Entertainment

What are your favorite movies, TV shows and bands? What are your favorite actors and actresses over 60? What about music performers? Let's explore the magical world of entertainment together!

6 months ago

On Book and Film Endings: The Neat Bow and the Ellipsis

Endings are fiendish things. In the old days, fictional endings were clearly defined, wrapped up, tied with ribbon and fastened in a neat bow. Shakespeare’s endings were unambiguous: tragedies ended in mass death, comedies ended…

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7 months ago

Film Review: Fonda and Tomlin in Moving On

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are at it again. Last year’s follow-up to the seven year run of Grace and Frankie was, 80 For Brady, a whimsical quest to meet and ogle superstar footballer, Tom Brady. Even with the addition of co-stars Sally Field…

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7 months ago

Taylor Swift at 70 (Me, Not Her): What I Learned at this Late Stage from The Eras Tour

The email subject line included a heart emoji – “♥Calling Taylor Swift Fans” – and offered presale access to The Eras Tour, scheduled in nearby Tampa for shortly before my 70th birthday. “Maybe this could be an early present to myself,” I thought. And was it ever…

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7 months ago

Modern Opera/Rock Opera/Musicals – All Singing, All the Time

All musical forms progress as new instruments, new technology, and new innovators come on the scene. Modern opera has bad rap because some of it contains music written using the 12-note scale, uncomfortable to most ears…

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8 months ago

The Color of Chicago Opera and Theater

Last spring, I wrote about the explosion of black on the live stage. In 2022, all the new plays opening on Broadway were written by black playwrights and starred black performers. Locally, in Chicago, the explosion is sustained by the four-to-six-week schedule of new performances throughout the year. All Black Productions Most theater groups average […]

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8 months ago

Film Review: Women Talking

The gaunt, stricken faces on the characters of Director Sarah Polley’s Women Talking tell us a great deal about despair. Living within the confines of an isolated religious colony, they have, over the course of their lives, been repeatedly sprayed…

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8 months ago

Frank Lloyd Wright and a Wisconsin Get-a-Way – Visiting the American Players Theater in Spring Green, WI, Summer 2022

Living in Chicago, you automatically qualify as a Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) fan. Many of his famous commissions still stand, some owned by single families, or open to the public and owned by churches (Unitarians), communities…

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9 months ago

Are You Crazy About Puppets?

If theater is about the suspension of disbelief, then puppetry is a double suspension of disbelief – the story is told not by an actor, but by a doll or costume controlled by a puppeteer. Done well, it works in a magical way. The creative skill…

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9 months ago

March Is Just Right for a “Blue” Party

Well, here we are in the early days of slushy, mushy March. We are crawling toward spring, but it’s slow. The holidays are behind us, winter has lost its charm, the tax deadline looms, and summer vacations are still months away. It’s no wonder that many…

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10 months ago

Stratford, Canada, Here We Come! A Cultural and Theatrical Binge

As we crossed the well-named Blue River Bridge over the St. Clair River from Port Huron, MI to Sarnia, ON Canada, we breathed the clean gun-less air of our northern neighbor. Sister-in-law, Norah, and I were on a five-day jaunt from Chicago…

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