Did Elaine May disappear — or is that just another Hollywood myth?
The writer, director and actor deserves a better biographer than she gets in ‘Miss May Does Not Exist’
The writer, director and actor deserves a better biographer than she gets in ‘Miss May Does Not Exist’
Though not an observant Jew, the actor embodied more than a few Jewish values
The 'Beethoven' and 'Midnight Run' star was a man of many talents
The Greek realm of the dead had a banner year at the 2019 Tony Awards. If eight wins for Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown,” a folk retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth wasn’t enough, Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman,” which alludes to Charon, the famed boatman who carried the dead through the River Styx in its title,…
American Comedy’s Insurgent Genius And Jewish Mother What ties together “The Birdcage,” a mid-90s comedy about the clash between a gay couple and their conservative soon-to-be in-laws, “Labyrinth,” a terrifyingly weird children’s movie about a magical David Bowie, and “The Graduate”? Why, it’s Elaine May, who wrote the former two and made a fleeting cameo…
When “The Waverly Gallery” makes its official Broadway debut on October 25, Elaine May will appear as Gladys, the Alzheimer’s-afflicted grandmother in Kenneth Lonergan’s 1999 comic drama that brings multiple meanings to the term “memory play.” Fans of the comedian/actress/writer/director, who has been American comedy’s insurgent genius as well as its Jewish mother, have greeted…
‘I see my tiger robe on television,” my mother says to me on the phone. “What am I watching?” I pause for a split second to think. I’m about 1,300 miles away from her. But I know: “The Birdcage.” My mother chuckles. She’s talking about the scene in the now iconic 1996 comedy where Robin…
Born Mikhail Peschkowsky in Berlin, Mike Nichols went on to become one of the greatest forces in American comedy and film. An early member of Chicago’s Compass Players, which went on to become Second City, one half of Nichols and May, director of “The Graduate,” “Catch 22,” and most recently “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Nichols has…
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