Friday, April 30, 2021
Mint is webcasting “A Picture of Autumn†as part of a series of broadcast-quality archival videos taped at live performances, and the strong impression the play made on me when I…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 10:43AMWednesday, March 24, 2021
A case in point is New York’s Mint Theatre Company, a small but distinguished troupe that performs in an 88-seat off-Broadway house. During the past year, the Mint has webcast free br…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 09:35AMFriday, March 5, 2021
“Bad Dates†never fails to give great pleasure in the hands of an appealing actor and a solid production team, and Andréa Burns and her George Street colleagues are all that a…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 12:05PMMonday, February 22, 2021
Graham Greene is interviewed by Jack Mangan in an outtake from a 1950 episode of Ship’s Reporter in which he talks about The Third Man:
(This is the latest in a series of ar…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“People don’t like reality. They don’t like common sense. Until age forces it on them.â€
Graham Greene, Loser Takes All
Continue reading Almanac: Graham Greene on…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 19, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review webcasts of Katie Roche and The Book of Magdalene. Here’s an excerpt.
*Â Â *Â Â *
One of the few happy surprises of 2020 was…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMFats Waller sings and plays “Ain’t Misbehavin’†in Stormy Weather, directed by Andrew L. Stone in 1943. The members of the band include Benny Carter on trumpet, …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.â€
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 85
Continue reading Almanac: Alexander Hamilton on perfection at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 18, 2021
One of the few happy surprises of 2020 was the Mint Theater Company’s announcement that it had built up a private stockpile of broadcast-quality archival videos of its past production…
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal at 07:02PM“When I was writing three-act plays, a producer told me the curtain should always come down on the beginning of the fourth act. A play should never really come to an end.â€
Neil S…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, February 17, 2021
Bill Evans plays “My Foolish Heart†on British TV in 1965, with Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related vid…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMTuesday, February 16, 2021
From 2006:
When I was young, everybody I knew watched The Andy Griffith Show. Today there are no TV shows that “everybody†watches, and no movies that everyone has seen. Indee…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMFebruary makes a bridge, and
March breaks it.
George Herbert, “Jacula Prudentumâ€
Continue reading Almanac: George Herbert on February and March at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, February 15, 2021
The Miles Davis Quintet plays “My Funny Valentine†on Italian TV in 1964:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Mond…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AMAnd did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Raymond Carver, “Late Fragmentâ€�…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 12, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review streaming webcasts of Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here and the Lantern Theater Company’s production of Molly Sweeney. Here…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMLaurence Olivier talks about delivering Shakespearian blank verse in an undated TV clip. Also heard from is John Gielgud:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“It seemed to Graham that he had learned nothing in forty years. He had just gotten tired.â€
Thomas Harris, Red Dragon
Continue reading Almanac: Thomas Harris on middle age at …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 11, 2021
“Never forget that the spoken word is not twice nor three times, but five times as potent as the written word, so that what would occupy a page in a novel should take up only five line…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMA new episode of Three on the Aisle, the podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, February 10, 2021
Randy Newman sings his own “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today†on the BBC in 1971:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this spa…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“In memory everything seems to happen to music.â€
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Continue reading Almanac: Tennessee Williams on memory at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, February 9, 2021
From 2020:
I’ll never again take another first date to Mario’s Deli, invite her to tell me all about herself, and wonder as I listen whether she might possibly be the girl of m…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.â€
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Continue reading Almanac: John Steinbeck on loneliness at About Last Night.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, February 8, 2021
Mauricio Pollini, Riccardo Muti, and Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala perform the second movement from Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, K. 467:
(This is the latest in a series…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.â€
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (trans. Gregory Rabassa)
Continue reading Al…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, February 5, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review regional webcasts of Doubt and The Niceties. Here’s an excerpt.
*Â Â *Â Â *
Some plays are so obviously well-suited to socially…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMMeryl Streep and Viola Davis in a scene from the film version of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable, directed by the author:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“I think there is in the heroic courage with which man confronts the irrationality of the world a beauty greater than the beauty of art.â€
Somerset Maugham, A Writer’s N…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, February 4, 2021
In today’s Wall Street Journal I pay tribute to Hal Holbrook. Here’s an excerpt.
*Â Â *Â Â *
Hal Holbrook, who died on Jan. 23 at age 95—his death was announc…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.â€
Mark Twain, notebook entry, January or February 1894,Â
Continue reading Almanac: Mark Twain on honesty at A…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AM 
