Jan 30, 2014

She began by working in movies she was too young to attend then later appeared on stage in musicals (Pal Joey) and straight plays (The Coast of Utopia). Now she stars in Raising Hope on Fox Television. Also impressive: how she uses her copious free time. The advocacy organization “A Is For…” is an expression of...

Jan 23, 2014

The number of people who can currently see their lives enacted on the musical stage is, I believe, three. Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, that scary witch in Wicked – but she might be fictional – and Alison Bechdel, whose graphic memoir, Fun Home, is the basis of the hit show at New York’s Public Theater. She...

Jan 16, 2014

Alan Zweibel enjoyed early success on the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live, often writing for Gilda Radner, with whom he shares the rare ability to be simultaneously funny and sweet. He went on to write some of the smartest shows on television, including Gary Shandling’s. Since then, he’s given us plays...

Jan 9, 2014

Sara Paretsky is best known for a series of crime novels featuring the first great woman private eye, V.I. Warshawski. Paretsky is also the founder of Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports women crime writers, as well as a foundation to encourage women in the sciences.  Critical Mass, her latest V.I....

Jan 1, 2014

Walter Bernstein was born in Brooklyn in 1919. For the next 94 years he wrote and co-wrote terrific movies for big stars: Fail Safe with Henry Fonda, The Train with Burt Lancaster, The Magnificent Seven with everybody – Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson.  The Front, with...