“In 21st-century America, playwriting cannot be thought of in earnest as a rival of screenwriting. In reality, it is more like a barnacle clinging to it. Indeed, the economic ruin of the playwriting profession is a 20th-century story, not a 21st-century one. It began in the 1920s, or thereabouts, with the rise of commercial motion pictures, and was more or less complete by the 1980s, with the introduction of cable TVs and VCRs.”

In response to Joanne Kaufman’s column about how she regularly bails out at intermission from shows to which she’s received press tickets, top Broadway publicist Rick Miramontez announced that he will “unburden Joltin’ Joanne from her hardship.”

Janet Suzman, frustrated at the lack of black faces in the audience at a South African play she recently did in London, said, “I rail against that and say why don’t black people come to see a play about one of the most powerful African states? And they don’t bloody come. They’re not interested. It’s not in their culture, that’s why. Just as their stuff is not in white culture.”

“We have to open up access to power and to resources. Looking up, too many see the white cliff-face of the arts establishment and feel they just cannot climb it.”