Everything That Would Be Copy for Nora Ephron Nowadays by Elyse Sommer

Everything That Would Be Copy for Nora Ephron Nowadays

by Elyse Sommer

Nora Ephron and her three sisters were raised by parents who were successful screenwriters. All  became writers, but it was Nora who most famously followed Mother Phoebe's maxim: "Everything is copy." As a journalist and essayist, Nora's combination of "on the mark" and often unflattering insights  with rib-tickling humor remains unmatched.  In her TV and film scripts, she managed to make the  heroines of her happily-ever-after plots smart and worth knowing.

Unfortunately, Ephron is no longer with us (she succumbed to cancer ten years ago).  Ah, but hold on, she is still very much with us -- courtesy of the still-available collections of her priceless scribblings    and iconic romantic movies. In fact,  I can't think of a better way to escape from the gloomy news cycle than to read or re-read her or to watch one of her romantic movies, which merged her bracing belief in  second chances with their shoutouts for women's rights to a place at the male-dominated table.

Donald Trump would likely be on Nora's list of people who would make good copy. Actually, this  would be a second take. Her 1989 "Famous First Words" article for Esquire cited Trump as different because he wanted more than anything to be famous and have people notice and talk about him.   Besides that desire for recognition, Ephron saw no signs of Trump's being intelligent. For sure, she'd  now want to address how his pursuit of fame had taken him to the White House and made his self-absorption dangerous.

Ephron was culturally very Jewish even if she wasn't observant, so the current rise in antisemitism  would surely be copy for her. She would undoubtedly have her own sharp-eyed take on Trump's being   the grandfather of three Orthodox Jewish grandchildren though not visibly involved in their religious     lives.

The Ephron movies that became super hits were not only produced and directed by men but also featured all-white casts. This included her three biggest hits --When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail   and Sleepless in Seattle. Undoubtedly, she would feel obliged to address that golden era's non-existing  diversity.

One recent example of an updated look at diversity is the latest Broadway production of Our Town, which does address the issue with color-blind casting by making George's parents black.    According to this revival's critics, such casting hasn't worked. And while it probably wouldn't work for  Nora, she might have written a play in which black as well as white people take center stage. Or, she    might track down playwright Bruce Norris, who very aptly did this in 2012 with Clybourne Park (see  my review in the Curtainup archives).  

Unlike Nora, her beloved sister Delia suffered from but survived the same cancer. True to Mother Phoebe's everything is copy maxim, Delia turned her cancer battle as well as her late-in-life happy love relationship into a play xLeft On Tenth, which is based on her autobiography and now on Broadway. Unlike the sisters' multi-cast movies, Left on Tenth is a small two-hander and fits the need  for smaller, cheaper-to-mount plays. However, despite the starry cast (Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher) and director (Susan Strohman), it remains to be  seen whether the Ephron name  will attract enough ticket buyers.

We'll never know whether Nora too would have turned her illness and happy third marriage into copy  to work as a stage play. Nor will we know what she'd have to say about two other plays (Vladimir and Yellow Face) now having  monthlong  runs in October and November. Yellow Face is a diversity-aware  replay that I reviewed during its 2007 Public Theater production (you can check it out in the Curtainup  archives). Vladimir is the first new political play set in  Putin's Russia.    

 Sad to say, Nora Ephron's witty voice was silenced way too soon.

Tracking the Changes of My Life Via a Survey of Constantly Changing Communicating Tools

Tracking the Changes of My Life Via a Survey of Constantly Changing Communicating Tools

By Elyse Sommer

My first writing tool was a fountain pen and the "platform" on which my scribblings landed was a sheet of paper.  

Given my terrible handwriting, learning to punch out my words on a typewriter was more than a welcome change. That change also paralleled pivotal life changes: College . . . my first experience as a working woman . . . marriage and moves to living spaces that accommodated children . . . becoming   my own boss as an agent for writers of romance magazine fiction.

 Of the various typewriters I owned, I especially loved a handsome portable red Olivetti. My very first computer, the Kaypro, was a big green box with slits at each side for floppy disks for saving text. The Kaypro lingers in my memory like a first love.

To be sure, even though pen and ink was their only available writing tool, authors like Jane Austen,  Charlotte Bronte and Leo Tolstoy managed to turn out many timeless novels. But while I've written no classic literary works, ever more sophisticated digital writing (and reading) tools have continued to parallel working and personal life changes for me.

In a way, this feature is a continuation of my last two blogspot features ( https://www.blogger.com).  Naturally, the amazing digital advances come with plenty of pros and cons, no matter what one's age.  

Major  pros 

My big personal pro of digital advances is that I was able to expand my theater coverage to areas     beyond New York. The friendships with my trusty reviewers was a major added plus in addition to   easily connecting with friends, relatives and co-workers anywhere. The digital age also brought  conveniences that made working, going to school and using the library easier through access to a   weightless shelf full of books available to you wherever you go.    

There's also the pro of more readily available news and entertainment and using that ever-smarter  phone to make and get calls as well as take photos. The not-so-golden aspects of getting older --weakened eyesight and hearing -- are offset by enlarged type on Kindle readers and being able to still   have conversations courtesy of hearing aids hooked into that do-anything smartphone.   

The inevitable cons

The cons are, of course, inevitable. Despite its convenience, email has turned from a stream of   interesting-to-open-and-answer mail to a flood that includes junk and is often dangerous to click on.   Then, there's the feeling of having to always be more meaningfully connected to friends and relatives.    This constantly online life has also shortened attention spans and hobbled efforts to write creatively and colorfully. 

Some successful writers -- like Stephen King, who no doubt can afford the most up-to-date and  expensive digital  tools -- complete at least their first drafts by hand. The manual input cuts down on  distractions and allows King and his fellow scribes to feel more intimately in touch with their   characters. John MacDonald, one of the mid-1900s most successful and prolific mystery writers,   abandoned pen and ink but pounded out his novels and short stories on typewriter after typewriter.  

Here's hoping that any new tools becoming available will help to make the world less beset with  worrisome world events and benefit the cultural zeitgeist. The many theater productions being mounted now and the rest of this year and through the following year support optimism and also the sense of  possibility -- the possibility that a few of these offerings will catch fire despite the high ticket prices  necessitated by the ever-rising cost of putting on a show.

A Peek at Titles Set to Light Up Theater Marquees

As usual, the lineup of shows includes established hits that will succeed again thanks to star-powered  casting. Naturally, that means at least one or two Shakespeare plays on or off Broadway. And sure   enough, King Lear, starring Kenneth Branagh, is sure to further enhance the 2019-established Shed's  reputation as one of New York's most prestigious cultural facilities. Given the real world's rise in anti-semitism, the East 13th Street Classic Stage's new look at The Merchant of Venice is likely to be  timely even without star performances.

The fairy-tale sourced musical Once Upon a Mattress proved to be a Shakespeare-like gold mine since its 1952 debut (starring Carol  Burnett) at the Variety Arts Theater on East 13th Street and later Broadway transfer.  Now, producers have opted to recapture that ticket-selling magic by casting Sutton Foster in the lead. So far, so good. The revival's brief run at Encores has led to an extended run at Broadway's Hudson Theater, starting August 20, 2025.

The open run of Mattress was preceded by a month-long run of The Last Five Years. This small  musical (two actors) also has been a hit thanks to its catchy Jason Robert Brown score and modest   production costs. However, it's never been on Broadway. Now, with the need for entertaining, cost- effective shows, The Last Five Years will finally make it to The Great White Way in 2025.

Another intriguing revival is David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. Undoubtedly, producers hope it  will restore Mamet's fading reputation (his last new play, The Penitent, was pretty much dead as it  opened). The theater is not yet set, but the starry cast, headed by Kieran Culkin, is.

More iconic hits headed back to Broadway include Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard as of   September 28 at the St. James. Lloyd Webber is also working on a new musical, so maybe another    super hit like Phantom is on the horizon. Other composers and playwrights have not spent the  pandemic years like Rip Van Winkle. Thus, Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang will be at the newly  renamed Todd Haimes Theatre from September 13 to November 24. Donald Margulies and Jeff  Butterworth have also scripted new works. Margulies's two-character Lunar Eclipse will have an open  run at Second Stage company's Off Broadway Tony Kiser Theater. Butterworth's The Hills of California is set for a 12-week run at Broadway's Broadhurst venue starting September 12th.

With audiences starved for a few hours of escape entertainment, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical is likely to fill seats when it opens at Studio 54 on November 11th.

Though several small theaters have bitten the dust, other downtown gems like the Mint, the Vineyard,  and the Transport Group are soldiering on, presenting the kind of interesting work that has won them audiences.

To conclude, for sure there will be plenty of plays to make creative sense of the drama of our real world. Actually, a play about the Russian dictator whose attack on Ukraine is still raging is already on  the boards. It's entitled -- what  else? -- Vladimir and will debut at New York City Center Stage 1 on  West Street starting September 24 and open on October 17.  The play is set in Putin's first term. Sad to say, viewers will be seeing it with Putin in power for his fifth term and the focus on a reporter clutching to sanity would likely be doing so in prison.

 

.

...

Netflix Has Created a New Golden Age for Mainstream Romance Series With Virgin River

.

Netflix Has a New Golden Age for Mainstream Romance Series With Virgin River 

by Elyse Sommer

The streaming platform's move into the world of romance-sourced novels as series has been  an astounding success. It's not that romance writers like Virgin River author Robin Carr haven't been big moneymakers for years. But, heretofore, they've been considered too low brow and specialized to be seen alongside more prestigious romantic fare by the likes of    John Patrick Shanley.

The way Virgin River has out-performed all other Netflix content is especially amazing given   that its fan base is female and even its main actors are not high-profile actors. What's more, while billed as a feel-good escape from our ever increasingly troubled real world, the series'  plot developments are hardly lighthearted. In episode after episode, its characters suffer   devastating illnesses and grief. As for the peaceful, bucolic fictional northern California   landscape, that too includes plenty of darkness -- a drug-peddling colony as well as incidents of rape and murder.  

There was yet another purpose for the addition of this genre.The high cost of holding on to  subscribers has forced even the biggest subscription service of them all to look for new revenues.  And, so, the open digital door for Virgin River.

The expanded format of romantic fiction as a series rather than single-view, Hallmark-ish  movie has, of course, been common on PBS Masterpiece. And this bingeable series has had a ripple effect at Netflix with its Regency costume drama Bridgerton and on the Masterpiece platform with the recently completed series of Jane Austen's unfinished last novel, Sanditon. In fact, Sanditon triggered another new wrinkle to on-screen entertainment by extending its intended single season to three as a result of viewer demand.

While I didn't read or plan to read the novels that Virgin River was based on, I'll admit that the casting and smartly structured and paced adaptation of the series did hook me in like the rest of its fans. That said, I can understand why Netflix would want to cash in further on the series' success but doing so with a Virgin River Stories Game strikes me as odd. The viewers who love the series are not gamers -- and gamers aren't typical Virgin River fans. Yet, Netflix has launched the gaming app before posting the sixth season (It HAS been filmed!) of the series, which bingers are eagerly waiting for.     

Romance writers have long been relegated to outsiderdom from prestige fiction, which made them become entrepreneurs. Their self-published narratives are actually selling well enough to reach bestseller status, with publishers offering them big advances. And as adapting these books as series has created this screening golden era, so the print versions have seeded the creation of successful romance bookstores all over the country. But that's another story for this type of fiction.

And so, before I close this hodge-podge about Virgin River's remarkable success despite its  limited viewership, a bit about what's happening on Broadway and Off-Broadway.

A look at the announcements popping up on marquees all over town seems to point to a  cohtinued comeback from the pandemic years, as indicated by strong sales for Stephen  Sondheim's finally successful Merrily We Roll Along. But the high price of tickets, the  continued preference to work from home rather than in Manhattan offices and the use of limited theatrical runs rather than landmark-style runs like Phantom and Cats are still with us.

One upcoming must-see is the latest Gypsy, with the always-must-see Audra McDonald. The problem is that Audra has a busy home life and is likely to skip matinees and end her Mama Rose role early. In addition, the intense summer heat may have some less inclined to leave their air-conditioned homes. Others may seek "comfort food" diversions from the troubling   political zeitgeist.

I can't predict how any of this will play out, but ask me to predict one theatermaker who can make another golden era of theater audiences possible. My answer is the technician who can  find a way to film the final live performance of a show, possibly at a price lower than what currently only the producers of Merrily We Roll Along can afford.

To check out news of what's new and coming up on and off The Great White Way, go to  Playbill's link below:

https://playbill.com/news

Gallimaufry -- a Hodge Podge of Thoughts Prompted by Local, Global & Cultural Events

Gallimaufry -- a Hodge Podge of Thoughts Prompted by Local, Global & Cultural Events

By Elyse  Sommer

Friends with whom I maintain a steady email conversation often receive one from me with a subject heading of "This and That." The contents include a numbered list of topics to which the recipient can then respond. And so, by calling this missive Gallimaufry, I'm simply indulging in a linguistic borrowing from sixteenth-century French cooks who concocted a stew that contained a little of this and that.

I'm using this old-world title to gather some glad/sad thoughts and memories kicked up by life right  where I live and further afield. I'll start with what's closest -- my home territory. I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood that remains a suburban-like oasis, with tree-lined streets convenient to restaurants,  grocery markets and quick transportation (subway, Long Island Railroad, buses) to NewYork's business and entertainment hub. Despite skyrocketing rents and purchase prices, young people continue to move here. What's more, instead of allowing the dire climate disasters and deplorable incidents of gun violence to discourage them, they courageously opt to raise families. Watching some of their "pandemic babies" become lively toddlers and getting to know them and their parents has socially enriched my daily walks and compensated somewhat for the social interaction that was integral to my previous busy life as Curtainup's editor and critic-in-chief.

Less upbeat and decidedly worrisome is the rise of authoritarian heads of state and the disastrous conflict in the Middle East. To ramp up these worries, that conflict has led to protests and an increase in antisemitism on local campuses and streets.

As for theatercentric happenings, I may be retired but I remain an armchair observer of the beat that  kept me super busy for a quarter century. Thus, below are comments on some happenings along the  area encompassing what's known as The Great White Way.

For starters, the practice of renaming theaters to honor notable practitioners of playwriting, directing  and performing continues, which also supports the bottom line and makes them more commercially  viable enterprises. Several theaters have been renamed since my retirement. But the most spectacular  new look on Broadway is the renovated Palace Theater. Eight years of work culminated in the entire  theater being raised 30 feet in the air. The airlifted venue will open with a concert by Ben Platt and   then followed by Tammy Faye, a new musical about the famous and also infamous preacher's wife. Katie Brayhen plays Tammy Faye and Andrew Rannells plays her spouse.

While I'd probably go to press previews of both the above, I would have had one of my musical  enthusiast backups do the reviews. On the other hand, two upcoming plays would top my see-and-  write-up list: Good Night, and Good Luck and The Mother.

I saw and liked the 2005 movie, Good Night, and Good Luck (the signature sign-off line of famed  newscaster Edward R. Murrow). The movie starred David Strathairn as Murrow and Georce Clooney as Fred Friendly. With Clooney scripting, directing and taking the lead, this stage adaptation would  certainly be on my list of must-see as well as write-about upcoming new plays.

Of course, I wouldn't miss anything by the great Paula Vogel -- not the revival of her Pulitzer-Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive when it was at the Samuel Friedman or her new play, The Mother,  which revisits the story about the brother whose loss she dramatized in The Baltimore Waltz before she  and its downtown cast became famous. The reviews of the new take at the Helen Hayes rejiggered one of my most memorable theater outings.

As always, and especially given that audiences are still hesitant to pay costlier-than-ever ticket prices   except for big-cast, sure-fire musicals, the remarkable solo play Prima Facie is having an unusual and  fascinating off-stage life. A recorded version of the show is being made available to judges who deal with sexual assault cases in Northern Ireland's courts. Bravo for harnessing the play for this valuable  function. 

Hopefully, the whole season, but especially the plays, on what would be the top of my must-see-and-  review list will be filmed so that I'll have a chance to watch on my home screen. No, it won't be the  same, but will give me a front-row view of the actors' faces and gestures. That view is only available   to people in the first five or six rows of a Broadway theater's top-priced orchestra seats.

With Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout Revisits the Remarkable Literary World She Created in Her Previous Nine Novels

With Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout Revisits the Remarkable Literary World She Created in Her Previous Nine Novels

By Elyse Sommer

To start with a hurrah: This latest in Strout's fictional Maine coastal town stories has all the elements  that made the novels so emotionally powerful and interesting to read, despite not being all that plot  driven. The vivid, stylistically smart writing is more than likely to prompt first-time Strout readers to   explore her whole oeuvre. And fans like me will want to re-read at least a few, like the Pulitzer Prize  winning Olive Kitteridge and Lucy by the Sea.

 As in the past, Tell Me Evertything has the feel of a series but isn't. The book has the two most  Stroudian characters -- Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge -- who meet, become friends, and reflect on the meaning of life. The new entry in the Crosby/Shirley Falls saga again plays out within the reality of what's happening in the world. In the case of Tell Me Everything, that's the comeback from the  pandemic, which sent Lucy and her ex-husband William to Crosby and safety in Lucy by the Sea. 

It's a worrisome world to reflect and act upon for the now 90-year-old Olive, along with Lucy, William and Bob Burgess and his minister wife, Margaret. They, as well as other locals, will be as familiar as old friends to Strout fans.  

Fortunately, Strout is at the top of her game. The themes explored are complex and connected with  masterful finesse. But ultimately it's the gorgeous and wonderfully visual writing and identifiability of   her characters that earns Strout's work its masterwork credentials. Happily, there are still enough  readers who value serious writing to make all of her books best sellers. Like other bestselling novels, several have  been adapted for on-screen viewing: Olive Kitteridge, as a very watchable mini-series starring Frances McDormand and My Name Is Lucy Barton as a solo showcase for Laura Linney on Broadway. (My  review of that play is still in Curtainup's archives.)

Actually, Strout's own reference to the episodes in her novels as "scenes" backs up my feeling that  more of her books could be staged as solos, or with two or four of her key characters, using some great  projections of the so vividly described background. However, although I'm as much a theater as reading enthusiast, for me the charm and power of Strout's work is on the page. 

That said, despite her downplaying of plots, she does manage to include an intriguing subplot in every  book. Tell Me Everything is no exception. It includes a local murder case that introduces a terrific new  character who re-activates the about-to-close law practice of Bob Burgess.

A final word about Strout's place among fiction's greats. Unlike Tolstoy and Balzac, she lets her stories  and characters blossom on her own native soil, as Wllla Cather did long ago with My Antonia. And so Tell Me Everything does everything these great novels do:  It's interesting, emotionally engaging and re-readable at different times of the reader's life. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Many Lives of the Great Gatsby

.
The Many Lives of the Great Gatsby by Elyse Sommer

The theater has come back to life with almost a dozen new productions recently opening over the course of less than two weeks and with more announced in the months ahead. As always, shows on  offer include a mix of plays and musicals -- some new, some revivals. Works in the public domain can  be adapted without writers or their heirs granting permission and receiving royalties.

 F. Scott Fitzgerald's oeuvre doesn't go quite as far back as Shakespeare's. Though his The Great Gatsby actually had an unsuccessful first outing in 1925, the book eventually gained status as a classic. And so, the mysterious Gatsby's narrative did have a full and diverse cultural life even before it entered  the public domain in 2021. I won't go into chapter and verse about the ramifications of copyright law. Instead, I'll begin this feature with a brief rundown of its history as staged, filmed and reimagined in print.

Gatsby on Stage

The first known stage adaptation was a drama by Owen Davis, who earlier received a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1923. The play was directed by George Cukor, later widely known as a film director. That version of The Great Gatsby opened to a successful run on Broadway in 1926 with several subsequent runs elsewhere.

The most inventive staging, to my mind, was the Elevator Repair Service Company's Gatz, presented at  the Public Theater in 2010.The eight-hour reading by a cast of terrific actors combined the pleasure of  reading the book and also experiencing theater. If you're too young to have seen it, you may want to   read my wonderful Curtainup colleague Les Gutman's review, which can be found at http://www.curtainup.com/gatzpublic.html

Last year, The Great Gatsby:The Immersive Show saw part of the Park Central Hotel done up to replicate the former Gatsby Mansion near Central Park. However, that show didn't hit the mark like the Macbeth-sourced Sleep No More that ran for years at the McKittredge Hotel. The Immersive Gatsby closed after a brief run.
 
 In 1999, the New York Metropolitan Opera commissioned John Harbison to compose an operatic treatment of the novel to commemorate the 25th anniversary of its music director, James Levine. Ballet versions of The Great Gatsby have included the 2009 performances by BalletMet Columbus at The Capitol Theater in Columbus, Ohio, and a 2010 production by the Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center.

The novel also has been adapted into a series of radio episodes, starting with a half-hour-long episode for the CBS Family Hour of Stars with Kirk Douglas as Gatsby. The story also was read aloud as a 10-part BBC Radio Serial. The first of several short TV movies aired on the popular Robert Mongomery Presents series and starred Montgomery. Publishers also have released several versions of The Great Gatsby in graphic format, with a new publication coming along later this year.

And, yes, there have been Gatsby-inspired video games!

Gatsby Movies

The first Great Gatsby movie was a silent version of the above-mentioned early Broadway play, starring Warner Baxter and William Powell. Only a trailer of that movie still exists. But two later movies can be seen on your home screen. The first, from 1974, was directed by Jack Clayton and  starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow as Gatsby and Daisy, and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. I like Mia Farrow but not her Daisy. A more watchable Daisy can be found in the Baz Luhrmann-directed adaptation that starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. While the movie versions of The Great Gatsby understably made Gatsby the narrator, in the novel, it was Nick Carraway who narrated and observed. Consequently, the movies haven't bested the book. For me, it remains well worth a now-and-then reread. 

While Shakespeare always intended for his plays to be watched, Fitzgerald's intention was that audiences meet his characters on the page. But I've found Shakespeare difficult to read -- except after  hearing his language actually spoken and the charaxters visualized on a stage.

And Now -- The Great Gatsby Musical

Novels and plays have regularly been turned into musicals. Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew was a huge hit as Kiss Me Kate, and the durable hit, The Lion  King, is Shakespeare sourced. But The Great  Gatsby, while enjoying a diverse cultural life, has never been turned into a musical. That is, until now. Not one but two Great Gatsby musicals have been created at non-profit regional theaters known for having their premiere shows transfer to Broadway -- the Paper Mill Playhouse and the Boston  Repertory Theater. Both productions feature stellar creative teams and performers. The Papermill show has already made the move and hopes to be selling tickets at the Broadway theater for a long time.

The Boston Repertory Theater's team also has all the hit-making elements. But with the theater still  struggling to come back from the pandemic and the cost of tickets higher than ever, filling the seats in a big Broadway house is a challenge. And so, no matter how well cast and staged, only the most dedicated musical theatergoers are likely to see two singing Gatsbys. Thus, it remains to be seen if the  Boston Rep opts to transfer its production.

I do tend to prefer dramas to musicals, so if I were still Curtainup's editor and critic-in-chief, I'd  probably check out the Gatsby musical (or musicals) but assign the review to one of  my backup critics. I certainly would not miss seeing and writing about the revival of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt or the  great Paula Vogel's new play Mother with Jessica Lange, Celia Keenan Bolger, and Jim Parsons that's  coming to the Hayes Theater in June. I'd also check out the latest version of Ibsen's Enemy of the  People, sadly more relevant than ever.

A final word about the difference between reading and watching. I recently watched the 2015 film version of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, which stars Carey Mulligan and is available to stream on Max. I found reading that novel, as part of a college literature course, to be rather dull and slow. However, Mulligan and her fellow actors brought the story, locale and era to rich and enjoyable life.  

P,S. After initially posting this blog, my good friend Simon mentioned the noorish 1949 movie version of The Great Gatsby, directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Alan Ladd and the wonderful Betty Field as Daisy. That movie did not make the final version of the blog, but I wanted to give it a nod, so I'm republishing with this note.  -- Elyse Sommer 

An Interesting but Worriesome Time to be Retired by Elyse Sommer

 

 An Interesting but Worriesome Time to be Retired 

by Elyse Sommer

Retiring from a super-busy career you love is not easy.  

Fortunately, everything I and my many good friends and colleagues  have written about since 1996 is still available to read via the archives and special Google search box links at the right side of   Curtainup's now frozen main page (www.curtainup.com).  

My interest in and love of the theater is not retired, though. Given  the entertainment world's new normal, with its blend of all  storytelling formats, my blogpost updates at  https://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com/ cover the entire cultural  spectrum.   

The way various screening platforms have given writers, actors and  directors a chance to create content strikes me as a new golden era  reminiscent of the golden age of dramas and musicals during the 1940s and '50s.

Unfortunately, the unrelentingly depressing news cycle has put a kibosh on that pleasure and has had me spend most of my time  looking for escape fare to read and watch. As it turned out, lots of  what I found not only diverted but also did what any well done  cultural content does: enliven, enrich and lead the viewer to other   worthwhile reading or watching experiences.

My search began with some golden oldie movies. The work of Nora Ephron and John Patrick Shanley proved to be as good, if not better than ever. If Ephron were alive, she would surely be writing and directing a sequel to You've Got Mail. Instead of the bittersweet  romance between a mega bookstore owner and a small neighborhood bookseller, she'd be dealing with the Amazon effect. Even the great  Ephron might find it hard to turn that into a romance. 

Rewatching Screenwriter Shanley's Moonstruck refreshed my  memory of Actor John Mahoney before his later and more famous  role in the Frasier sitcom. That led me to revisiting the series and its superb cast and genuinely witty dialogue. David Hyde Pierce, the  show's Dr. Niles Crane, is still doing great work on stage and screen.  But Grammar, the titular Frasier Crane, did not recapture the  original 's magic in his recently updated Frasier miniseries. Clearly,  it does take trial and error to find really solid feel-good fare.   

Naturally, it's satisfying to spend time with familiar and still impactful stories. But reassurance that fine new work is still being  created is also needed. Hurrah! It is! I've already written about Ann  Pachett's wonderful new novel in my recent blogspot feature https://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com/2023/08/thornton-wilders-our-town-gives-ann.html. Patchett is an awardwinning author. Lessons In Chemistry, another outstanding new novel by Bonnie Garmus, is a debut that has been adapted into a terrific streaming series. 

Though Robyn Carr is certainly a successful writer, I haven't read a  Harlequin romances since I was an agent for writers of that genre.   That said, Sue Tenney's Virgin River series added a delightful guilty pleasure to my on-screen escape fare. The outstanding cast and   Tenney's skillful adaptation had me hooked for all five seasons, with another one coming to Netflix.

For the many who want their entertainment away from home again,  the good news is that Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters have  plenty  of shows on offer and created and performed by a more  diverse talent pool than ever before.

Kimberly Akimbo, an intimate musical, had a trial run at the downtown Atlantic Theater. It actualy had another prior life as a   non-musical play (My reviews of those versions are in the    Curtainup archives). Another show with a prior history that did  remarkably well with the critics was a hokey musical called Shucked.   

But neither these or any other shows that have opened seem to have  the legs to sttck around for years. That brings me to the not-so -good  news: People have not been rushing back to the theater. Consequently, producers are struggling financially. With the cost of  putting on a show going up rather than down, deeply discounting  tickets to fill seats is good for savvy theatergoers but not the box  office. Even Phantom of the Opera ended its seemingly forever run.  So did the remarkably durable Here Lies Love in its way off the  beaten path location.  

A number of invaluable small theaters have closed, but many more  are carrying on ... with shorter seasons and smaller casts and  production values. Unsurprisingly, some of the big houses have   brought back sure-fire hits with ticketselling stars, like The Music Man with Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman. What's more, The Lion King and Wicked, which have been running for years, remain  Broadway fixtures.  

To conclude, it will take time for the "fabulous invalid" to be truly  fabulous again. Since I've seen it recover from tough times again and again, I'm hopeful it will do so once more. Ditto, that our currently  uncertain world too will find a way to deal with weather disasters,  hate crimes and wrong-minded governance.