This and That by JL

Most of us know Off-Broadway as a creative energetic theater movement of the Fifties. Some say it started as a reaction to the constraints of the commercial theater. Most acknowledge that Theodore Mann, founder and artistic director of the Circle in a Square Theatre, who passed away this week was a dominant force in this [...]

“Music is better than medicine.” That’s what 11 year old Alma told Westchester legislators.  Alma went to Albany with Sister Beth Dowd and ten other youngsters of Songcatchers on Valentine’s Day to deliver some love songs and to ask for a boost in arts funding.  Songcatchers is an organization that works out of St. Gabriel’s [...]

Joe Wheelwright is a big guy. He thinks big. He acts big. He sculpts big. Like I said, he’s a big guy. No surprise that his sculptures in the courtyard at the Katonah Museum are at least three times his six foot three size. They are actually totem-like tree people, certainly worth a trip to [...]

I never before saw a gold (actually brass) diaphragm, but there it was enshrined center stage at the Katonah Museum of Art winning first prize in Art to the Point, their juried show of artists’ works from around the region. This conceptual work is by Beacon artist Robert Brush who made it as part of [...]

Sandra Mallah believes the arts can change lives. She would know. For 40 years, she was a special educator for troubled youth at the Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry where she rose to become school superintendent of the Greenburgh School District. Children’s Village is a residential treatment center that also provides community-based services to adolescents average ages [...]

I never met Margot Irish. She was a teacher and volleyball coach in Sleepy Hollow. She lived in White Plains.  She passed away in 2009. She may have graduated Horace Greeley High School. I am not certain of that, but according to a tribute on the school’s website, she loved the arts.  I believe this [...]

The ancient art of shadow puppetry is something most of us as kids have tried.  With a white sheet on the wall, and a flashlight, it’s fun to conjure up wolves, dogs and ominous people.  The folklore surrounding this 2,000-year-old practice tells of an Emperor who was able to cure his grief by viewing the [...]

I am a dog person. I am not a cat person. The idea of spending an evening with a bunch of cats of all stripes and varieties never quite appealed to me. I state this to explain why, despite being the second longest running Broadway show, I never saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats”…that is until [...]