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For the past weeks, I’ve been hypothesizing that Stephen Sondheim consciously or unconsciously reworked the musicals that his mentor Oscar Hammerstein wrote with Richard Rodgers. Some changes were due to changing mores. More, however, had to do with Sondheim’s differing worldview. Note how both wrote about marriage. Granted, their own personal experiences must have influenced […]

I asked the question last week, and I’ll ask it again. Have you ever noticed that Stephen Sondheim wound up writing new and edgier versions of the musicals that his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, wrote with Richard Rodgers? Last week, I compared what the two did with a famous fairy tale: Hammerstein’s CINDERELLA and Sondheim’s […]

The front cover of Christopher Anderson’s 1983 book Father: The Figure and the Force says: Father. He was once the most important man in your life. He still is. On the other hand, Sigmund Freud said that aboy does not become a man until he kills his father – or at least replaces him. That […]

It was heard so many times last season as people were leaving the revival of PURLIE VICTORIOUS. “Now I’d like to see the musical version!” And now they can. PURLIE, the 1970 musical adapted from Ossie Davis’ 1961 play, will run March 6-23 at the American Theater Group in Rahway, New Jersey. This comes courtesy […]

Why must there be an expiration date on something so important? February 10th through the 16th is the official “Random Acts of Kindness Week.” But why stop there, when we could have a “Random Acts of Kindness Month, Year, Decade, Century and Millennium”? And why limit it to “Kindness”? There are plenty of synonyms that […]