95 Picadilly

There’s a lyric in a Pam Tillis song, “met you once in a Williams’ play.” It’s a testament to his genius that we know his characters, have met them, live with them, are neighborly. From the moment I was conscious of his contributions to American theater, Tennessee Williams became one of my literary heroes. Undoubtedly,…

“Goodnight and Good Luck” was the famous line Edward R. Murrow professed each night to terrified Londoners, as bombs rained down on the city during the Battle of Britain. Not many of us live a life in that kind of acute jeopardy, bombs raining from the sky, but, sadly, as we grow older, we begin…

A couple weeks ago, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I painted.  I’ve painted ornaments and office walls, but to sit down, canvas in front of you, and create, it had been a while. As I worked on a stylized portrait of St. Francis de Sale, the patron saint of journalists, I began…

Late last week, it was announced that Cynthia Erivo, who you may know as “Elphaba” in the recent film adaptation of the musical “Wicked,” would play Jesus Christ in a Hollywood production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.”  If social media is an indicator, I wasn’t the only person offended.  In casting someone like Erivo,unquestionably talented, to play the…

Sometimes, when we experience life changing events, we do so with some vernal grace, unaware of the gravity of those experiences. That happens often for children. Though I know my blessings, that was, in many ways, me as a child. Several years ago, a friend said something that stood out to me. Something I’d never…

When I was a kid – knee high to a grasshopper, as my father would say – Saturday Night Live,  a risqué late night show probably considered banned “grown up” television in my household, used to have a segment called “And now deep thoughts.”  Sneaking around and thinking I was doing something exciting and forbidden…

Last night, I was watching a PBS documentary on Vaudeville, when John Lahr, the son of the Cowardly Lion, said that we have lost our frivolity. Given the state of our world – and the subject being vaudeville, where his father, Bert, got his start – I think it’s a fair assessment. This was a…

After a week when Christianity seemed to be at war with itself, following the homily delivered by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, I found myself deeply unsettled.  There are at least 45,000 (and some figures as many as 800 million) Christian denominations, so we know that there are many,…

In what seems a century ago, a wonky 7th grade student, yours truly, wrote a play that’s plot revolved around a fictitious meeting of the leading political figures of the mid-19th Century. In some ways, it was a meeting of great minds discussing a bygone conclusion. It was the kind of meeting that real leaders,…

The crowning of Miss Alabama Abbie Stockard as the new Miss America last week began a process of contemplation.  As a writer, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing the late Chelsi Smith, Miss Universe 1995, and Teresa Scanlan, who, at 17, became the youngest Miss America in a century.  The latter seemed hesitant to answer…