‘Master Class’: Tyne Daly hits it out of the park
“How can you have rivals when no one else can do what you do?,” Maria Callas asks in the remarkably durable biographical drama “Master Class” by Terrence McNally. It’s a play about ego and stardom and...
View Article‘Short Cuts’: In praise of the late, great Sada Thompson
When the time came to put together the third annual “Short Cuts” film season at the Garden Cinemas in Norwalk, I thought that since the women who created it — Nancy Diamond and Carole Schweid — run the...
View ArticleThe T in Rita Moreno’s EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony)
A movie that has gone in and out of print several times, “The Ritz” is back on DVD thanks to Warner Archive. Based on Terrence McNally’s first Broadway hit, the 1976 movie version was shot cheaply in...
View Article‘An Englishman Abroad’: the show goes on in Norwalk
After being postponed by technical problems and weather challenges, the “Short Cuts” program at the Garden Cinemas in Norwalk will continue Thursday night with “An Englishman Abroad,” the wonderful...
View Article‘The Nance’: Nathan Lane’s finest hour on stage?
The Douglas Carter Beane play “The Nance” got good reviews when it opened in April and Nathan Lane received a Tony nomination for his work in the title role (losing to Tracy Letts in a very strong...
View Article‘Mothers and Sons’: a new chapter in McNally’s gay history
The Terrence McNally play, “Mothers and Sons,” deals with the lingering impact of the AIDS crisis on those who survived the devastation of the 1980s and 1990s but it also looks at a younger generation...
View Article‘The Visit’: too strange for Broadway?
The final John Kander and Fred Ebb musical, “The Visit,” might have a long life in regional theaters — it’s an intimate, one-set, 90-minute piece — but this chamber musical about revenge has not been...
View ArticleAn hour with Mike Nichols tonight at 9
PBS is unveiling a new “American Masters” documentary tonight at 9 that focuses on the long and unusually varied career of director Mike Nichols. Nichols was such a potent force on stage, screen and...
View Article‘Half Moon Bay’: strangers in a bar
Something like a younger, sadder West Coast version of Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune,” the Lesser America production of the Dan Moyer play “Half Moon Bay” follows a...
View ArticleNotes on a preview of ‘Fire and Air’
People who kvetch about the high cost of theater tickets in New York get on my nerves. Yes, the average price for a seat at “Springsteen on Broadway” was more than $500 last week – and brokers are...
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