If you follow theater news at all closely, you’ll know that Elie Wiesel (who should need no introduction to readers of this blog) recently threatened to sue Deb Margolin and Theatre J, the author and producers of a play called Imagining Madoff, in which Wiesel was to be portrayed on stage–fictionally, but under his real name. As a result of the threatened litigation, the original production of Imagining Madoff was canceled. That cancellation, and the reasons for it, is the subject of my “Sightings” column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, in which I ask why so prominent a human-rights advocate decided to use the power of threatened litigation to curtail the free-speech rights of a playwright and a theater company.
If you’re curious about what happened to Margolin and why it matters, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal and see what I have to say.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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