This and That by JL

Denise Bessette is a modern woman. In fact, she is so modern that you might even consider her a 21st-Century feminist. As an actress, she made up her mind some time ago that she’d like to play the part of Nora, Henrik Ibsen’s character in A Doll’s House who leaves her husband and her children […]

          Did you ever stumble on an intimate conversation between two people that you felt you weren’t supposed to hear but couldn’t stop listening to?  That’s how I felt watching the play Constellations, now on stage at the Whippoorwill Hall Theater.  In this production by the Hudson Stage Company, two awkward […]

“O Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?”  His answer: “Here, I am in Turnure Park at 7pm on the evening of July 13.” So I’ll be tailing Juliet to the White Plains performance, which this year is presented with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.  Once again, ArtsWestchester is partnering with the City of White Plains, thanks […]

    It was The New York Drama Critics’ Circles best play of 1959. In 1961, it became a film starring Westchester’s Ruby Dee and Sidney Portier. Then it became a Broadway musical in 1973 and ever since, it has been revisited, revived and acclaimed.  This weekend (Friday and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at […]

Who among us does not remember the parental admonition “It’s not the gift, but the thought that counts”? I always think of my mother and my proper upbringing at this time of year. I re-live the powerful Gift of the Magi story and revel in the beauty of the sacrificial spirit of love between a […]

I am a great fan of the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress. It is a hilarious, somewhat silly romp in which a princess is authenticated by her ability to detect a pea under twelve layers of mattresses. ArtsWestchester’s own somewhat-silly romp began when someone found a mattress hidden out of sight in our building. […]

There aren’t too many dates I remember so well as November 22. Like most of my contemporaries, I can picture where I was standing and what I was doing on that date in 1963 as though it were yesterday. It came back to me vividly once again at a performance of “The Assassins” at the […]

Religion and politics!  These are two topics that are a no-no in polite company.  Or so I thought until I saw the new Hudson Stage Company (HSC) production of “The God Game.”  In “The God Game,” a moderate Republican senator is wooed to be the running mate of a conservative governor…if only he would please […]