by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 17, 2008
You know you’re at a David Mamet play when, before the show even starts, you’re asked to turn off your fucking cell phones.
While the play was first produced in the seventies, the subject matter is hardly dated; nothing gives away the time period (except for John Leguizamo’s crazy-patterned shirt — which could easily be more of a nod toward his character’s thrift-store-shopping-habits than the decade); even in the program “The Time” is listed only as “One Friday”.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 25, 2008
Years ago I got the Gregory McGuire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and it immediately became one of my top favorites of all time. I’m a big fan of stories that tell the other side of the story (see: Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead). Moral of Wicked: Don’t always believe the first story you hear, even if that story is coming from a poor little Kansas farm girl who got picked up off her fence post by a tornado and was deposited, worlds away, into a strange place where 1) citizens are diminutive and members of something called the Lollipop Guild, 2) the welcome committee is comprised of one women who arrives onto the scene via Floating Giant Bubble, 3) there’s only one road you can follow to get out of the place, and 4) everything that’s gone wrong is the fault of some wicked green witch who likes to transform people into tin and straw for kicks when she’s not commanding a fleet of flying monkeys.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on August 3, 2008
When I was a little girl I was shocked to discover that you could check records out of the library just like you checked out books. It almost seemed like stealing … stealing with your EARS.
Since my dad’s collection of records was extensive but sadly lacking a few staples I immediately headed over to the Broadway section to see what they had. And there I found a treasure of shows I’d never even HEARD of before, all for the temporary taking. I was like a kid in a candy store. But more like just a kid. You know … in a library.
The first record I ever checked out was Damn Yankees. I renewed it over and over again, sure that I was begrudging some other fan of their dose of Lola and Shoeless Joe but to hell with that! Of course, looking back, I bet I was probably the last person to check the record out, but if not, I can safely say I was probably the last 12 year old.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on September 20, 2007
There’s an episode of Will & Grace where Jack tries to ignore Patti LuPone as she chatters, crawls around on the floor, and just generally makes herself un-ingnorable. At one point he screams “Shut up Patti LuPone! Shut your brassy, magnificent trap!!!”
She turns around and deadpans … “They either love me or they hate me.” I laughed. I laughed because I … hate her. Those are HER WORDS …
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