These principals of the architectural firm WORKac found it challenging to design their own home. The psychological complexity of domestic life? The culmination of years of thought? “The hardest thing about designing our house was that we just haven’t designed a lot of houses.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Photo: Harry Willks.
The artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company summarizes his aesthetic: “The curtain goes up, twenty minutes happen, the curtain comes down, and it is transformative.” Easy to say, brilliant to achieve. And they do.
The greatest gift to any humorist is a parent who is impossible to please. This writer, a co-creator of Late Night With David Letterman, describes a note in her mother’s copy of David Copperfield. “It said, ‘Not one of his best works. I was disappointed.’ If she was giving Dickens a hard time, what did I think that I was going to get?” … Continue reading »
This celebrated Broadway actor–-The Secret Garden, The Music Man, Mary Poppins–-much admired for her glorious voice, sees parallels between cooking and theater. Both are ephemeral. A recipe is akin to a script: neither is the thing itself; each provides instructions for creating the thing. None of this contradicts audience etiquette: no eating during the performance, … Continue reading »
His work with Talking Heads lofted him to the empyrean, and he just kept going, making art, music, movies, books. He’s been particularly fortunate in his collaborators – Brian Eno, Robert Wilson, Twyla Tharp. Spike Lee filmed his Broadway show, American Utopia, which streams on HBO this month. Clearly, one of the silliest things F. Scott Fitzgerald … Continue reading »
She is the author of The Detroit Project, a three-play cycle, and the Broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud–The Life and Times of the Temptations, another kind of Detroit story. Even at its most ferocious, her work is suffused with love. “Love is not approval or agreement or acquiescence. Love is challenge, love is provocation, agitation, and pushing us toward … Continue reading »
She directed and designed costumes for the stage version of The Lion King, seen by 90 million people in 100 cities, attributing its success, in part, to its use of puppets. “I actually think people are often more touched by a puppet’s gesture than a human’s.” Make up your own Trump/Putin joke. Continue reading »
When the admired writer — Election, Little Children, The Leftovers — was off at college, he got some unsettling news from his beloved cousin Mike: “He was a really talented indie rocker, but he ended up with a bunch of his friends playing in a wedding band.” This became the basis for The Wishbones, whose protagonist believes such bands emit … Continue reading »
This fine performer — Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Wiz, Hadestown — notes that Shakespeare has much to say about our times, including “Macbeth is seen as a great killing machine,” alluding to the virus, the police, or the president. We find the metaphors we need. Our first episode made with Broadway on Demand, the video version can be seen – seen! … Continue reading »
She’s best known for her sharp and funny portrayal of the foul-mouthed Susie Greene on Curb Your Enthusiasm, an overnight success she achieved after decades as a working comic. We met when she did the warmup for The Rosie O’Donnell Show, displaying the rare ability to induce laughter in the morning. Continue reading »
The celebrated talk-show host has surprising affection for both the German Luger and the samurai sword — such martial objects, such a humane person. A conversation from the archives, remixed, remastered, remarkable. (Rebarbative? Recalcitrant?) Continue reading »
This founding partner of Kliment Halsband Architects teamed with the head of surgery at Mount Sinai to create a hospital in Uganda and fight crime in outer space. One of those. The former. Their solar-powered facility, in the village of Kyabirwa, provides surgical services for a long-underserved community. A conversation (in the Zoomian sense) at the Center for Architecture. Continue reading »
Like millions of his admirers, I encountered him through his videos of his dogs, Man Ray, then Fay Ray, then her descendants – odd, surprising, sometimes funny, always full of feeling. Curiously, he used to say horrible things about video art. “That’s how a young artist thinks. I’m much more generous now as an old … Continue reading »
He was still in college when he created his smart and funny comic strip, “Doonesbury,” and has since sent his characters to a disconcerting number of wars without disheartening the readers. His most recent book is Lewser: More Doonesbury in the Time of Trump, which nearly disheartens me. Laughing through my tears. Of rage. Continue reading »