If an audience doesn’t laugh, the play/movie/book isn’t funny. Or might it be? Can an audience fail the writer? It’s complicated, says Paul Rudnick, who should know, having written for the screen (Adams Family Values), the stage (Jeffrey) and the page (The New Yorker). A conversation about comedy and stained glass windows – two …
He has designed both elegant private houses (Alexander McQueen’s) and grand public spaces (the Nobel Peace Prize Center in Oslo). While he was working on the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, he was often asked: will it look African American? But what does that mean? Does Renzo Piano’s Times building look newspapery? …
Unless an artist leads a life of debauchery or treats everyone around her with flamboyant disregard, she is difficult to write about. I note with both relief and regret that Katherine Bradford’s life is unleavened by criminal activity. What we’re left with is her work – splendid, beautiful and moving. This will make life difficult … Continue reading »
His screenplay Tex X evolved into Blazing Saddles after amiable hours writing and rewriting with Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks: workmates! He directed Marlon Brando in a rare – and terrific – comedy performance in The Freshman. Plus a childhood visit to Victor Borge’s dressing room and a chance encounter with Philip Roth. And … Continue reading »
He created the role of Motel the Tailor in Fiddler on the Roof. He directed Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes. He – well, it would be easier to list what he has not done during a lifetime in the theater. But what most surprised me about our conversation was his description of his lifelong friendship … Continue reading »
When Iranian interrogators accuse fashion models of being part of a cabal led by Kim Kardashian, do they believe their own loony charge? Journalist Maziar Bahari thinks they might. We talk about the effects of official propaganda, the plight of Iran’s Baha’i community, and his own imprisonment – all more amusing than you’d expect in the hands … Continue reading »
For opera lovers, it’s the Wagner conundrum. For movie goers, it’s the Woody Allen problem. Dubious people have done wonderful work. But Jan Gehl, the Danish urban planner, sees architecture differently: “If you don’t love people, you can not make good architecture.” For him, architecture is a moral act. A conversation with a champion of humanistic … Continue reading »
“Failure is a very creative place,” asserts James Nicola, artistic director of New York Theater Workshop where singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin developed their flamboyantly successful Hadestown, a folk opera based on the Orpheus myth. But is failure really so useful, or is it just, well, failure? Rachel and Anaïs consider that … Continue reading »
HBO’s Vinyl is gone, but its splendid soundtrack endures. “’I always seek out experts,’ said Randall Poster, one of the show’s music supervisors, who enlisted the Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo to help him build up the punk bona fides on Vinyl. Mr. Ranaldo brought on his own frequent collaborators, including studio veterans with a … Continue reading »
It rankles when non-Asian actors are cast as Asians, yet you needn’t be Scottish to play Macbeth. How to reconcile these two ideas? David Henry Hwang takes up the question with wit, warmth and insight. Perhaps best known for his play M Butterfly, he co-wrote the musical Aida and is a staff writer on … Continue reading »
If we decline to buy an iPhone or a pair of sneakers made under miserable working conditions, how should we respond when a band leader brutalizes his musicians? Artist Fred Tomaselli and writer Rick Moody took up that question, praised the bleak arid landscapes of the Southwest and had some hard words for gulls when … Continue reading »
A member of the Del Fuegos, he went on to teach at NYU, work on Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison documentary, and write a biography of Tom Petty. During our conversation at the Princeton Public Library, he asserted that creative work is often the product of a miserable childhood. A counter-example offered by the audience: Leonard Nemoy, … Continue reading »
A financial columnist for the New York Times and a host of CNBC’s Squawk Box, he wrote the best selling Too Big To Fail and is a co-creator of the Showtime series Billions. We talk business ethics – I assert that there’s no such thing – and more at JCC Manhattan. Plus music from … Continue reading »
An actor and director – his staging of Dominique Morriseau’s “Skeleton Crew” is about to open at the Atlantic Theater – he rejects petty domestic drama, asserting that no writer who’s endured oppression would create such a scenario: “That’s why you never see a brother writing a play about falling in love with a goat … Continue reading »