Sondheim has left the building, and he lives on only in interpretation and iteration, no less than Shakespeare or Mozart.
Theater
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Pro-life playwrights exist. The Dramatists Guild just doesn’t seem to think so.
I was saddened but not surprised by the pro-abortion position of the dramatists guild.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: August Wilson, a playwright of multitudes
In ‘August Wilson: A Life,’ an excellent new biography by Patti Hartigan, we read of the winding path that led Wilson to his ascendance, then delves into the tumults and triumphs of his two decades at the heights of achievement.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Take me to church (or to Broadway): ‘Purlie Victorious’ and the catharsis of Black theater
Can I get an amen?
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
‘Dead Man Walking’: An operatic exploration of Sister Helen Prejean’s death row ministry
“Dead Man Walking” is a deeply human story about truth, forgiveness and the possibility of redemption. It is a journey into which everyone—from the singers to the audience—is invited.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Playwright Annie Baker offers a theology of pain in her new play ‘Infinite Life’
For theater fans, the arrival of a new Annie Baker play is cause for celebration.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Tony winner ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ is the ‘Ted Lasso’ of Broadway
“Kimberly Akimbo” is about two young people who have an incredibly hopeful perspective on life. But it’s also quietly about childhood trauma.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’ and ‘The Thanksgiving Play’ take a satirical aim at theater itself
The ambitions of these two comedies could hardly be more disparate, yet the craft employed in both is rooted in similarly precise calibrations of our attention and sympathies.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
‘Parade,’ ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘Camelot’ offer a history lesson on the American musical
Three strong new revivals offer an instructive comparative lens through which to view the form’s development over the decades.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
In ‘Sweeney Todd,’ we see the dark, demonic twin of Jesus’ Passion
In these Lenten and Easter days in which the church celebrates a man whose divinity was revealed in his willingness to sacrifice everything for love, consider “Sweeney Todd” to be that story’s dark, demonic twin.