Dr. Maya Cantu

So glad to have seen the world premiere, 90 years in the making, of Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Spunk’ at Yale Rep. Set in 1935 Florida, this show is lyrical, bawdy, ebullient, suspenseful and unpredictable—and its over two dozen reconstructed folk, blues & gospel songs electrically performed by the cast.

you ever think about those real weird overlaps. like tennessee williams might have listened to the ramones

Songwriters Will Jason and Val Burton.

Flagpole Sitting: The Bizarre 1920s Trend Of Sitting On Towering Poles For Days Or Weeks On End Flagpole sitting became so popular in the 1920s that the man who had pioneered the trend, stuntman Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, could earn the modern equivalent of between $1,500 and $9,000 a day simply b...

The Strange History Of Flagpole Sitting, The 1920s Trend Of Perching Atop Towering Poles For Days Or Weeks On End

By Genevieve Carlton

allthatsinteresting.com/flagpole-sit...

#history #fads #culture

Lombard leans on the landing gear of an airplane. Take the train, Carole!

Remembering Carole Lombard on her birthday 🎂
📷 John McNab, 1930s

"She's someone who might compete in the frosty icon department with Garbo, Dietrich and Crawford, except that she can't keep a straight face."
- Vincent Canby

This essay is also about my longtime love for the song ‘Penthouse Serenade.’

I’ve been impelled to revive my World of Bradford Ropes research blog: on ‘Val Burton, Jewish Culture, and the First Gay Movie Musical (1930):’ mayacantu.com/the-world-of....

Hold the phone -- #PBS Great Performances is doing a huge special featuring the rise of legendary Opera winger, Grace Bumbry -- tonight at 9! Had to let everyone know.

See more here: share.google/djsRxu8y9gBl...

#music #Musicsky #history #Blacksky #Art

And given her history with ‘42nd Street,’ there should also be a role for @suzietoot.bsky.social.

YouTube video by Adamusic ABRACADABRA OF THE OPERA | Lady Gaga, Andrew Lloyd Webber (Adamusic Mashup)

He’s done it again. Obsessed!
youtu.be/vNWGt1GyVIM?...

YouTube video by Patricia Routledge - Topic I Went to a Marvellous Party (From "Set to Music")

Patricia Routledge has died, aged 96. Let’s be clear about this: her spectacular performance of Noël Coward’s “I Went To A Marvellous Party” is an utterly delicious masterpiece of comic timing and vivid dramatic intent that will never be bettered. youtu.be/M5xc7HlkjVI

Allie X will release new studio album, ‘Happiness Is Going To Get You’ on November 7.

‘Here’s to Your Illusions,’ also Flahooley.

‘Sing Happy,’ Flora the Red Menace.

Same!!

The brilliant Justine is one of my favorite Ziegfeld Girls.

Spotted on the Other Place: Elsa Maxwell 1929 (Marx-well?) costume party with Richard Rodgers as Zeppo, Justine Johnstone as Harpo, George Gershwin as #botd Groucho, and Jules Glaenzer as Chico.

42nd Street Novel Bradford Ropes 1932 : Bradford Ropes : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Bradford Ropes' 1932 novel '42nd Street'. This was the source novel for the 1933 film and 1980 Broadway musical.

In the meantime, great materials @archive.org: archive.org/details/42nd... and (for the film): archive.org/details/pres....

The copyright status of the Ropes ‘42nd Street’ has been difficult to pin down definitively (and I have certainly looked). As far as I’ve been able to tell, it’s been in a limbo for years. But it should become open for new adaptations in 2028 (though I hope those with an interest are starting now)…

CC @archive.org.

The context of the Harlem Renaissance (with which Ropes, under his stage name of Billy Bradford, heavily interacted in the ‘20s) and its relationship to Broadway should also be considerably expanded in this new dream-adaptation.

Maybe Taylor Swift could take an interest, given that she’s distantly related to Bradford Ropes (through Mayflower Compact signee Richard Warren).

Rocky Horror Picture Show writer/composer/star RICHARD O’BRIEN joins his son LINUS O’BRIEN, the filmmaker behind the new (fabulous) RHPS doc to chat with me & it’s essential; iconic. Howwasyourweek.com or wherever you get your podcasts

Julie Andrews at 90: the magical nanny with a sideline in the sly, sexy and subversive Britain’s practically perfect star enters her 10th decade today. To celebrate we look back over the remarkably rich, radical – and sometimes risqué – career of an actor best known for tucking up children in the mid 1960s

Julie Andrews at 90: the magical nanny with a sideline in the sly, sexy and subversive

I can see why! I knew some of the songs (‘Home,’ ‘My True Love’) but the show is new to me. It’s gorgeous, really quite moving, and fascinating to think about how different the adaptations are (Yeston more human-scaled) even as so many climactic plot points are the same.

Okay, not *as* bonkers. No adaptation of this source material can be sedate.

Not bonkers—and only one Erik and Christine—but the Yeston ‘Phantom’ is presented very appealingly (and sung sublimely) in this pro-shot South Korean production streaming on Kanopy: www.kanopy.com/en/product/p....

Richard Linklater’s Uncompromising Artists In two new historical films, “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague,” the director explores the challenges of staying true to a creative vision.

I profiled Richard Linklater on the occasion of his remarkable 2025 double bill, BLUE MOON and NOUVELLE VAGUE. We talked Austin, Cannes, Paris, OKLAHOMA!, beginnings (and ends) of beautiful friendships, and how to pursue a singular vision in a collaborative medium. www.newyorker.com/culture/pers...

First time at the Orpheum Theatre, for ‘Ginger Twinsies.’ Some storied Off-Broadway history on the walls!

‘Syncopated Stages’ at the NYPL Performing Arts brilliantly shows the multiplicity, resilience and cyclicality of Black musical theater artistry, from origins at the African Grove Theatre to ‘A Strange Loop’ and Audra ‘Gypsy.’ A few favorite images from the exhibition!