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So, do you know a novel called GADSBY? Not THE GREAT GATSBY, mind you, but GADSBY, a 50,110-word tome that Ernest Vincent Wright wrote in 1939. It concerned a man who thought his hometown would be better off if children ran it. As flabbergasting as that may sound, the book’s real surprise is that not […]

So what’s inspired me to listen non-stop to GEORGE M!? Inside Broadway gets the credit. If you grew up attending a New York public school, Inside Broadway may be familiar to you. For 40 years, founder and executive director Michael Presser has been sending 45-minute shows to P.S. This-and-That to acquaint kids with what a […]

All right, let’s admit the mistake, apologize for it, and move on. The new vinyl release of RAGTIME says on its spine “Original Soundtrack.” Some will say, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” It’s a common misconception that ANY recording of a musical is a soundtrack. No. Soundtrack albums come from movies, because films have a […]

Although I greatly admired Sanaz Toosi’s WISH YOU WERE HERE at Playwrights Horizons, I couldn’t help thinking of the 1952 musical with the same title. How it got its name is a fun story. The musical with a vivid Harold J. Rome score was based on the second-longest running play of the 1937-1938 season: “HAVING […]

Whenever May 12th approaches, I think of THE SNAKE PIT. I don’t mean an actual abyss of vipers that you might encounter on a stroll through northern India, southern China or on an Arizona desert. I’m talking about the 1948 film in which Virginia Stuart Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) goes crazy every time May 12 […]