Put a Little Drama in your Life
Center Stage with Pat Launer on KSDS JAZZ88 AIRDATE: DECEMBER 4, 2009 Okay, pretty soon, all this family togetherness is going to start getting old and frayed and irritating – like those wooly socks you got last year. So why not escape to another world? – at the theater! This is the dramatically busiest December in recent memory. There’s definitely something for everyone – comedy, music, drama, cynicism. You want it; we’ve got Read More →
Published in In Theater "The Ballad of Floyd Collins" is more than just the plaintive opening number. It could be the tale of the show's evolution. Commissioned in 1994 by the American Music Theatre Festival of Philadelphia, "Floyd Collins" opened at Playwrights Horizons in the busy 1996 season, up against "Rent" and "Noise/Funk." It got lost in the shuffle; though it Read More →
Published in In Theater March 1998 The X-factor in “Avenue X” has always been the ending. Ever since its 1994 Playwrights Horizons premiere, the piece has undergone changes. It may be the only show ever to win both the Richard Rodgers Musical Theatre Award and the Kleban Librettist’s Award, but its final scene has never quite been set. The conclusion has varied in Read More →
Published in In Theater October 1997 We all know he "Writes the Songs." But for a book musical? Pop perennial Barry Manilow was "Ready to Take a Chance" (after his 1994 West End endeavor, "Copacabana") but "Even Now," the future of "Harmony" is uncertain (though there are stage-whispers about New York interest). Manilow and his long-time collaborator Bruce Sussman (book and Read More →