The Crucible, Geyer PAC (Scottdale, May 16-19)

My wife is directing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Opening night is tonight. Geyer Performing Arts Center.   Similar:Great Twitter thread on Aaron Burr, from the Internet ArchiveFunny what you find in books. When digit…AwesomeHow Facebook is killing comedy (and other indie content creators)Facebook has monetized access to online …BusinessI've Stopped Creating Syllabi. Now I Create…

Laughter and Light Abound in Prime Stage’s “Twelfth Night”

Kudos to Prime Stage for a Twelfth Night that truly sings. Stage director Andy Kirtland has created a lovely adaptation of Shakespeare’s 1601 comedy. A vibrant intimacy connects the players and audience, supporting a wonderful production that’s superbly enjoyable for both those who know this play and for anyone experiencing Shakespeare for the first time. Kirtland transports an ensemble…

PICT PROUD: PICT actress Carolyn Jerz takes on Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

PICT PROUD: She’s appeared on our stage in “Jayne Eyre,” “The Merchant of Venice”, “Oliver Twist” and “Great Expectations.” Not once, not twice but three times she’s won the Shakespeare monologue contest at Pittsburgh Public Theater. Now she is starring in Twelfth Night at Prime Stage. We are so proud of Carolyn Jerz! —PICT Classic…

First Day in the Theatre for Twelfth Night (May 3-12)

Daughter: (is sad her “first day in the theatre” post got fewer likes than her “felt cute” post) Me: (makes this meme) Similar:I broke the garage door when I left for work this morning. Fixed it when I got home.PersonalAlmost all the traffic to fake news sites is from Facebook, new data show I think…

‘Twelfth Night’ is a Shakespearean hoot, and Prime Stage actors Carolyn Jerz, Malcolm MacKenzie, and Dana Babal have their hootin’ duds on. (photo courtesy of Prime Stage Theatre)

Why is Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night enjoying a new wave of popularity? Perhaps real life has become so bizarre that no contemporary comedy can match it, so we have to go back 417 years to find one. Anyhow, the play has been turning up on schedules regularly, and now Pittsburgh’s Prime Stage Theatre is doing Twelfth Night. This comedy…

The Ongoing Obsession with Shakespeare’s True Identity

I’ve never been all too keen on Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theories, and I find students often get distracted by their belief that the default way to get the “right answer” about literature is to look for connections between the author’s life and the author’s work. For example, I was disinterested in “Shakespeare in Love” because…

Furious Trump orders officials to boycott correspondents’ dinner

Trump spent the morning insulting the news media on Twitter, calling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough a “Psycho” and musing about New York Times reporters getting “down on their knees” to apologize to him after his 2020 re-election victory. Around the same time the president was tapping out those tweets, White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley, who…

John Dewey: Portrait of a Progressive Thinker: His ideas altered the education of children worldwide

“You can concentrate the history of all mankind into the evolution of flax, cotton, and wool fibers into clothing,” asserted Dewey. He described a class where students handled wool and cotton. As they discovered how hard it was to separate seeds from cotton, they came to understand why their ancestors wore woolen clothing. Working in…

Happy Easter 2019

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