Editorials
529 results
Page 48
When writers collide
Doctors and patients, or: On listening to youth
If my purpose in editing BSR is to educate myself, why am I turning for my musical education to a 20-something whippersnapper like Beeri Moalem when I could surround myself exclusively with elder sages who possess multiple degrees and years of life experience to boot?
Editorials
3 minute read
The 'Inquirer' and John Yoo
'They hire each other': The Inquirer and John Yoo
The Inquirer says it needed to add a right-wing columnist “to counter criticism that our editorials and columns always lean left.” Benito Mussolini wasn't available. So whom else to hire but John Yoo, author of the Bush administration's torture memos?
Editorials
6 minute read
Campaign slogans for Arlen Specter
The old man and the puddle: Campaign slogans for Arlen Specter
In the evening of his life, Arlen Specter has boldly cut himself adrift from his moorings. Is this not a parable worthy of Hemingway or Shakespeare? Who will provide Specter with the rhetorical ballast he'll surely need when he seeks re-election next year? I volunteer.
Editorials
3 minute read
Further thoughts on "American Buffalo'
In search of Mamet's meaning (continued)
Some critics contend that David Mamet's American Buffalo is above all a play about friendship and community. But what sort of community, exactly, are we talking about?
Editorials
3 minute read
Leadership, Papadakis-style
A lesson from Papadakis: How a leader makes a difference
Drexel University's late president Constantine Papadakis was walking evidence that a single determined individual can still make a big difference— as I discovered during my very first meeting with him.
Editorials
4 minute read
Itamar Moses on Dan Rottenberg's smokescreens
Free speech, or a disingenuous editor? A colloquy with playwright Itamar Moses
In the latest round of BSR's Hundred Years' War between playwrights and critics, editor Dan Rottenberg engages in an e-mail colloquy with playwright Itamar Moses, who charges him with hiding behind rhetorical smokescreens.
Editorials
8 minute read
When a communicator blames his audience
When a playwright blames his critics: An open letter to Itamar Moses
Not many playwrights have the guts to declare, as Itamar Moses recently did, that critics are “fragile and infantile.” Unfortunately, in the process Moses also violated one of the first laws of professional communicators: “Never blame your audience.”
Editorials
5 minute read
A colloquy: Playwrights and their critics
Playwrights, critics and the Internet— and where does Broad Street Review fit in?
In an exchange of e-mails, director/designer David O'Connor chastises Dan Rottenberg for heavy-handed editing and for his critics' “unprofessional and inappropriate” behavior. Dan Rottenberg responds: Why should theater people monopolize the right to free expression and the right to be different?
Editorials
9 minute read
Are theatrical readings necessary?
The Hairy Ape as a work in progress: Why do theater companies hold advance readings?
Behind BSR's recent controversy over critics who review theater readings lurks a more fundamental question: Why do theater companies hold readings and previews of unfinished works in the first place? And why haven't other artists— like, say, Beethoven and Picasso— followed suit?
Editorials
5 minute read
Blinking at Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point
When outliers blink at the tipping point: Malcolm Gladwell discovers the obvious
What do Jesus, Lenin, Osama bin Laden and Martin Van Buren have in common? All somehow escaped the notice of the facile pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell.
Editorials
5 minute read