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Computers and Actors, Part 1
[I’ve recently finished posting a series of articles on Rick On Theater on theatrical design and technology from a Special Section of American Theatre (see “Design & Tech: The Magic Of Design,” 9,...
View ArticleComputers and Actors, Part 2
[This is the completion of “Computers and Actors,” a collection of articles about the increasing use of computer graphics and digital animation in film and even on the stage to enhance and even...
View ArticleTwo Reports On New York Theater Activities (Post-Pandemic)
[At the end of last month, two television news programs aired reports on different aspects of the performing arts in New York City in the (hopefully) waning days of the COVID pandemic. If you’ve been...
View ArticlePearl Tytell, Matriarch of Document Sleuths (1917-2021)
On 4 October 2021, the New York Times published the obituary of Pearl Tytell. She had died at her home in Riverdale, The Bronx, on 26 September at the age of 104. Mrs. Tytell had a remarkable...
View ArticlePlagiarizing Oneself . . .
. . . And Other Courtroom Inanities[Back in the 1980s and ’90s, I kept a collection of clippings and notes that I thought could be ideas for plays. Since I’m not a playwright, though, I never followed...
View ArticleOn Criticism
“JOHN UPDIKE’S 6 RULES FOR CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM”by Maria Popova[Back on 17 July, my friend Kirk Woodward e-mailed me the following article from The Atlantic of 2 May 2012. He entitled his message...
View Article'Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story' (Part 1)
a book by Michael Rosen [A little over two weeks ago, I posted an article on this blog about Pearl Tytell (17 October), who appeared in many trials and hearings as an expert witness in the...
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'Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story' (Part 2)
a book by Michael Rosen [Susannah Cahalan’s review-cum-sampling of Michael Rosen’s 2015 book ran in the New York Post of 8 February 2015...
View ArticleLao She's 'Teahouse'
A Classic Chinese Spoken Drama[For the past two months or so, I’ve been working on the transcription of a journal I kept while I was on a trip through the People’s Republic of China in 1980. While I...
View Article"Arts and the State"
by Paul Mattick, Jr.[Paul Mattick, Jr.’s essay “Arts and the State” ran in the “Books & The Arts” section ofThe Nation of 1 October 1990 (251.6). It was a seminal broadside from the left in the...
View Article'Children of the Gods': Launching The Shaliko Company (1973)
The audience is the Gods, the actors are the Greeks: watch in comfort as civilization collapses in this environmental spectacle of sex, power and selfishnessThat’s the text of a display ad in the New...
View ArticleMore Script Reports
[In the fall of 1986, as a member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America (now “. . . of the Americas”), I was part of a team of script readers for the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for...
View ArticleMore Script Reports II
[Below are several more script and reading reports from my years as a script-reader. The first three evaluations are from the Rockefeller Foundation grant competition which was featured in “More...
View ArticleIn Memoriam: Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)
[Like most theater people in the United States, I’ve had a lot of contact with the work of Stephen Sondheim, the esteemed and beloved theater composer and lyricist who died on Friday, 26 November 2021,...
View ArticleMore Script Reports III: Translations
[As the third installment of my old script evaluations I’ve chosen a quartet of foreign plays offered in translation. These were all contemporary plays by then-living playwrights—all from Europe as...
View ArticleMore Script Reports IV: Classics
[Not all the plays on which a literary manager has to report are new or recent scripts. Part of my job at StageArts Theatre Company, the Off-Off-Broadway showcase house where I worked for several...
View ArticleReviewing the Beatles
by Kirk Woodward[My friend and a longtime contributor to Rick On Theater, Kirk Woodward, is an avid Beatles fan—right from their very start in this country. He also happens to be musically educated,...
View ArticleTravel Journal: People's Republic of China, 1980 – Part 1
[At Christmastime in 1980, I took a trip to the People’s Republic of China. The country had only recently opened to foreign tourists and the only way one could visit the PRC at that time was as part...
View ArticleTravel Journal: People's Republic of China, 1980 – Part 2
[Here’s the second installment of “Travel Journal: People’s Republic of China, 1980.” I’ll be covering my arrival in the PRC from Hong Kong (then still a British colony) and my visit to Canton (now...
View ArticleTravel Journal: People's Republic of China, 1980 – Part 3
[In the third installment of “Travel Journal: People’s Republic of China, 1980,” I finish my stay in Shanghai and recount my visits to Suzhou (formerly Soochow), famous for its gardens, and Wuxi....
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