21,643 stories from ArtsJournal
Hurray for the Save Our Stages money, but theatres need a lot more: "a new Federal Theatre Project (FTP), like the Depression-era government agency that directly employed artists to produce …
"There are some bad qualities which make great talents."
Rochefoucauld, Maxims
Continue reading Almanac: Rochefoucauld on talent at About Last Night.
"We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?"
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Li…
As with every other kind of theatre, Jewish theaters and playwrights, actors and tech people, had a lot to figure out. The Jewish Playwriting Contest completely reimagined what it was asking…
Louis Armstrong and the All Stars perform "Basin Street Blues" on The Bell Telephone Hour. This episode was originally telecast by NBC on February 2, 1964:
(This is the latest in a serie…
I wait for you in the harshest desert
and next to the flowering lemon tree,
in every place where there is life,
where spring is being born,
my love, I wait for you.
Pablo Neruda, "Letter on …
If Hollywood is going to continue reaping the creative benefits of the theater " the actors' training, the ambitious storytelling, the characters fleshed out over countless rewrites " it bea…
"When the curtain went up at the Palace Theater on Jan. 4, 1981, the expectations " and the stakes " were high. Frankenstein, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, had cost a reported $2 mi…
A year ago today, my beloved Hilary was in an intensive-care unit at New York-Presbyterian, fighting for her life as she awaited a double-lung transplant. She had no idea that worse awaited …
In today's Wall Street Journal I write about the Stephen Joseph Theatre's webcast of a radio play written and performed by Alan Ayckbourn. Here's an excerpt.
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Alan Ayckbou…
The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Philip Larkin, "An Arundel Tomb"
Contin…
Over the course of this year and next, Brave Spirits Theater in Alexandria, Va. was going to be "first professional American theater company to mount full productions of Shakespeare's two hi…
Louis Armstrong and his big band perform "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen, in 1933:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos tha…
I will make you always remember this place, this day, and me.
Terence, "Eunuchus"
Continue reading Almanac: Terence on memory at About Last Night.
"Vulture spoke with [11] comedians about how pivoting to virtual and outdoor shows in 2020 were (and weren't) helpful for preparing material, lessons they learned about performing during the…
From 2004:
I haven't taken part in many weddings in my life, and none at all in recent years, so when my friend Laura asked me to read the Eighty-Fourth Psalm at her wedding last Saturday, I…
I shall remember while the light lives yet
And in the night time I shall not forget.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Erotion"
Continue reading Almanac: Swinburne on memory at About Last Night.
"Needless to say, 2020 didn't exactly go as planned." But actors, directors, playwrights, sound producers, lighting designers, and stage directors came through just as much as they possibly …
Cab Calloway and his big band perform "Blues in the Night," by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space …
And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left,
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
That shall …
This isn't exactly a normal year for any playwright, and indeed, Jeremy O. Harris of the multiple-Tony-nominated Slave Play has earned little from his plays. But fashion collaborations and H…
Well … yes, it's mostly he/him types. But also, 2020 was a real career killer. "Most designers, just like most artists in the field, have no work right now. They are hanging on by their fi…
In today's Wall Street Journal I review webcast versions of Meet Me in St. Louis and An Iliad, plus a video concert by Melissa Errico. Here's an excerpt.
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New York's Irish…
Francis Grier and the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, perform Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols on TV in 1942. The harpist is Frances Kelly:
(This is the latest in a s…
Sweet hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.
John Keats, "To Hope"
Continue reading Almanac: Keats on hope at About Last Night.
