torgerson, when the two of them, worried about being seen together in public by Times brass, knew that they could attend any play or concert in perfect safety. Cultural events were one place, he said, where you NEVER had to worry about running into Times brass.

Ouch.

This may hardly seem like the most gracious way to begin my final post from Los Angeles, but there it is. Thank you to all those who stopped by Weiland's on Monday to see me off, and/or who sent well-wishing emails and made calls. I leave Los Angeles with profoundly mixed feelings; it is a city that, no matter how much talent or money or gravitas or history accumulates in it and around it, is perennially underrated, not least by itself.

I have struggled, as Gordon Davidson put it to me, to "get my arms around this city," and I think I've given it my share of warm bear hugs, and a few Homer-chokes-Bart throttles, in my day. I will carry my 19 years in this wicked little town—the quakes, the traffic, the sunshine, the (mostly) blue skies, the weird purple sunsets, the terrible class divides, the sprawl, the parks, the subway, the mini-malls, the desperation, the dangerously seductive laidbackness of the place, and above all the vibrant live performance culture that the LA Times brass apparently avoids—with me to the city that never sleeps, and keep you posted.

Have fun.

Music

My new pop CD, available for purchase here



My first pop CD, available for purchase here


An Appalachian Twelfth Night available for purchase here
Come Away Death
Daddy, Don't Go Down the Mine

Miscellany
Live No One Waits Alone
Millhouse rocks Sondheim's Poems
Oracion de San Francisco featuring Melodee Fernandez

Scores for Stage & Screen
Bruno & Paula
The Color of Truth
Father/Daughter
F*** Music
Gilligan Take Five
Death of Gilligan
Home Burial
Intercut
The Interview
Into God's Office
Laundry & Chores
Let's Do Brunch
Madness
The Moth Song from Conference of the Birds
Moths
Mr. Stone Softened
The Naked Truth
Providence
Rabbit Hunter
Roman Carnival
Sick Speech
Sitcom Detective
Still Crazy bridge
Suicide in B Flat
Surf's Down

Misc. Pop
Don Brekt live
If Misery Loves Company
Shake Before Opening
You & Me
The legendary Millhouse
U.I.O.
Keep It to Ourselves
The Lamb I Am
Find Another Fool
Fire
Lady
Pop doodles
Every Reason
Grief
Happiness Is a Warm Gun a la Marcos Valle
I Close My Eyes (Cinco Paul)
I'm Back
Inspections
Mad at Myself
Madame Bovary
Make My Mind Up on You
Ruby
The Best Thing I Ever Did
Unheard Melody
A Bad Way To Start
Enjoy the Ride

Wicked Little Town blog (2003)

The blog about L.A. actors I did for Variety.com (some dead links in these posts, alas).

Young Goes West Dec. 23, 2003
How Actors Are Like Enron Employees Dec. 22, 2003
Classic Clown Plus Classic Rock Dec. 12, 2003
Networks Network, Minorities Get Work Dec. 9, 2003
Right Place, Right Time? Wrong Question Dec. 9, 2003
Hands Down, Career Up Dec. 5, 2003
Casting Out Loud Dec. 4, 2003
Walla Be Good Dec. 3, 2003
Actors' Ovations, Quotable Lily Dec. 2, 2003
Bobby Hill, World's Greatest Mom Nov. 26, 2003
Untimely Exit for Stage Fave Nov. 21, 2003
Mapa the World, Ma Nov. 19, 2003
Understudy Up for "Shaggs" Nov. 15, 2003
Rising Arizono Nov. 13, 2003
Money Shots Net Dividends Nov. 10, 2003
Runaway Jury Duty Nov. 7, 2003
No Rest in Bucharest Nov. 5, 2003
Another Nick in the Wall Nov. 3, 2003
Give Up and Get Carnivale Oct. 31, 2003
The Queen Is Dead, Long Live the Queen Oct. 30, 2003
Rashomonk Oct. 24, 2003
Scribe "Standing" by Blank Oct. 23, 2003
England to "Arcadia," and Back Oct. 22, 2003
Actors Drop Out for Upstage Moves Oct. 21, 2003
Artios Awards Oct. 17, 2003
Borba's Non-Automatic Transition Oct. 16, 2003
Disney Hall's Casting Call Oct. 15, 2003
Schism Over Monk's Blessing Oct. 14, 2003
Have Guitar, Will Star in Sci-Fi Oct. 10, 2003
Green Makes Good "Match" Oct. 8, 2003
Keyes' Cruel Moment Oct. 7, 2003
Scene and Unseen Oct. 6, 2003
One From Mare's Heart Sept. 26, 2003
The Riff Regan Awards Sept. 26, 2003
Camryn Manheim as Laura Bush? Sept. 23, 2003
Bernard White, Reloaded Sept. 23, 2003
Ageless Pixie Dust Sept. 23, 2003
Egan's "Cabaret" Return Illustrates NY/LA Dilemma Sept. 5, 2003
"Pot" Pilot for HBO Sept. 4, 2003

Inside Track columns

The casting column I wrote for Showfax 2003-2004.

May 1, 2004
Apr. 17, 2004
Apr. 3, 2004
Mar. 26, 2004
Mar. 19, 2004
Mar. 12, 2004
Feb. 26, 2004
Feb. 10, 2004
Jan. 31, 2004
Jan. 16, 2004
Jan. 9, 2004
Dec. 19, 2003
Dec. 12, 2003
Dec. 5, 2003
Nov. 28, 2003
Nov. 21, 2003
Nov. 14, 2003
Nov. 7, 2003
Oct. 31, 2003
Oct. 24, 2003
Oct. 17, 2003
Oct. 10, 2003
Oct. 3, 2003

Profiles

PROFILES
Jason Alexander The Craftsman
Robert Altman Telling Details
Brian Bedford Back to School
Wayne Brady Wayne's Words
Cate Blanchett Ever Clear
Amy Brenneman Friends and Neighbors
Jim Broadbent Life Drawing
Jason Robert Brown Broadway's Broadway, but L.A.'s invigorating
Michael Cerveris Rocks in His Hedwig
Jenna Cole Cole Roles
Brian Cox He's the guy you hate to love
Brian Cox Brian's Bad Self
Culture Clash Border Radio
Gordon Davidson Exit Stage Right
Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee American Dreamers
Robert Egan Brain Trust
Susan Egan Egan Comes to the Cabaret
Erik Ehn Watch His Language
Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens Dynamic Duo
Daisy Fuentes Everything's Coming Up Daisy
Athol Fugard Exits and Entrances
Uta Hagen Martha's One-Night Stand
Leslie Jordan Confessions of a character
Cindy Katz Carry That Weight
Beth Kennedy The Koan of Comedy
Martin Landau Going places
Mike Leigh The Misanthropic Humanist
Ute Lemper Come to the Kabarett
Sandra Tsing Loh How Far Can Loh Go?
Carl Lumbly
David Mamet Canon Fodder
Ian McKellen God and Monster
Ian McKellen Knight Vision
Laurie Metcalf Dangerous Nerves
John Cameron Mitchell Mock Star
Christopher Liam Moore What's Moore
Frankie Muniz Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Donna Murphy Gravity's Rainbow
David O Child's play it isn't
Laurence O'Keefe Tune Boy
Gwyneth Paltrow A Case of Like Mother, Like Daughter
Joe Pantoliano A Real Job
Bill Rauch Bill Rauch's Oregon Trail
John C. Reilly Real Reilly
Ken Roht Showman, with a twist
Ken Roht Prolific Ken Roht
Peter Schneider A Grand Entrance
Challenging His Audience David Sefton
Katy Selverstone A Light Inside
David Suchet Mystery Man
Rod Steiger Lightning Rod
Dawn Upshaw Unpredictable Upshaw
Polly Warfield The Passionate Playgoer
Derrick Lee Weeden Firing the Canon
Laird Williamson In Your Imagination Hold
August Wilson August Time
Chay Yew House Feels Like a Home
Tracy Young and Chris Wells What Dreams May Come
Michael York Tea With the Antichrist
Mary Zimmerman Middle East by Midwest

Wicked Stage Columns, 2001-2003

An (incomplete) archive of my column from Back Stage West.

August 28, 2003
August 21, 2003
August 7, 2003
July 31, 2003
July 17, 2003
June 26, 2003
June 19, 2003
June 12, 2003
May 29, 2003
May 22, 2003
May 15, 2003
April 24, 2003
April 17, 2003
March 20, 2003
March 13, 2003
March 6, 2003
February 27, 2003
February 6, 2003
January 30, 2003
January 23, 2003
January 16, 2003
January 9, 2003
December 19, 2002
Nov. 21, 2002
Nov. 7, 2002
Oct. 24, 2002
Sept. 26, 2002
Sept. 12, 2002
August 29, 2002
August 15, 2002
August 1, 2002
July 18, 2002
July 4, 2002
June 20, 2002
June 6, 2002
May 23, 2002
May 9, 2002
April 25, 2002
April 11, 2002
March 28, 2002
March 14, 2002
February 28, 2002
February 14, 2002
January 31, 2002
January 17, 2002
January 10, 2002
January 3, 2002
Sept. 20, 2001
Sept. 6, 2001
August 23, 2001
August 9, 2001
July 26, 2001
July 12, 2001
June 28, 2001
June 14, 2001
May 31, 2001
May 17, 2001
May 3, 2001
April 19, 2001
April 12, 2001
April 5, 2001
March 29, 2001
March 22, 2001

Reviews

NEW YORK
The Accidental Pervert at the Triad Theatre
Alfred Kinsey: A Love Story at the Michael Weller Theatre
All's Well That Ends Well, Theater for a New Audience at the Duke Theatre
Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver at the Promenade Theater
Almost, Maine at the Daryl Roth Theatre
Amajuba: Like Doves We Rise at the Culture Project
American Sligo at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre
Apartment 3A at the ArcLight Theatre
The Ark at 37 Arts
The Art of Love at Theater for the New City
Ashley Montana Goes Ashore in the Caicos... or What Am I Doing Here? at the Flea Theater
The Audition at the Wings Theatre
August: Osage County at the Imperial Theatre
Back of the Throat at the Flea Theatre
The Banger's Flopera at the Barrow Arts Center
Barefoot in the Park at the Cort Theatre
Beauty of the Father, Manhattan Theatre Club at City Center Stage II
Belly of a Drunken Piano at the Huron Club at Soho Playhouse
Bernarda Alba, Lincoln Center Theatre at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
Bingo at the Theater at St. Luke's
Bingo With the Indians at the Flea Theatre
Blue Door at Playwrights Horizons
Bluff at the 78th Street Theatre Lab
Bridge and Tunnel at the Helen Hayes Theatre