Scene4 Magazine | letters to the editor

Michael, I suggest you look at other dying forms for guidance on how to make a living as a playwright. Opera has been dead for over 50 years, so creaters of "new music theater" have been experimenting with new business models - one's that have nothing to do with the traditional roles of composer/librettist submitting work to artistic director/opera company in the hopes of workshop/production. Granted, theater has a longer tradition of devotion to contemporary work, but so many works are, like new music theater, being developed in collectives, now, and I am amazed that you, this late in the game, would still seek that brass ring of "legitimate theater" validation. So, the point is not so much to self-produce, as to collaborate with others, to form a company in which the hat of "playwright" is not so explicitly defined. If you give up that dream and that ego, you may get more chances to play in the theatre, and see your plays become reality.

Barry Drogin

read Michael Bettencourt's column

I love Jerry Lee and all the others you put up as mavericks and rebels and such. Thanks for making this powerhouse story.

Wideye Bill

read Les Marcott's column

I have not seen the exhibition but Renate Stendhal's story about it is very revealing and the pictures are mind-boggling and at the same time exasperating. I am not sure that this an answer to the problem of the legacy of the Nazis and that horrendous book. I don't know what the answer is. The book exists and in the spirit of "never again" it is very important that it is never forgotten, yet it is more than a ghost as we see today in the world around us. How do you smell and taste poison without drinking it? Maybe with comedy. But even Mel Brooks and others couldn't hide the awful taste. How to forget without remembering! Praise to Linda Ellia and Renate Stendhal and Scene4.

Aaron Wildau

read Renate Stendhal's article

Very interesting article, loved the recipes!

Ellen Milton

read Janine Yasovant's article

Thank you so much for this look at new opera. Isn't wonderful how far-ranging opera is going. The Steiny Road to Operadom is now a super-highway. Thanks Karren Alenier for taking us with you on the journey.

Nuntaporn Amadsri

read Karren Alenier's column

Ditto, ditto and ditto, Les. The Great Ball of Fire is my hero. Tiger's got a bad neck because of all his bending down. Jerry stands up straight as his finger. You nailed it, man. Thanks.

Til Unger

read Les Marcott's column

Thank you for your comment! It's much appreciated. I fully agree with you that there is no answer but I would add that this is because there are a zillion answers to a question as large and complex as this one!

Renate Stendhal

read Renate Stendhal's article

As a long-time subscriber to this magazine and a former resident of Thailand, it's been a joy to see the coverage you give to this marvelous and unique culture. The arts have been a river flowing through Thai history and defining the unique Thai lifestyle and view of life. I only wish you could expand your coverage to include much more of what Thai arts create and offer. That said, I can only commend with great praise the work of Ms Yasovant to bring Thai arts to your readers. Kop kun kap and thank you.

Stuart Medlin

read Janine Yasovant's current article - in English and Thai

...and check the archives for more of her articles

Audacious to call great sports great theatre? Not in the least. It has everything: entertainment, players, and the art of the playing. Along with theatrical performances, some of the most "dramatic" experiences I've ever had have come from a sporting event. And I too would like to be in an audience that cheers and whoops and leaves me achingly moved the way it once was in our, ahem, "polite" English-style theatre and the way it still is in many other parts of the world. I'll see you there.

Murray Gissin

read Martin Challis' column

...and see his other commentary in the Scene4 Archives

Great sports as great theatre--one of the greatest was Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world" in baseball, his playoff winning homerun in 1951 against the Brooklyn Dodgers. As dramatic as they come. There are lots of others in lots of other sports. As he said, it's all entertainment and the art is in the playing.

Bernie Hoffman

read Martin Challis' column

From a comment posted to Karren Alenier's blog at Scene4...

I've been rereading a number of The Dresser's postings and I'm ashamed I haven't written before not only to thank you but to say how marvelous it is what you've been doing over this time. I have no reason to flatter -- you've brought such a fine critical intelligence and in a writing style that keeps one (me) moving from one sentence to another. Ann and I haven't gone to all that much in D.C. this year, so The Dressing has been a vicarious way of doing that. A bit of hyperbole maybe but not all that much. We did get to the Joe Louis opera -- I've seen numbers of Leon Major's productions, all of which have been strikingly distinctive. The voicies espeically of Carmon Balthrop and Adrienne Webster, as you say, were compelling -- Webster had terrific dramatic presence. I loved the staging -- the modern Greek chorus, the movement with chairs, the masks, the lighting, Kirby Malone and his partner's projections. The structure of the storytelling might have been more adventurous -- I felt my attention flag at times, which could easily have been me and not the libretto. I only read the Washington Post review later on, not wanting to be prejudiced, and the criticism had some validity, though in truth I was caught up in the production. I'm not a great fan of so-called biopics and so when I say it might have been more adventurous, something different than the linear storytelling. Then your observations about the Terra Cotta warriors, the differences between seeing them in Xian and at the National Geographic -- first rate. When I first read your post on Split This Rock, your comment about Holly Bass didn't register with me -- I didn't know her work and so it passed over. But on Friday night, a bunch of us were at the Enoch Pratt for a reading for Kim's Full Moon -- Holly read and did her "In This District," which I loved.

Merrill Leffler

read Karren Alenier's blog

SURELY one of the most important voices writing today. Humor and Intelligence. What a perfect marriage.

Grace Cavalieri

read Kathi Wolfe's column

A remarkable occasion, this the 90th year of the great ballerina. I first saw her many years ago in New York. She was astonishing whether one knew she was nearly blind or not. She represents all that is great about dance and what perseveres in the greatness of Cuban culture. Thank you for the remembrance.

Louis Laird

read Andrea Kapsaski's article