499 stories by "ROB WEINERT-KENDT"
David Rakoff, 2010 (Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)I had no intention of wading into the tragedy-vs.-comedy mini-debate that Terry Teachout started last week with his W…
I wasn't a great lover of the recent Soho Rep Vanya, as regular readers of this blog know, but I remain a fan of nearly everyone involved, including actor Reed Birney, whose lovely interview…
The site of the original enchantment I must have been 11 or so when my dad pointed out the cover of the Scottsdale Progress's weekend arts section: the Scottsdale Center for the Arts would b…
Rob McClure, an actor with no Tony Award or major name recognition, nonetheless landed the title role in the musical "Chaplin" on Broadway.
The happy occasion of Keen Co.'s revival of the Sondheim outtake anthology Marry Me a Little is a fine excuse to trot out this novelty, which not enough people have heard: a demo of the titl…
At least that's the way I read this quote from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator:Watching a movie is almost like falling asleep into the movie. You get taken away by the movie and you…
"Old songs are more than tunes, they are little houses in which our hearts once lived."-Ben Hecht
photo by Mark Von Holden/Getty Images North AmericaHad the pleasure recently of meeting and chatting with the very busy director Daniel Aukin, a new play specialist formerly of Soho Rep, now…
Daniel Aukin, who's directing the premiere of Sam Shepard's "Heartless" for Signature Theater, is admired for embracing uncertainty, his colleagues say.
"There is no real world/We live side by side/And sometimes collide""Everything But the Girl
I don't recall exactly how it started, but I've become one of The Sondheim Review's regular reviewers, and the winter issue will contain my evaluation of the current Shakespeare in the Park …
"I hate that word blogIt sounds like a large accumulation of snot""Melissa James Gibson, This
Blanchett and McElhinny in the Sydney Theatre Company production; photo by Lisa TomasettiSo I've now seen three Uncle Vanyas in as many months. Which takes the gold? If you count length of r…
Going deep into the astonishing new Dirty Projectors' album.Maybe this is why there aren't more theater practitioners doing criticism."If I expect them to build an ethical iPhone, then I had…
On HowlRound today, Sherri Kronfeld brings fresh passion and (seeming) common sense to an age-old debate (or at least one that's been raging as long I've been in the arts journalism racket).…
This frank diavlog between self-confessed media manipulator Ryan Holiday and Fark.com's Drew Curtis about how the media business really works in the age of HuffPo and Gawker is alternately d…
"Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people." -Berenger in Ionesco's Rhinoceros
Maybe because it was the first speech at the opening plenary of the recent TCG conference, maybe because it was more sobering nuts-and-bolts than rousing stump speech, maybe even because it …
How can you tell a masterpiece? It may be harder to recognize or even make them now, in an age of single-song downloads, longform episodic TV narrative, and multi-year film franchises; we s…
A few unrelated links and observations to start the week:Wisdom from the august Gus Schulenburg on how not to be a dick on the Intertubes (some warnings of which I could heed better).The act…
It was a busy spring and I feel like I'm only just caught up before the late-summer crunch begins, but I thought I should point out a few things that have made it into print at the publicati…
I'm here in Boston for the TCG conference, and last night Mike Daisey offered a two-hour presentation of his newest monologue, On the Orient Express, which he'd previously presented at Spole…
As my partner Isaac Butler points out, as much in amazement as celebration, it's been 3 1/2 years since he and I launched Critic-O-Meter, which just over two years ago morphed into StageGrad…
photo by Julieta CervantesI couldn't have been more on board for Soho Rep's indie-star-studded Uncle Vanya, and not just 'cause I got the chance to report on and contemplate it in advance. A…
