21,643 stories from ArtsJournal
"This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have beieved it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing …
"A bright spot in the report indicates that the U.S. professional not-for-profit theatre field attracted an estimate of 38 million audience members to 180,000 performances of 21,000 producti…
"Madre Goose tells the story of an LGBTQ+ community of activists rallying against gentrification and materialism. All the wacky costumes, silly characters and daft jokes are as you'd expect …
In the letter, Dramatists Play Service says that the move was partly inspired by the challenges facing the theater business posed by coronavirus. It's a public health crisis that has brought…
In today's Wall Street Journal I chronicle the best theater of 2020"all of it in the form of streaming webcasts. Here's an excerpt.
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The last time I went to a theate…
"To assert dignity is to lose it."
Rex Stout, The League of Frightened Men
Continue reading Almanac: Nero Wolfe on dignity at About Last Night.
Basically, because of all the plagues everyone had been through, says Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Greg Doran. "There is a big change in tone in his later work. Academics have…
"We're Despicable," written by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill for the soundtrack of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, originally telecast by NBC in 1962:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- …
"There is nothing like infantilism for keeping the eyes bright and the skin smooth."
Rebecca West, The New Meaning of Treason
Continue reading Almanac: Rebecca West on immature adults at …
"Sometimes you have to set it in the sun a while, and water it, and weed around it. Tend to it. And as it becomes itself you'll begin to understand the shape it was always meant to take. You…
"We launched in October, 2019 with 15 podcasts. And here we are, a little over a year later, with almost 100 podcasts. Since the beginning it was very much the plan to have podcasts and reco…
August Wilson's prize-winning play includes heavy use of the N-word by its Black characters, and when Faith Fox found out that her 14-year-old's class would be studying Fences, she protested…
From 2007:
I'm writing these words at nine a.m. on Christmas Eve. Not a creature is stirring, not even Mrs. T, who isn't a morning person, or my mother, who went to bed gratefully last night…
"Those who foresee the future and recognize it as tragic are often seized by a madness which forces them to commit the very acts which make it certain that what they dread shall happen."
Reb…
Truly. Even this year, or perhaps especially this year. "'Will you decide who shall live and who shall die?' this Ghost of Christmas Present asked Scrooge, a question asked many times this y…
Nancy LaMott died a quarter-century ago this past weekend. While she isn't as well remembered now as she deserves to be, Nancy was a rising star in 1995, having made her Carnegie Hall debut …
Marin Mazzie sings Stephen Sondheim's "Not a Day Goes By," from Merrily We Roll Along:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each …
"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."
Cicero, Philippicæ
Continue reading Almanac: Cicero on memory at About Last Night.
Everything is locked down in Paris, except for Mass. "The ritualistic nature of the event, the dramatic buildup from scene to scene " even the slightly labored monologues " are all part and …
The movie, which premiered on streaming December 11, is an ode to the power of Broadway. Its journey from stage to screen, though, "underscores the inequities underneath the surface of Holly…
Laura Cappelle: "On paper, a Roman Catholic Mass and a stage performance aren't all that different: Both events involve a cast of professionals addressing a seated, and now socially distance…
In today's Wall Street Journal I review the Wilma Theater's webcast of Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Here's an excerpt.
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Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, one of…
Greer Garson presents the 1952 Best Actor Oscar to Humphrey Bogart for his performance in John Huston's The African Queen. It was Bogart's first Oscar:
(This is the latest in a series…
"I don't claim to know that God exists. I only claim that he does without my knowing it."
Tom Stoppard, Jumpers
Continue reading Almanac: Tom Stoppard on God at About Last Night.
The Broadway productions of "Hamilton" and "What the Constitution Means to Me" reemerged as films that give a wider audience the best seats in the house. These are stage performances filmed …
