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- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
- “Only the bad directors tell you how to read a line, how to define your character. The good ones let you do your job.” — Carroll Baker
- “I never heard the term ‘rockabilly’ back then. Nobody did…When people asked what music we played, we were rock ’n’ rollers.” — Sonny Burgess
- “I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape.” — György Ligeti
- An Acting Lesson: John Wayne and the “Reality of the Doing”
Recent Comments
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Bryan Summers on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Lyrie on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
- Kendra Williams on Josh White, singer of “the fighting blues”
- sheila on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- sheila on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Bill Wolfe on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- Donn Harris on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- sheila on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- Pat on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- sheila on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
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Tag Archives: scripts
“I have been done in by both men and women. I don’t have any preference.” — Anita Loos
“I’ve had my best times trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I’ve always loved high style in low company.” — Anita Loos Anita Loos’ screenwriting credits are so extensive it’s impossible to absorb them. She’s most well-known … Continue reading
“That’s the Irish People all over – they treat a serious thing as a joke and a joke as a serious thing.” — Seán O’Casey, Shadow of a Gunman
“You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell your slaves could ever build.” … Continue reading
“Make voyages! — Attempt them! — there’s nothing else …” — Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams) was born on this day in Columbus, Mississippi in 1911. Will you do a total stranger the kindness of reading his verse? Thank you! Thomas Lanier Williams — Tennessee Williams, letter to editor Harriet Monroe, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazan, Glass Menagerie, Laurette Taylor, Marlon Brando, scripts, Tennessee Williams
25 Comments
“The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority.” — Henrik Ibsen
It’s his birthday today. Some posts from my archive: This is a doozy, an excerpt from an amazing book made up of transcribed lectures on Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg, by legendary actress and acting teacher Stella Adler. It’s a great … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Clifford Odets, Henrik Ibsen, Lee Strasberg, Norway, scripts, Stella Adler
4 Comments
“If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.” – Happy Birthday, Brendan Behan
“Shakespeare said pretty well everything and what he left out, James Joyce, with a judge from meself, put in.” – Brendan Behan Brendan Behan, Irish playwright, IRA man, was born in Dublin on this day, 1923. He lived a life … Continue reading
“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other.” — Anton Chekhov
It’s his birthday today. Anton Chekhov, letter to actress (and wife) Olga Knipper January 2, 1901 “Describe at least one rehearsal of Three Sisters for me. Isn’t there anything which needs adding or subtracting? Are you acting well, my darling? … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Christopher Walken, Maureen Stapleton, Olympia Dukakis, scripts, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull
9 Comments
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
12 Comments
A Streetcar Named Desire: That’s What Williams Wrote. Deal With It.
A re-post for the anniversary of Streetcar debuting on Broadway. I wrote this essay after seeing a 2011 production of Streetcar at Williamstown. Directed by David Cromer Starring Sam Rockwell as Stanley Kowalski, Jessica Hecht as Blanche DuBois, Ana Reeder … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged A Streetcar Named Desire, Sam Rockwell, scripts, Tennessee Williams
55 Comments
“If someone spends his life writing the truth without caring for the consequences, he inevitably becomes a political authority in a totalitarian regime.” — Václav Havel
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” — Václav Havel Václav Havel, whose birthday … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Czechoslovakia, Golshifteh Farahani, Iran, Iranian film, Jafar Panahi, scripts, Shabnam Toloui, Vaclav Havel, war
2 Comments