Divamensch

I was saddened to see online yesterday that actor James Van Der Beek had died of colon cancer at the way too young age of 48. I was never into Dawson's Creek but know him from playing a pseudo villain on Pose. Here's a recent Today Show interview about his cancer journey:

The winner for Best Play in 1957 was Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, which my high school drama director always called Long Night's Journey Into Day. That play is so damn long! Diva: winning the Tony Mensch: winning it four years after O'Neill had died

Don't you find it interesting when celebrity deaths come in clumps? In the past week we've had five guys die who had careers in rock or pop. Remarkable. I wouldn't recognize any of their names but (in most cases) recognize the names of the bands. BTW I've done quite a few CDAs à quatre but I think this is my first CDA à cinq... Brad Arnold died at the age of 47. He was the founder and lead singer for 3 Doors Down. Chuck Negron died at the age of 83. He was one of the singers

I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra on Feb 7, 2026. I'd heard them two or three times at Carnegie Hall but never on their home turf. And what a beautiful concert hall. The woman next to me (a longtime Phil Orch audience member) said that they have amazing acoustics, "like being in the middle of a violin." I don't have an ear for acoustics, it always sounds fine to me, but I'll take her word for it. The concert was conducted by Rafael Payare. They opened with Louis Ballard's *D

I saw a brand new opera, *Complications In Sue,* at Opera Philadelphia on Feb 7, 2026. There are three bold-face names involved in this project: Anthony Roth Costanzo, Michael R. Jackson, and Justin Vivian Bond. CONSTANZO Anthony Roth Costanzo is a hot shot young counter tenor, an opera singer with world wide cred. Not quite A list but a strong B plus - - which is impressive, he had to climb over the dead bodies of hundreds of other counter tenors to get where he is, kudos t

I heard the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Feb 4, 2026, conducted by their music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. It was an all-American program, part of a Carnegie Hall festival, United In Sound: America at 250. I'm surprised to say that the first piece was the highlight of the program. I had no expectations of the William Dawson Negro Folk Symphony , I was only aware of his choral arrangements. I'd sung or heard his spectacular arrangement of "Ezekiel Saw t

I am a MAJOR fan of Heart, I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't love them. I'm sure my brother Howard had Dreamboat Annie on vinyl pretty soon after it was released in 1975 - - I would have been seven years old, so I was infected pretty early. My favorite songs of theirs are from their early days: "Crazy On You," "Baracuda," "Magic Man," "Straight On," so many amazing songs. Nancy Wilson is a killer guitar player but can we all agree that Ann Wilson has one of th

Barbara and I heard the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center an all-Shostakovich program on Feb 1, 2026. I’ve always loved Shostakovich and clearly need to do a deeper exploration of his music. This was all new music to me and it knocked me out. The first piece was the one I thought I knew - - a Shostakovich piano trio. It turns out it wasn’t the famous trio but an early trio, written when he was sixteen! It had many of the distinguishing characteristics of a Shostakovich

I think I might have said early in this process that it's lazy to choose the Best Musical as the Diva and the Best Play as the Mensch but those archetypes were so profoundly illustrated in 1956, I can't resist: Diva: Damn Yankees Mensch: The Diary of Anne Frank This number is pretty dopey but the dancing is so great. And how can you top Fosse and Verdon? I wasn't able to find any footage of the original Broadway cast of Anne Frank on YouTube but would you believe they have t

Oh my I was not prepared for this one. My brother Howard texted me yesterday to alert me to the death of the extraordinary Catherine O'Hara at the too young age of 71. Like many of my generation I first encountered her on SCTV. My favorite of her characters was Lola Heatherton, a dimly talented nightclub performer, her name pointing us to Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon mainstays Lola Falana and Joey Heatherton. She was delightful in Beetlejuice (1988) but I'm not so into

I've asked my friend Jori Hume to write a few Fabulous Fridays in the Rock and Roll Woman series. Jori is a friend from high school, without a doubt the coolest person ever to attend Delavan-Darien High School. I was about to write "ever to graduate from" but I bet there are some cool people who were dropouts! Jori is cooler than any of them. I'll hand the baton to Jori: Do you remember the first time you heard “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette? Picture it: Kansas City.

I saw Massenet's *Manon* at Heartbeat Opera on Jan 28, 2026. This is one of the most popular operas, it ranks 39 on the list of the most-performed works at the Met (between *Boris Godunov* and *Hansel and Gretel,* if you care). Heartbeat's jam is taking a musty old piece like this and scaling it back, tightening it up, and doing a juicy production. I saw their productions of *Salome* and *Faust* last year, was crazy for both. I'm going to see everything they do. I'm totally h

The Tony for Best Musical in 1955 went to The Pajama Game. Diva: the show Mensch: the idea of writing a show about a labor strike This happens more often than you realize - - they took a serious subject (a strike in a pajama factory) and embedded it so deeply into an entertaining Broadway musical that the audience didn't realize that they were seeing a show about labor relations. Something similar happened with one of my favorite movies last year, Sinners - - it was such a

I started the current Fabulous Friday series on October 10th, guided by the book Rock-and-Roll Woman: The 50 Fiercest Female Rockers by Meredith Ochs. I have precious little familiarity with these women so I pulled in my brother Howard as a collaborator. We've all been honored to hear his thoughts on these musicians over the last couple of months. Well Howard has looked at the list and feels like he just has one more left in him - - today's artist, Grace Slick. Sure, he know

Claudia and I saw Oedipus on Broadway on Jan 7, 2026.  It's a production from London's West End that was brought over to the Roundabout Theatre at Studio 54. I was interested because it was starring two actors who I like a lot, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. I know Strong from the Kingsman movies and from doing A View From the Bridge on Broadway in 2015. I first noticed Manville in her seismic performance in Phantom Thread, have seen her in many other movies and TV shows

Another interesting situation with the 1954 winner for Best Actress in a Musical: Diva: Dolores Gray in Carnival in Flanders Mensch: six performances...? Yes, the show only ran for six performances, a record for a Tony win. Clearly she made an impression and all the right people saw one of those six shows. Yeesh. The breakout hit of the show was "Here's That Rainy Day," Johnny Carson's favorite song. Here's Miss Gray singing the song many years later:

The great Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani died yesterday at the age of 93. He opened his self-named house in 1960 and pretty quickly found a client base of women looking for glamorous outfits that were striking but not wacky or of-the-moment. This overview of a 2010 Valentino retrospective done in Brisbane gives a brief glimpse of three of his most iconic designs: The dress Jackie O wore when she married Onassis. The dress Julia Roberts wore when she won the Oscar

I saw What To Wear at BAM on Jan 16, 2026. It's a chamber opera written about twenty years ago with a libretto by Richard Foreman and music by Michael Gordon. It's a rock opera but unlike Tommy, which leans more towards rock, this one leans more towards opera. It was a lot of fun, it knew exactly what it was and what it was doing, and it was only 75 minutes long. To give you a little perspective, Tristan and Isolde are still hollering at each other at the 75-minute mark, th

I saw a new production of Bellini's I Puritani at the Met on Jan 15, 2026. I'd never seen this opera but knew it by reputation. I'd heard the soprano, Lisette Oropesa, a couple of times at the Met and in a dazzling performance as Maria Stuarda in Salzburg last summer. I'd heard the tenor, Lawrence Brownlee, a couple of times at the Met and in a concert with the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble just a few days before. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Best: t

Here's Howard: The Grateful Dead’s Bobby Weir died last week and San Francisco took it in stride. No long vigils like when Jerry Garcia died, or Pig Pen, or Marty Balin, or Paul Kantner. Or Janis. We have been here before. Janis moved here to North Beach with her friend (and Father of the Summer of Love) Chet Helms from Texas and quickly became an important seed in the counter-culture revolution that still is vibrating here in the city by The Bay. Outspoken and fearless, beyo