The new Broadway musical featuring the words of Tupac Shakur is a far cry from what New York theater is accustomed to seeing. Maybe that’s why so many seats were empty Sunday at the matinee of “Holler…
Category: theater
Colored prints from the heyday of toy theaters
Posted in Performers, and theater
The paper booklets seemed so out of place among the stacks of over-sized prints on the auction table. They had the customary drawings that you’d expect to find in an art gallery but these were…
Blackface makeup in a tube
Posted in Personal items, Plays, theater, and Tins
My friend Rebecca alerted me to the bright yellow tube in the vendor’s case. On the front was a man in blackface with huge white lips wearing a tux and white gloves, and the product…
A whimsical Cat in the Hat in school play
Posted in Books, Performers, and theater
The young man playing the Cat in the Hat was tall and spindly, and prowled the stage like, well, a cat. He was here, he was there – filling in the blanks in the story,…
Wow, I thought when I saw the bulky theater spotlight there on the pavement at the auction house. It had a thick body with perfect Bakelite switches on the side propped atop a metal leg…
I had never heard of the actress Theresa Harris, who appeared in more than 80 movies from 1929 to 1958. I was introduced to a woman like her this weekend in an Off-Broadway show called “By…
I began reading the auction bid sheet, indifferently scanning the items at the Orientalia sale at one of my favorite auction houses. There were Asian artwork, screens, furniture, garden seats, bronze figurines and more. The auction house seems to…