Category Archives: Portland

In bleak midwinter, pitchers, catchers, and the lost sandlot, warm the soul

In the weeks-long news blitz about this winter’s bone-chilling, record-setting cold and snow, to include the tsunami-like effect of winter storms Maya and Nadia it has not escaped me that Major League Baseball spring training camps are opening this week. While channel surfing, I noticed a countdown clock almost wound down behind a sportscaster. Then he spoke the magic […]

For colds and flu, Musterole remains my dream panacea

My contractor had to delay repairing my kitchen floor for several days while caring for his sick boy, who had a chest cold. After the second postponement, I sent him this text message: Vicks on his chest, back and throat might help; too bad you don’t have Musterole. Ah, Musterole; how easily that word came […]

Stage Names: Portland Stage’s “Ben Butler” brings reflection and rare laughs to the Civil War

PORTLAND – It’s not often a play in a professional theatrical setting gets an immediate standing ovation before the lights are fully dimmed at final curtain. It’s also virtually unheard of for any kind of work – creative or historical –  dealing with slavery and the Civil War to receive a healthy dose of laughs […]

Memories that never end: the blur of 9/11

In my lifetime, there have arguably been three events considered show-stopping cultural icons; instances when, years later, someone might ask: “Where were you when … ?” or “What were you doing when … ?” The first was President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. As a young boy not yet in school, I didn’t grasp […]

Stage Names: Portland Stage tackles race and more in ‘The Niceties’

PORTLAND – When I was a young boy, I used to spend my summers in a remote Greek farming village, helping my great aunt Nike harvest acres of vegetable crops and groves of olive trees. At night, exhausted, I slept under the stars on a blanket-covered flat stand on her front porch. During my first […]

Stage Names: Portland Stage’s ‘Red Herring’ a welcome antidote to the season

PORTLAND – I’m convinced that Portland Stage’s executive and artistic director Anita Stewart is a very funny lady. Not that Stewart isn’t dead serious, and professional about her job and about bringing high quality theatre to Portland Stage’s audiences. I’ve seen her intensity at work first hand. But every year when the company’s season is […]

Stage Names: “It’s a Wonderful Life” at Portland Stage a last minute present for the family

PORTLAND – As a boy, my eyes always misted up at the end of Frank Capra’s 1946 silver screen Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” So when I recently took in Portland Stage’s 2017 rendition of Joe Landry’s well-regarded 1996 stage version – which I never before had seen – the jaded journalist in me almost […]

Stage Names: Portland Stage’s “Lady Day” a jazz standard for the heart

PORTLAND – Jazz standards are like that. Prior to the opening of Portland Stage’s opening show of the 2017 season, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” by Lanie Robertson, artistic and executive director Anita Stewart came to the top of the stairs house left, all the way back against the wall in Row M, […]

Ethnically labeled

A while ago, some old friends visited from out of town – their first time in New England. My mother, who was also visiting, doted on them with her old-country Greek hospitality, as she does on anyone spending an overnight. Today, she speaks fondly of their visit, always referring to them as “Gregory and Victoria, those […]

Stage Names: Portland Stage’s “Arsenic” poisons winter doldrums with infinite laughter

PORTLAND — When I was in college in upstate NY, the period immediately following Christmas break was affectionately known on campus as “the gray season.” January and February were cold and depressing. Fast forward to today. In northern New England, not much has changed during a time of year that still sees a peak of […]