Scattered Musings

• I'm off--not to see the wizard, but to see IU Bloomington, where I've never been.  The occasion is the British Women Writers Conference, where I'll be discussing torture by candle, dying at the stake, and similarly uplifting topics.
• And then, week after next, comes NEMLA, where dying at the stake will not figure in my presentation. Handsome Young Jesuits, however, will make special guest appearances. 
• It must be spring: the ducks have wandered away from the pond and are hanging out near my house.  I'm also beginning to see the usual signs of Gardening by Squirrel (the squirrels dig up and replant the tulips, marigolds, etc.; they also managed to plant some raspberry bushes along my property line).  If I were a better gardener, I would no doubt be upset by gardening by squirrel, not to mention by the bunnies that reside in the back yard.  However...I'm not a better gardener. 
• Has anyone ever done a history of the playbill biographical sketch? Thirty or forty years ago, you still saw biographies that opened like this: "Though there were but 1153 people in the capacity audience at the premiere of 'Cabaret' on November 20, 1966, the uproar which followed Mr. Grey's opening number, 'Wilkommen,' may well have rocked the seismograph at Fordham University.  Such were the hosannahs which greeted his characterization of the whitefaced, decadent master-of-ceremonies that he was forthwith elevated to stardom and saluted with the Tony Award at season's end."  (First sentences of Joel Grey's program bio for George M!.)  Compare this to David Hyde Pierce's bio for Curtains, which appears to have been written on an entirely different planet.  When did the oratorios of fulsome praise give way to straightforward lists of credits? And why did the Playbill Biography, Old Style go out of fashion?

Comments

[ceresina]

I would imagine printing costs/ profit needs reduce the amount of space available for bios.