The lights are going out on Broadway as show after show closes: Hairspray, Young Frankenstein, and Boeing-Boeing got zapped right around the new year, and somewhere in late 2008 Rent, Cry-baby, and Xanadu also flamed out. The relief is stupendous. With any luck the whole theatrical profession will be kaput by 2010. Just think of all that wonderful darkness and silence where the revival of Grease used to be!
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This is theater!

I went to a play recently, I’m ashamed to admit. It was a Tom Stoppard play called Rock ‘n’ Roll, which is embarrassing beyond words. It wasn’t my idea!

But even so, I went with a certain morbid curiosity, wondering if the theatrical experience could possibly be as bad as I remembered from the last time I got arm-twisted into it.

It was.
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