Paul Scheer has been obsessed with film his entire life. The comic-actor, known for roles in sitcoms including The League, Veep spirit The Good Place, has watched every film on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films on his podcast Unspooled with film critic Amy Nicholson, and has even appeared in a few certified fresh … Read more
As a young girl and little sister to Jerry Lee Lewis, Linda Gail Lewis had a front row seat to the birth of mainstream rock and roll. “As Carl Perkins said in that song he wrote, ‘I was there when it happened.’ It was a really cool thing to be a part of that and … Read more
The podcast revolution continues. Somehow, it’s been 13 years since one of the leading voices in the medium, Scott Aukerman, discovered his secret formula to freshening up the format of interviewing famous funny people. “The podcast started as an interview podcast between myself and comedians — this was before things like that WTF with Marc … Read more
When our esteemed Houston Shakespeare Festival stays true to the spirit and tenor of Shakespeare, the results can be terribly good, almost great. The indomitable tragedy King Lear is in loving hands this 47th season, an affecting production in which all invest their most. The landscape of Lear is bleak, broken. Goodness gets punished, morality … Read more
Why is it that given a rarely performed Shakespeare play like Cymbelinewritten supposedly near the end of his career (produced c. 1611), directors seem to think it should be played broadly and in italics? Cymbeline is classified as a “romance,” a “comedy,” a “fairy tale,” and once was labeled inconceivably as one of his “tragedies.” … Read more
If you are of a certain age, the music of the Everly Brothers formed your memories. Even as a child in Pennsylvania, in elementary school, I knew their music. It was on the radio, and everybody listened to the radio. Every style of music played on the radio. There were no distinctions between country, emerging … Read more
What to make of Clue, Sandy Rustin’s stage adaptation of Jonathan Lynn’s 1985 screenplay, which was based on the Parker Brothers’ board game (1949) that I played for hours in my childhood. Everyone I know played Clue, and when we tired of the murder mystery (Was it Mrs. Peacock in the library with the candlestick?), … Read more
Houston’s Deniz Love is pushing listeners not only to embrace love for one another, but also for themselves on his debut album All Waves Pass released earlier this month. Love will be wrapping up his busy summer of traveling with his Over The Edge Tour in a hometown show at The Heights Theater on Saturday, … Read more
Kelly Doyle is a guitar virtuoso who has spent the last decade touring with Robert Ellis, Phosphorescent and Craig Finn of The Hold Steady. No matter who he is playing with, his style of playing always stands out while luring the listener into a trance. Last month he released his second EP, Okay Okie and … Read more
“I wanna stomp on something for once, see what it feels like.” It’s a thought with ample justification for any Black woman in America. However, when 18-year-old Racine says it in Aleshea Harris’ play, Is God Is, its meaning is not weighted with presumed politics, history, or race. It’s stone-cold vengeance, deliciously pure and simple. … Read more