strong parallels to how we were told to make individually responsible risk assessments around COVID at the same time any useful sources of information were systematically dismantled

Today’s show. Finally seeing Chess on the final day! I needed a deadline.

The latest episode of my musical theater podcast Scene to Song was Matching Minds with Sondheim with Barry Joseph. Barry included my audio on his podcast episode and combine it with his interview with mathematician Art Benjamin. Check out the episode: broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/podcasts/mat...

Yesterday’s shows: Mexodus and Gregory Jacob’s-Roseman’s I Hate Cake Birthday Cabaret at Green Room 42. Plus a stop at The Pit for my friend’s improv show in between.

I just watched the whole opening number of Grease 2 again, which is just so amazing. My favorite part is after the Pink Ladies do a West Side Story-esque dance together approaching the school, the T-Birds are set to do a similar approach but instead they just walk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbT...

Just had an "I Remember Sky" moment when I finally opened my curtain after 5 days of Covid isolation (I hunker down haha) and saw the sky for the first time in as many days. An overwhelming albeit brief moment of recognition of something I didn't realize I'd forgotten www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEkR...

Thank you, MCC theater, for streaming the Miscast benefit this weekend!

My latest article is up at The Hat. I'm always excited to dig deeper into anything Thornton Wilder, and I loved talking to writer Kirk Lynn about his process of completing Thornton Wilder's unfinished play. www.readthehat.com/articles/emp...

Tonight’s show: Cable Street at 59E59 theaters

The latest ep of my musical theater podcast is out. I talked to Barry Joseph about his book Matching Minds with Sondheim and how Sondheim's lifelong obsession with puzzles and games shaped everything from his lyrics to his show structures to his closest relationships. scenetosong.podbean.com

Last night’s show: Girl Dolls: The American Musical from Bearded Ladies Cabaret at Philly’s Fringe Arts.

The books I got at The Book Trader in Philly, one of the best used bookstores anywhere. 1. A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett by Ken Mendelbaum 2. Their Words Are Music: The Great Theatre Lyricists and Their Lyrics by Lehman Engel

I'm sorry but I just can't understand Gen Z. I’ll take my millennial every other word is “like” over this bizarre slang.

Name your top 15 (or 16) shows ever, gut instincts only: Moonlighting I Love Lucy X-Files The Good Place Parks and Rec The Office (seasons 2-4) My So-Called Life Agent Carter Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman The Americans Buffy So Weird Enlightened Veronica Mars Saved by the Bell Terminator:The SCC

Every Mother’s Day I make a donation to the National Bail Out’s Free Black Mamas campaign. secure.actblue.com/donate/freeb...

I don’t care about award shows but I care about definitions, and music for a play, especially a revival, is not a score. When plays are nominated in the best original score category like this it signifies a failure to produce enough musicals with an original score in a given year.

Today’s show: Thornton Wilder’s last and unfinished play The Emporium at @classicstage.bsky.social.

Important: Aurora Spiderwoman has posted a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 50th-anniversary compilation, made up from about half a dozen live recordings from the premiere in Philadelphia to the Broadway soundboard. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5luv...

10 years ago someone made a video combining my chorus’s rendition of Miss Saigon’s Bui Doi with Steven Pasquale at the New York Pops Gala and combined it with footage of Peter Polycarpou on "Wogan" (1989): youtu.be/oKudjhL4AgQ?...

Weirdly getting into the Little Miss Sunshine musical after dismissing it during a discussion on my podcast about Bill Finn last year and leaving the off-Broadway production in 2013 with a shrug. Maybe because I just read the screenplay and realized how great the movie is. The score isn’t Finn’s…

Today’s show: A rare production of Jerry Herman’s first Broadway musical Milk and Honey at J2 Spotlight Productions.

I just got an email from my dry cleaners with the subject line "What We Achieved Together In 2025." They are very nice but together the most we achieved was deciding to sew up the holes in my sweater. Otherwise it was all them.

Two shows I saw recently: Slam Frank and Oh, Mary.

Last night’s show: The Seat of Our Pants at The Public for the second time.

My article!

We are at the point in our timeline where if you would like to speak to a human being if you need technical help, you have to ask for one.

Tonight’s show! Catch me doing this cabaret in February!

Last night’s show, perfect for Halloween! Bat Boy the Musical at City Center.

Tonight’s show: The Seat of Our Pants at the Public Theater

They don’t tell you this but in adulthood everything that looks like 1 step is actually 20 steps in a trench coat.

Today’s show: Death Becomes Her

The fascists are really fascisting today.

The event I did at the Drama Bookshop in January with Alvin Eng is now a podcast episode! Listen to us talk about Our Town and Alvin's wonderful book Our Laundry, Our Town. Available here and on podcast platforms: broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/podcasts/the...

Tonight’s show: Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park

For the love of g-d when you go to get vaccinated wear a mask. There are ppl who know themselves to be extremely vulnerable to viral infections who are literally putting off getting the Covid vax they need because busy drugstores full of unmasked faces is too much of a covid exposure risk for them.

Tonight’s show: John Proctor is the Villain

Today is my 25-year New York-iversary! 25 years in NYC. I always wanted to live here and I’m glad I have a day each year to celebrate living my dream. As Fred Ebb says if you can make it here you can make it anywhere, and maybe someday I'll see if that's true. But as Sondheim says, "I’m still here!"

I’ve come to realize that the life of a writer is pretty bad, but people endure it because a life without writing would be worse.

Just curious if anyone has a 2025 bingo card they feel super confident in.

All the theater I saw in London last week: Elephant at Menier Chocolate Factory, Here We Are at the National, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Giant, and King of Pangea at King’s Head Theatre (not pictured).

Tonight’s show: Old Friends at Manhattan Theatre Club

“The living see infinity; the finality may be seen only by the dead. In the meantime, love and suffer, hope and meditate. Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.” - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Today’s show: Real Women Have Curves

This week I graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, & Television Professional Program in Writing for Television (Comedy)! From September to June I took three 10-week online classes in which I wrote a spec script and two pilots. It was a journey and I can’t believe it’s over.

Last night’s show: Floyd Collins at Lincoln Center Theater

If you’re in a position of privilege, ask disabled and marginalized people how to make these activities more accessible. Build strong networks of community care. Take people shopping, pick up food & meds, donate to mutual aid. Wear a mask. No one is coming to save us. We must save each other.

Tonight’s show: Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Signature Theater and first time there!

Yesterday’s show: Wonderful Town at City Center

There's really no The Americans fan video to "Nobody's Side" from Chess? If only I had those skills and some time.

Just going to say it and many will disagree, but I don't think we need a Ragtime revival. I don't think Ragtime is the musical for this moment.