Archives for October 2005

– Elia Kazan’s fee in 1950 for directing the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire: $175,000

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $1,356,567.27

(Source: Richard Schickel, Elia Kazan)

Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,

Sliding by semi-tones till I sink to a minor,–yes,

And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,

Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the deep;

Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

Robert Browning, “Abt Vogler”

Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,

Sliding by semi-tones till I sink to a minor,–yes,

And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,

Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the deep;

Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

Robert Browning, “Abt Vogler”

Four new Top Fives went up this morning and over the weekend. Take a look.

Four new Top Fives went up this morning and over the weekend. Take a look.

Friday again, and even though I’m not here (I’m off at one of my celebrated undisclosed locations, soaking up silence), Our Girl has been good enough to post the weekly drama-column teaser, in which I gallop wildly from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The trip begins with the Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of Absurd Person Singular:

Alan Ayckbourn is far from unknown in this country–he’s had one solid Broadway hit and a couple of respectable runs–but the best of his 60-odd plays aren’t nearly as familiar to American audiences as they ought to be. Might that be about to change? Earlier this year, his own production of “Private Fears in Public Places” came to town as part of the “Brits Off Broadway” series at 59E59 and caused a stir, and now the Manhattan Theatre Club, which has long been enthusiastic about his work, has brought “Absurd Person Singular” back to Broadway three decades after its New York premiere, which ran for 591 performances. This revival, directed by John Tillinger, isn’t perfect, but it’s way more than good enough, and if Mr. Ayckbourn’s brand of darkly bittersweet comedy is new to you, it’ll make you wonder where he’s been all your life….

The next and last stop is In My Life:

About a half-hour into “In My Life,” the retchingly whimsical story of J.T. (Christopher J. Hanke), a cute young singer-songwriter who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and a brain tumor, I turned to my seatmate and whispered, “

Friday again, and even though I’m not here (I’m off at one of my celebrated undisclosed locations, soaking up silence), Our Girl has been good enough to post the weekly drama-column teaser, in which I gallop wildly from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The trip begins with the Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of Absurd Person Singular:

Alan Ayckbourn is far from unknown in this country–he’s had one solid Broadway hit and a couple of respectable runs–but the best of his 60-odd plays aren’t nearly as familiar to American audiences as they ought to be. Might that be about to change? Earlier this year, his own production of “Private Fears in Public Places” came to town as part of the “Brits Off Broadway” series at 59E59 and caused a stir, and now the Manhattan Theatre Club, which has long been enthusiastic about his work, has brought “Absurd Person Singular” back to Broadway three decades after its New York premiere, which ran for 591 performances. This revival, directed by John Tillinger, isn’t perfect, but it’s way more than good enough, and if Mr. Ayckbourn’s brand of darkly bittersweet comedy is new to you, it’ll make you wonder where he’s been all your life….

The next and last stop is In My Life:

About a half-hour into “In My Life,” the retchingly whimsical story of J.T. (Christopher J. Hanke), a cute young singer-songwriter who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and a brain tumor, I turned to my seatmate and whispered, “

– Fee paid in 1924 by Warner Bros. to Alfred A. Knopf for film rights to Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady: $12,000

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $130,224.65

(Source: Cather: Later Novels)