“Awake my furies, a dream is calling!” So says the ghost of Clytemnestra, as she summons The Furies to avenge her murder in Aeschylus’s great tragedy, The Oresteia. This past weekend, The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts…
Trapped in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution, Russian playwright and novelist Mikhail Bulgakov endured a tortured existence in which his work was censored or banned. Reduced to poverty, and in constant fear of “disappearing,” he was forced to…
Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, has recently retired from a staff position with the House Ethics Committee and is working on volume five of his memoirs, tentatively titled The Audacity of Trope. But he has graciously consented to…
For those unfamiliar with dance history, the Ballets Russes was the legendary Russian ballet company that at one time included Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky, created a riot with its premier of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and gave George Balanchine…
Dear George— The thing that I miss most about private life is that I had time to write. Just when critics began to see my literary talent, I was swept up in the 2008 election … and the rest is…
When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, I said tickets to the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Ring of the Nibelung, which is being produced three times this season to celebrate the 200th anniversary…
Dear Mr. Plunkitt— Normally, senators and congressmen name a bill based on what they hope it will accomplish. For instance, the Patient Protection and Affordability Act purports to make health care more affordable. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act purports…
Plunkitt— Woe is me! I am but a machine: ingenious in conception, immaculate in construction, flawless in commission…but a machine nonetheless! I am a means, not an end; an empty vessel into which my master’s will is poured; a mere…
Dear Mr. Plunkitt— The last few months were surreal. When PBS funding became a political issue, it felt too close to home. Then when Mitt Romney called me out by name during a nationally televised debate, I almost fell out…