I can’t quite explain how it happened, but last night I found myself performing in my underwear for Meryl Streep.
Well, I can explain part of it—the part that wasn’t the direct result of the Gods of Off-Off-Broadway Theater.
My good friend Hanah Fazio wrote a play called “The Miss Woman Pageant 2013,” which was Read More
Reeve Foundation Keeps Magical Alive
As we walked out of Cipriani 55 on Wednesday, we were overwhelmed with confusion. What had just happened? Smiling, we headed for a cab, trying to piece together some sort of cohesion.
“We are getting people out of wheelchairs and walking,” I recalled Matthew Reeve saying at the beginning of the evening, poised on the red carpet of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation annual Magical Evening. ‘That involves fundraising.”
“Its a wonderful chance to celebrate what the organization has accomplished and remind everyone what needs to be done, whilst remembering my father and step mother’s legacy.”
With the evening’s noble purpose clearly set in our minds, we were ushered to our tables.
Good Morning America anchors Josh Elliot, Sam Champion and Lara Spencer kicked off the proceedings with a champagne toast. The taste of bubbly fresh on our lips, the presentation of the Christopher Reeve Spirit and Courage award soon followed. We were inspired by James Dasavano‘s struggle to reverse his mother’s paralysis, a fete he accomplished with the help of his family and the foundation. Tears almost came to our eyes when we saw his mother walk beside him to the podium. Read More
Three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep announced last night her donation of $1 million to the Public Theater, the company at which she got an early start on the New York stage. “I give this gift in honor of the founder of The Public Theater, my friend and mentor Joseph Papp, and in remembrance Read More
In an age of idiotic garbage overpopulated with alternate realities and toxic avengers in Halloween costumes, I cannot tell you how touching, restorative and vitamin-enriching it is to see a gentle, tender and intelligent film with A-list stars playing real people dealing with real problems in the everyday world. Instead of stupid gags and punchlines, Hope Springs is a character study in elegiac pastels about how people love, then change and eventually drift away from each other—and the daunting energy it takes for them to get their old mojo back while the apple still bites. Separately, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are national treasures, but together they are simultaneously spectacular and intimately awe-inspiring. I have never loved either one more. Read More
“We have a Shakespearean, Elizabethean temper,” Al Pacino informed a seated crowd Monday evening in Central Park. As part of its 50th Anniversary Gala, the Public Theater was honoring Mr. Pacino with an award, in the form of a prop rapier he had once wielded on stage, “I’m a little nervous,” he laughed. “I wish I had water, but I have a sword,” Read More
Per The Hollywood Reporter, George Clooney and writing partner Grant Heslov are set to produce the long-gestating film adaptation of Tony hog August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts. While Mr. Clooney has not indicated whether or not he’ll appear in the film, his Ocean’s on-screen squeeze Julia Roberts is set to star along with Read More
In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park festival at the Delacorte Theater, Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep are going to play parts we would have thought they might have aged out of–Romeo and Juliet. Hey, if there’s anyone whom we’re told, over and over, can play any role, it’s Ms. Read More
As we were otherwise unoccupied on Sunday night, we turned on the television to watch the 84th Academy Awards. “You’re only two years older than me,” Christopher Plummer crooned to his newly acquired gold statue, “Where have you been all my life?” Mr. Plummer won Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Beginners, giving him the distinction of being the oldest actor to ever win an Oscar. But by the end of the telecast, we’d all aged at least a couple of decades, as did Billy Crystal, who seemed to have peeked inside the Ark of the Covenant right before the broadcast.
The whole night was full of non-surprises. Read More
The year’s biggest night for fashion was an unusually metallic affair–with Best Actress Meryl Streep draped in gold, Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer in sparkly silver, Melissa Leo in a pile of sequins, and Jennifer Lopez in a significantly sparser pile of sequins. Aside from all the gold and silver, black and white seemed to rule the evening–the few well-executed bits of color, like Michelle Williams’s sweet red dress, came across beautifully. Here’s who we thought were the best dressed last night! Read More
Last night’s Oscars were as draggy as ever–perhaps it’s time to give up the ghost of the hope that they can magically become a breezy ceremony, or at least to stop complaining annually that the jokes are hackneyed and the show’s self-congratulatory. The jokes being hackneyed are kind of the point, and, given that this Read More
