Excerpts From Edwin Wilsonâs âMagic Timeâ
A memoir of a lifetimeâs active engagement with American theater, by a former drama critic for The Wall Street Journal.
Broadway at night. Photo: Alamy Stock Photo Dec. 17, 2020 6:13 pm ET
As a schoolboy in the early 1940s, Edwin Wilson saw Al Jolson drop to his knees in the footlights of the Shubert Theatre and belt out âMammy.â As a young man he thrilled to the original Broadway productions of âA Streetcar Named Desire,â âDeath of a Salesman,â âOklahoma!ââthe standard American repertoire aborning. In his memoir âMagic Time,â Mr. Wilson, now 93, writes fondly of how these and other electrifying moments of New York playgoing led him, circuitously, to Yale Drama School and a lifetime of teaching and making theater happenâwriting scripts, directing and producing plays, encouraging young talent, and writing or cowriting three
Ducky, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg: NCIS hero David McCallum was a gangsta rap star
NCIS hero David McCallum became an unlikely chart star 20 years ago at the age of 67 with the godfather of gangsta rap.
David McCallum, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg.
NCIS hero David McCallum became an unlikely chart star 20 years ago at the age of 67 with the godfather of gangsta rap.
Dr Dre included a swaggering sample from McCallum’s 1966 instrumental record The Edge on his 2000 single The Next Episode which featured Snoop Dogg.
McCallum, now 87, who has family links to Macduff, played Russian spy Illya Kuryakin in the hit 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E and received more fan mail than any other actor in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s history including Clark Gable and Elvis Presley.
The NZSO at practice in the Michael Fowler Centre.
Handel’s Messiah. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gemma New with Anna Leese (soprano), Sarah Court (alto), Frederick Jones (tenor), Robert Tucker (bass) and The Tudor Consort. Michael Fowler Centre, November 12. Reviewed by Max Rashbrooke. From the first moments it felt like we were in the hands of a master. Conductor Gemma New, a study in pale, concentrated energy, had complete control over the stunning orchestral writing of Handel’s famous Messiah. Committed, as is the modern trend, to a story-telling Messiah and not just a beautiful sound, she worked each of the 47 movements into its own little gem, distinct from all the others. Right from the opening ‘Sinfony’, its string parts bright and darting, New was committed also to a distinctively baroque dynamic, with sudden and sharp contrasts of volume and tone.