From 2017:

Two weeks from today, I fly down to West Palm Beach with my bags packed for a six-week stay. I’ll report for duty the next morning at Palm Beach Dramaworks’ rehearsal hall, where Bill Hayes and the cast of Billy and Me, my second play, will be going to work.

Read the whole thing here.

Here are the Wall Street Journal drama columns I wrote during my hiatus from this blog:

• To read my review of the off-Broadway revival of Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven, go here.

• To read my reviews of Alice Childress’ Trouble in Mind and the Broadway transfer of Diana, go here.

• To read my review of Classic Stage Company’s off-Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, go here.

• To read my review of the Broadway premiere of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, go here.

I also wrote an appreciation to Sondheim, who died last Friday at the age of ninety-one. To read it, go here.

(If you’re curious, this piece was written on a very tight deadline from a standing start: I got the word of Sondheim’s death at five-thirty on Friday and filed this piece at 6:28.)

“It would be tough, all right. But at the same time it would be like finding a long straight path ahead of you when you felt like running.”

Richard Powell, The Philadelphian

Once again, I have been absent without leave from this space, mainly because I was overwhelmed with work (the theater season is now going at full speed) but also for personal reasons (my girlfriend’s mother has been ill).

It will take a bit more time for me to ramp all the way up to a full schedule of postings, including links to the Wall Street Journal theater reviews and other pieces that came out during my unplanned absence. Nevertheless, I’m going to make a determined effort to resume daily postings, however minimal, starting today.

In the meantime, bear with me. I’m glad to be back!

“She realized clearly that that an activity gains the appeal of exclusiveness not because of who belongs but because of who is not allowed to belong.”

Richard Powell, The Philadelphian

Illinois Jacquet plays “Flying Home” on The Ed Sullivan Show. The drummer is Jo Jones. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on July 10, 1949:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Other people’s marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.”

Patrick O’Brian, The Commodore

Lt. Col. Jason K. Fettig and the United States Marine Band perform “When Jesus Wept,” a movement from William Schuman’s New England Triptych, based on the music of William Billings: