Artistic Scientific Method
“ENGINEERING AN ARTISTIC SCIENTIFIC METHOD”by Martine Kei Green-Rogers [The following article was published in American Theatre, vol. 40, no. 4 (Summer 2024) as part of the Theatre Futures series...
View ArticleBombast to Beckett
by Kirk Woodward[Kirk Woodward has contributed many posts to Rick On Theater since I launched it in March 2009—122, including several multi-parters. Most of Kirk’s pieces have been on theater or other...
View ArticleKwame Alexander on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'
[I watched The Late Show, the CBS late-night talk show with Stephen Colbert as host, on Monday night, 13 January 2025. One of Colbert’s guests was poet and writer of children’s fiction Kwame...
View ArticleTheater Odds & Ends
[Soon after I started Rick On Theater, I began collecting and stashing articles from various sources for possible future use as posts for the blog. Items of interest or curiosity or practical use or...
View ArticleMore Odds & Ends
[I enjoyed putting together “Theater Odds & Ends,” posted on Rick On Theater on 23 January, so much that I decided to do another compilation of short pieces from various sources. This time, I’ve...
View ArticleTheater Odds & Ends (continued)
[Continuing with the theme of “Odds & Ends,” this time returning to short articles on theater, I have collected four pieces from American Theatre. Some of the articles were published in the print...
View Article"'Wicked' costume designer Paul Tazewell on the vision behind his...
by Jeffrey BrownandSimon Epstein [The PBS News Hour segment on Oscar-nominated Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell aired on3 February 2025, part of News Hour’s regular arts feature “CANVAS.” (PBS...
View ArticleOdds & Ends About Musicals
[These short, random articles from various sources have been such fun to gather and post that I’m doing it again. This time, the selection is again all about theater, but the pieces are all devoted...
View ArticleMore Theater Odds & Ends
[Here’s another compilation of short pieces from various outlets—this time, two Washington Posts and a New York Times—all about some aspect of theater. Some of these—most of them, really—I filed away...
View Article"Don’t Say 'Macbeth' . . . And other superstitions, traditions and secrets of...
by Juan A. Ramírez[On 14, 17, 20, and 23 August 2020, I posted a four-part series called “Ghosts, Curses, & Charms: Theater Superstitions” on Rick On Theater (the link is to the first installment)....
View ArticleShakespeare's Development as a Dramatist (Part 1)
by Kirk Woodward [A little over two weeks ago, my friend and a generous contributor to Rick On Theater, Kirk Woodward, e-mailed me. “I’m working on another piece for [the blog],” he wrote. “It...
View ArticleShakespeare's Development as a Dramatist (Part 2)
by Kirk Woodward [In the conclusion of“Shakespeare’s Development as a Dramatist,” below, Kirk Woodward continues his explication of George Pierce Baker’s analysis of the Bard’s growth as a playwright...
View Article"The Playwright in the Age of AI"
by Jeffrey Goldberg [Back in late January, I was putting together the first of the “Odds & Ends” posts I published on Rick On Theater. I had come across “The Playwright in the Age of AI” in The...
View ArticlePeter Elbow and Freewriting
[This is a post about writing. Because it’s an homage to Pater Elbow (1935-2025), it’s also a post about teaching writing, which I did for several years at several schools in the 1980s and ’90s. I...
View ArticleTwo Passings: Peter Elbow and Athol Fugard
[Two men who had profound effects on me passed away during the past 30 days: Peter Elbow (1935-2025) was a teacher of English teachers and a professor of English composition, and Athol Fugard...
View Article"Fonda Doing Good"
[The article paying tribute to actress Jane Fonda (b. 1937), the 2024 recipient of the SAG Life Achievement Award, appeared in SAG-AFTRA, the membership magazine of SAG-AFTRA, in the Digital Special...
View ArticleFilm Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way, Part 1
[Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, written around 1603-04,opened in its latest Broadway revival with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 23 March. It started previews...
View ArticleFilm Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way, Part 2
[Good Night, and Good Luck, written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov adapted from their screenplay for the 2005 film distributed by Warner Bros. and based on the career of renowned newsman Edward R....
View ArticleWhat Are “Jupiter 8,” “6000 SUX,” and “The Freeze,” and What Do They Have in...
[They are all vehicles in movies and television created by Gene Winfield (1927-2025), legendary customizer of cars for film and TV as well as private clients. He also built cars for himself for fun...
View ArticleA Theatrical Showdown
by Kirk Woodward [Kirk Woodward’s “A Theatrical Showdown” is fundamentally a report on a production in his New Jersey area of Theresa Rebeck’s 2018 play Bernhardt/Hamlet,a depiction of Sarah...
View ArticleClowning
[I confess that I’m not a huge fan of clowning (though I’ve actually performed as a clown in at least one children’s show), but I’ve covered clown performances on Rick On Theater, such as Old Hats (22...
View Article"A Pointy Reckoning": Arthur Miller's Women
by Alisa Solomon[John Proctor is the Villain opened on Broadway last Monday, the 14th, one of several new plays that provide a woman’s perspectives to the works of Arthur Miller like The Crucible,...
View ArticleMerle Oberon
“NEW BOOK ‘LOVE, QUEENIE’ CHRONICLES LIFEOF TRAILBLAZING SOUTH ASIAN ACTRESS MERLE OBERON”by Amna Nawaz and Shrai Popat [Merle Oberon (1911-79), star leading lady of filmdom in the 1930s. ’40s, and...
View ArticleDhat al-Himma – Woman of Noble Purpose
[On a June afternoon in 2019, I paid a visit to MoMA PS1 across the East River in Long Island City, Queens, to which I’d never been. Established in 2000 as the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition space...
View Article"The Arts and the Battle for the Soul of Civilization"
by Dr. Indira Etwaroo [The arts are at a crossroads. I’ve blogged about the theater in crisis, especially the regional repertory companies, but this post is about all the arts, which Dr. Indira...
View Article