Brahms’ Mountainous Concerto
“It is a long and massive piano concerto. Just making it to the end of the first movement is like making it to base camp.” Pianist Orli Shaham was likening…
Love Never Dies
What happens when your sky-high expectations for the title song of a musical fall flat when the big moment comes and the singer can’t deliver or the lyrics just don’t…
A Musical Christmas Carol
There is nothing better than a ghost for Halloween, except maybe a ghost for Christmas. At the Zach Theatre now you can see not one but four ghosts on stage…
DOUBT
Doubt is as old as civilisation. As author Jennifer Hecht has written, “the birth of philosophy is one of the origins of doubt.” As an inescapable element of thought, it…
Presidential History in Northern Texas
While the Austin area is LBJ country, the first Texas-born president of the United States hailed from the far north. I recently visited Denison, 270 miles north of Austin, to…
The Full Monty: Terrence McNally at 80
“A play isn’t finished until the last character enters.” So said Terrence McNally at his 80th birthday celebration, held at Austin’s Zach Theatre on Nov. 12. The ‘last character’ he…
Otello: Lessons for Our Time
The lasting legacy of Shakespeare resides in part on his relevance to more modern times. Even though his plays deal with events hundreds of years ago, each succeeding generation finds…
Jerry Brown: It’s a Dangerous Time
California Governor Jerry Brown, during a visit to Austin, issued a dire warning for the near future. “The population is segmenting: we’re going from unum to plurality. It’s a dangerous…
Edgar Allan Poe: A Life Full of Woe
The musical Nevermore, currently playing in Austin, had a special showing on Halloween. This is quite appropriate as Poe’s legacy is so identified with horror and the macabre. I actually…
Halloween: Vampires and Witches
Austin author Raymond Villareal recently had his first novel published: A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising. He related in October at the Texas Book Fest that his inspiration for…