281 stories from Ken Levine
There
was a 1973 movie called THE LAST OF SHEILA. It was a murder mystery
written by, of all people, Stephen Sondheim and Tony Perkins. More
surprising, Tony was not in the movie and S…
The run of my play, A OR B? at the Falcon Theatre ends on Sunday. If you want to see it, this is your last chance.   Here's where you go for tickets. Happily it's been very…
We're at the time of year when networks are beginning to cancel new shows. No matter how successful you are, at one time or another you will find yourself in this position. My heart goe…
There is a joke in the first act of my play, A OR B? that always gets a laugh. Makes no difference the size of the audience or age range, it always gets a laugh.
Except… one night. All …
Here's the latest installment of the mounting of my play, A or B? now playing at the Falcon Theatre.
Everything was geared towards Opening Night, which was last Friday. We had seven prev…
I'll take it. Any review that starts out with WOW! I'll take. It's from Stage Scene LA.   Am I allowed to thank a critic? Oh hell, I'll do it anyway. Thanks Steven …
Even though it's Saturday, here's a Friday Question comes from reader Alyson:
I
recently rewatched Frasier - great show, even better than I remembered.
I'm curious about the fencing scene…
Individual tickets go on sale today! Here's where. Or you can call 1-818-955-8101.  I know this means a whole lot to you folks in Norway or Tuscaloosa. But if you're going to…
Any critic can review movies everyone has seen. But to write reviews for movies that no one has seen and still make them entertaining, that's a challenge. With GET ON UP I guess I accept…
Broadway musicals are hard to adapt to the screen. They tend to be stylistic on the stage, but don't translate to the realism of a motion picture. The biggest problem is that people in re…
This is not a full review of the Tony Awards because, well… nobody saw them. Why write jokes that only four people in America will get (although the great comedy writer Jerry Belson used…
And it sounds so simple....
But he's right. Brilliant acting advice in only one minute.
A number of years ago at the Daily Grill in Brentwood I was waiting at the
valet for my car and there was Neil Simon waiting for his (a nicer one
by the way). I mentioned to my kids, who…
Allow me to respond, sir. This is a comment I received last week on my "Tips For Young Playwrights" post. It's by Angry Gamer. He writes:
With the Winter Olympics getting underway, I thought today would be a good day to talk about FROZEN.
FROZEN is an example of how you can take a formula, but if you do it really really wel…
For a TV writer or a playwright, there's nothing like seeing your first production. After God knows how many specs, one acts, and plays that never saw the light of day, the feeling can be g…
This you've GOT to see. That's all I've got to say.
I
discovered this extraordinary memo from David Mamet to the writers of
THE UNIT, a series he created a few semesters back for CBS. (The
origination of the memo seems to have come from I…
As a follow up to today's post, thanks to reader Darms for turning me on to this: The Alamo Drafthouse and their uncensored version of a NO CELL PHONE reminder.  Brilliant.
A new documentary premiered last night on HBO that I can't recommend highly enough. It's called SIX BY SONDHEIM. Now before you roll your eyes and say, "yet another Stephen Sondheim tribu…
Here's what I liked about THE SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE (or SOUND OF MUSIC TAPE DELAYED on the West Coast). It was event television. The show got big numbers and yesterday everybody was talking …
These
are pictures from the musical I co-wrote with Janet Brenner, THE 60s
PROJECT. Just by looking at them you can tell it was a great show,
right? Thanks to Janet for the pix.The sh…
TCM is devoting this whole day to a Natalie Wood marathon. There goes my Sunday.
As longtime readers (two weeks) of this blog know, I am obsessed with Natalie Wood. Whenever I can't fin…
Some celebrity deaths hit you much harder than others. Usually it's because they're major stars, cultural icons, and they represent a good period of your life. You're mourning your own ch…
The difficulty in securing an agent is not confined to those writers
just starting out. I tried to get a theatrical agent when I wrote my
play a few years ago and hit a brick wall, even wi…
