“The sort of life which I had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was…

In 1615 John Donne did something that changed the course of his life and, 400 years later, the life of Vivian Bearing, Ph.D.: He became an Anglican priest. As a priest and poet, he explored the barriers of mortality and immortality. As a professor of 17th-century English literature, Vivian Bearing…

What happens when you put Hot Lips Houlihan in yellow chiffon three sizes too tight on a roof with a ghost who looks like he could be a skinny second cousin of Elvis Presley? Paste this scene against a Technicolor blue sky reminiscent of those you see in toilet paper…

Critics die. Audiences are reincarnated. The only true test of a work of art’s value is its timelessness, and perhaps its timeliness. Timelessness is the ability of drama to say something about the human condition in a way that penetrates generation after generation of audiences. Timeliness is the director’s (in…

Be honest. If someone told you ahead of time that you were going to see a play that depicts the coming of age of a young black girl somewhere in the South during the mid-’60s, you might want to respond, “What a shame! I have a root canal to attend…