LEITER LOOKS BACK
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| Fred and Adele Astaire. |
The pall that has fallen across the globe may be preventing
us from seeing and commenting on live theatre but that shouldn’t stop us from
thinking and remembering the New York theatre of the past, even if that past happened
before we were born. That, at least, is the impetus for my recent postings on
Theatre’s Leiter Side, Theater Pizzazz, and Theater Life, all designed to keep
the idea and spirit of theatre alive, not only the good but the bad and the
ugly as well.
If you’ve been following my posts, you’ll be familiar with
those that offer overviews of New York theatre from 1970-1975, drawn from my
unpublished Encyclopedia of the New York
Stage for those years (the published volumes
cover 1920-1950). You may also be aware of a series I just began for Theater
Life called On This Day in New YorkTheatre, which offers surveys of all the shows that opened on specific days—those
on which the entries are posted—in one of the decades between 1920 and 1950.
And today I commence yet another series, Leiter Looks Back, which recalls the highlight shows of those three
golden decades. You can read all
about it here. I know I’m being a bit of a quarantined nut-cake, but what
else can I do to distract myself from being whupped by my wife at Scrabble nearly
every day?
SLL