What’s your top Stoppard? Mine:

1. Arcadia
2. Travesties
3. Shakespeare in Love
4. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
5. Rough Crossing (h/t OSF 1997)

Ooh, good one! Makes me think the bridge to “Life of a Showgirl” is full of those: “ripped me off like false lashes,” etc.

Thanks so much for joining the Book Passage conversation! Great to meet you in person.

Is “cloaked in Gucci and in scandal”
Taylor’s first zeugma?

Nathan! That’s what I was thinking about YOU!

🎶 Gorgeous! Linda! 🎶

What a treat to meet you (and Sprocket) at Powell’s, Amy! Glad to connect with a fellow Luz fan.

Loved talking to the brilliant Sondheim Hub!

📅 Tues. 9/20 @ 6PM: We join the Cambridge Public Library in welcoming Daniel Pollack-Pelzner for a discussion of his highly anticipated biography "Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist". He will be joined in convo by Dani Snyder-Young. Learn more and RSVP for free here: buff.ly/dFtjete

The most thoughtful and perceptive review of my book I’ve seen so far. Thanks @npr.org

Happy pub day to my great friend @pollackpelzner.bsky.social and his extraordinary biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda. This book is a delight. It tells Lin's story through the lens of how he became such an incredible artist. It's fast-paced, funny, and humane.

I loved it and believe you will too!

How Lin-Manuel Miranda Weathered the Storm

Book excerpt in the New York Times!
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/t...

That’s so nice to hear!

Thanks for reading and reviewing, Martin. I’m so glad you took comfort, as I’d hoped, in finding that the creative process poses challenges for everyone.

Book 129: Lin-Manuel Miranda - The Education of an Artist by @pollackpelzner.bsky.social

#lifegoals

Thanks, Josh!

Opinion | ‘Hamilton’ Feels Different 10 Years Later

Glad to write about the resonance of #Hamilton on its 10th anniversary for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/o...

The play I identify most strongly with is A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. It’s the tragedy of what happens when your in-law comes to stay with you and you only have one bathroom.

You bet!

Lin-Manuel Miranda An intimate and captivating exploration of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s artistic journey, revealing how the creator of the Broadway musicals Hamilton and I...

Friends, I'm thrilled to share that my biography of
Lin-Manuel Miranda is available to pre-order before its Sep 9 release. I talked with LMM and 150 of his inspirations about how he learned to become an artist. Hope the story inspires you! www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lin-Ma...

Is there a more thrilling sequence of songs than You Don’t Know / I Am the One / Superboy and the Invisible Girl / I’m Alive?
#NextToNormalPBS

Am I wrong to hear Remmick’s lusty “Sammie!” as an echo of Al
Jolson’s “Mammy!”—minstrelsy as a kind of vampirism? #Sinners

A farewell to theater critic Misha Berson • Oregon ArtsWatch The longtime Seattle theater and culture writer, who also contributed often to Oregon ArtsWatch, embraced life and art with passion and a constant case of curiosity.

I was so sorry to learn of Misha Berson's passing. I loved reading her Seattle theater dispatches; I relished her book on the making of West Side Story; and after I had the pleasure of serving with her on a Chekhov panel, I was delighted that she'd keep in touch. www.orartswatch.org/a-farewell-t...

The 75 Greatest Films by Black Directors As chosen by critics and filmmakers—and including four movies from 2022.

Black history is every month all the time, of course, but I’ll play this game. Almost a decade ago, Dan Kois and I put together the Black Film Canon, then we updated it in 2023, and it’s a great (but def not exhaustive!) primer for black film history:

slate.com/culture/2023...

ME: Who’s the most popular singer with your high school friends?

SON: Probably Billie Eilish.

ME: Honestly—and this is my shortcoming—I don’t really get her. She always sounds half-asleep.

SON: Have you met any high schoolers?

Only 3 Black Women Have Won the Grammys’ Top Award. Is Beyoncé Next? Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston and Lauryn Hill’s album of the year wins all came in the 1990s. Beyoncé’s fifth shot, for “Cowboy Carter,” arrives Sunday night.

Hope so. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/a...

My favorite intersection.

I’m sure this is all over Disney’s internal memos, so let’s just say it outright: Mufasa is the Henry VI Part 3 to The Lion King’s Richard III.

The Macbeths Listen and Don’t Judge We listen and we don’t judge. LADY MACBETH: I hate it when you introduce me as your “Dearest partner of greatness.” What’s wrong with “wife”? We li...

MACBETH: I don’t know what the poor cat does in the adage, okay? Every time you bring it up, I just nod.

😂😂😂 @katepitt.bsky.social

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

Apparently Sondheim hadn’t wanted the number to end with applause at all, but his mentor Hammerstein persuaded him that the audience needed a release. And then more recent productions have found a way to sustain the psychological realism while letting the audience salute the actress.