Archives for November 17, 2020

A new episode of Three on the Aisle, the podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.

Here’s American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings: 

This week the critics talk about creating a government post for arts and culture and who might fill such a position. They also touch on what the Biden Administration might mean for the theatre. Terry shares his thoughts on comedy without live laughter, and Elisabeth and Peter discuss some interactive game-style shows on Zoom and the video platform Shindig. Their picks this week include Ready Made Cabaret 2.0 by This Is Not A Theatre Company, the Geffen Playhouse’s Inside the Box, and the Irish Rep’s A Touch of the Poet.

To listen to or download this episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

In case you’ve missed any previous episodes, you’ll find them all here.

From 2004:

All of which leads me to ask: is the performance of classical music an intellectual activity? Did the breadth of Glenn Gould’s culture make him a better interpreter of Bach? I wonder. I’ve known a lot of musicians in my time, some of whom were damned smart and some of whom were (ahem) less so, and I rarely noticed any clear-cut relationship between what went into their heads and what came out of their fingers or mouths. (In my more limited experience, the same is true of dancers and painters.) I’m not saying that a stupid person can become a successful musician, but I’m not so sure that having read T.S. Eliot equips you to play Beethoven’s Op. 111 well. It certainly didn’t help Gould….

Read the whole thing here.

“We all have to climb out of the pit of desolation, or what is more likely, have to live in it, planting our flowers among the ashes and squirting them with our gaiety.”

Peter De Vries, letter to James Thurber, 1959