St. Melissa
Just back from seeing the Broadway musical production of Green Day’s American Idiot for the third time in three weeks, this time with Melissa Etheridge in the role of the drug dealer and possible...
View ArticleEtheridge Update
Melissa Etheridge concluded her run as St. Jimmy in American Idiot tonight. Here’s an audience video of her final encore: And I’m happy to report that I got my wish. The MP3 from her first night — and...
View ArticleSaved by Angels?
We’re closing in on the end of our Writing New York semester with some texts that explore utopian and dystopian elements of New York City at the end of the 20th century and start of the 21st. When we...
View ArticleKushner, Cosmopolitanism, and U.S. Emergent Literatures
Two years ago, I wrote a post here, entitled “The Cosmopolitan and the Provincial,” about using the idea of fallibilism to think about Kushner’s two-part play, Angels in America (1992-95). Today, I’d...
View ArticleWrestling with Roy
As we wrap up our discussion of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in today’s Writing New York lecture, we’ll be talking in part about what Kushner gets out of incorporating historical figures such as...
View ArticleThe city on stage
Cyrus’s discussion of Irving’s History over the last week or so lays the foundation for one of the big trajectories we trace in Writing New York: the idea of constructed histories — the literariness...
View ArticleQ&A with Metropolitan Playhouse’s Alex Roe on The Contrast
Two seasons ago our friends at the Metropolitan Playhouse put on a fantastic staging of Royall Tyler’s The Contrast (1787). At the time I wrote a couple posts about it. Since we’re spending a week with...
View ArticleQ&A with Cynthia Kierner: Tyler’s The Contrast
Following on yesterday’s Q&A with Alex Roe, who directed The Contrast for the Metropolitan Playhouse in 2009, today we’re happy to host a Q&A with Professor Cynthia Kierner of George Mason...
View ArticleFashionable Mowatt
In the epilogue to Anna Cora Mowatt’s comedy Fashion (1845) — modeled, as Edgar Allan Poe pointed out in an early review, on Sheridan’s plays — one character expresses her hope that Fashion will become...
View ArticleThe Bowery B’hoy
Today’s reading for vWNY is Benjamin Baker’s 1848 play A Glance at New York, best known for introducing NYC’s homegrown folk hero, Mose the Bowery B’hoy, to the American stage. The full text doesn’t...
View ArticleSt. Melissa
Just back from seeing the Broadway musical production of Green Day’s American Idiot for the third time in three weeks, this time with Melissa Etheridge in the role of the drug dealer and possible...
View ArticleEtheridge Update
Melissa Etheridge concluded her run as St. Jimmy in American Idiot tonight. Here’s an audience video of her final encore: And I’m happy to report that I got my wish. The MP3 from her first night — and...
View ArticleSaved by Angels?
We’re closing in on the end of our Writing New York semester with some texts that explore utopian and dystopian elements of New York City at the end of the 20th century and start of the 21st. When we...
View ArticleKushner, Cosmopolitanism, and U.S. Emergent Literatures
Two years ago, I wrote a post here, entitled “The Cosmopolitan and the Provincial,” about using the idea of fallibilism to think about Kushner’s two-part play, Angels in America (1992-95). Today, I’d...
View ArticleWrestling with Roy
As we wrap up our discussion of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in today’s Writing New York lecture, we’ll be talking in part about what Kushner gets out of incorporating historical figures such as...
View ArticleThe City on Stage
Cyrus’s discussion of Irving’s History over the last week or so lays the foundation for one of the big trajectories we trace in Writing New York: the idea of constructed histories — the literariness...
View ArticleQ&A with Metropolitan Playhouse’s Alex Roe on The Contrast
Two seasons ago our friends at the Metropolitan Playhouse put on a fantastic staging of Royall Tyler’s The Contrast (1787). At the time I wrote a couple posts about it. Since we’re spending a week...
View ArticleQ&A with Cynthia Kierner: Tyler’s The Contrast
Following on yesterday’s Q&A with Alex Roe, who directed The Contrast for the Metropolitan Playhouse in 2009, today we’re happy to host a Q&A with Professor Cynthia Kierner of George Mason...
View ArticleFashionable Mowatt
In the epilogue to Anna Cora Mowatt’s comedy Fashion (1845) — modeled, as Edgar Allan Poe pointed out in an early review, on Sheridan’s plays — one character expresses her hope that Fashion will become...
View ArticleThe Bowery B’hoy
Today’s reading for vWNY is Benjamin Baker’s 1848 play A Glance at New York, best known for introducing NYC’s homegrown folk hero, Mose the Bowery B’hoy, to the American stage. The full text doesn’t...
View Article
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