Monday, May 11, 2015
Liza with a “Z”: A Concert for Television, an hour-long TV concert by Liza Minnelli, produced by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, staged by Fosse, and conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. The concert, f…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:05AM“One of the basic human rights is to make fun of people. It is now threatened.” Anthony Powell, A Writer’s Notebook
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, May 8, 2015
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I commence my summer travels with a trip to the suburbs of Philadelphia, where I saw a rare and excellent professional revival of Neil Simon’s…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:30AMIn today’s “Sightings” column I write in praise of George Grossmith’s Diary of a Nobody. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Life’s hardest lessons are often learned most easily when taught…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:15AM“Love of power in people is often associated with hatred of authority.” Anthony Powell, A Writer’s Notebook
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:00AMThursday, May 7, 2015
“One of the great points about people who have an eye to the main chance is that their interest in one cannot fail to be acceptable, because it is of necessity flattering.” Anthony Powel…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, May 6, 2015
Buddy Rich and his big band play “Love for Sale” on Danish TV in 1968: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“An artist is almost always something of an embarrassment to his work.” Anthony Powell, A Writer’s Notebook
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, May 5, 2015
Courtesy of Hannah Gersen by way of Karigee, this literary list. One or two questions failed to ring my bell, but for the most part I found them stimulating and, on occasion, provocative: PA…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMFrom 2005: I left the theater and stood for a long time on the steps leading down to the street, taking deep breaths of the cold night air, filled with a warmth that seemed to buoy me up. Th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“One of the most difficult things to realize when one is young is that all the awful odds and ends taking place around one are, in fact, the process of living.” Anthony Powell, A Writer�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, May 4, 2015
On Friday afternoon I taped an episode of Theater Talk with Ben Brantley of the New York Times, Peter Marks of the Washington Post, and John Simon, who is about to turn ninety. It was fun, b…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:45AMNobody practices everything they preach, and in the cases of certain people, the practice-preach ratio is quite spectacularly out of whack. While I think my ratio is reasonably healthy, one …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AMRobertson Davies talks about critics on the CBC in 1973: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“One of the very few realistic advances that can be achieved in life is to realize that one has been an ass regarding a given subject.” Anthony Powell, A Writer’s Notebook
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, May 1, 2015
The Broadway season ended last week, and today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, in which I review the off-Broadway premiere of Grounded, reflects that fact. Here’s an excerpt. * * * N…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:05AM“Very few plays are any good and no first plays are any good.” George Abbott (quoted in Maurice Zolotow, “Broadway’s Most Successful Penny Pincher,” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 29,…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, April 30, 2015
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wal…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AM“He was a great original, but he was not a one-off, like Katharine Hepburn, or Michael Caine, whom it is possible to imitate, but from whom it is not possible to learn.” Simon Callow, pr…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, April 29, 2015
David Letterman is about to retire after thirty-three years as a late-night TV host, and he’s marked the occasion by giving a genuinely revealing interview to the New York Times: I’m awa…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 10:03AMAndy Warhol talks about the pop-art phenomenon in a 1965 CBC profile: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Journalism itself is the most sacred cow in journalism’s barn.” Murray Kempton, dust-jacket blurb for Richard Pollak’s Stop the Presses, I Want to Get Off!
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, April 28, 2015
Thanks to Maria Popova, this “kinetic typography” video, in which Ira Glass talks about the problem of creativity, has been making the rounds for some time now: I only just caught up wit…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:45AMMrs. T and I were planning to go to Baltimore on Wednesday to see Center Stage’s revival of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles, the second installment of that company’s Herzog Festival. I’d alr…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMFrom 2005: Clinical depression really is a thing unto itself, qualitatively different from the milder mood disorders that are so frequently lumped together with it. Perhaps we do need a bett…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“It is undesirable to have a perfect taste, to respond properly to all the masterpieces. Unless we approach literature demandingly, as I say, unless we respect it for its influence, we fal…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, April 27, 2015
Mrs. T and I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest last week for the first time in a number of years. As we did so, I remembered that I’d written an essay about the film in 1998 …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:45AMMy essay in the May issue of Commentary is occasioned by the publication of Ted Gioia’s Love Songs: The Hidden History: Most pop songs are about love. So are most classical art songs. So a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMThe John Coltrane Quartet plays Coltrane’s composition “Alabama” on Jazz Casual, originally telecast on Dec. 7, 1963, five weeks after the group made its studio recording of the piece.…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Q. Are you yourself as an individual conscious of any particular failing of yourself? “A. I mean, are you asking me to confess to some moral lapse, or to inadequacy in talent? “Q. Wel…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, April 24, 2015
In the last of three season-wrapping drama columns that appeared in The Wall Street Journal this week, I review the Broadway transfers of The Visit and Airline Highway Here’s an excerpt. *…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:30AM 
