A couple of months ago I wrote about the Empathy Gap. This past week, there were news stories and events that brought the phenomenon into sharp focus. Some people were able to sublimate the natural human reaction of seeing children in distress to a policy position about the importance of sovereignty. On the other side, others were moved beyond empathy to true compassion, going against others in their tribe to speak up against the horror. This is not a political post. But ther

I’ve been very frustrated the past couple of weeks. Even though there has been a lot going on -- end of school-year events, a primary election, prepping for our talkback with Michael Goldberg, etc. -- I found myself the recipient of an amazing gift: an unscheduled Saturday night! Once this became clear, I thought, “cool -- now I can finally go see TOPDOG/UNDERDOG!” I had been hoping to get out to see the show ever since it opened. But, much to my dismay, the show didn’t have

I have been catching up on the second season of “Westworld,” the HBO drama starring a fleet of amazing actors including Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, and Ed Harris. The second episode opens with some dramatic piano music that, thanks to exposure to our recently extended musical PRELUDES, I recognized as Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C# Minor. A key line of dialogue repeated in “Westworld” many times is “these violent delights have violent ends.” This phrase is

I am not proud of this but I have to admit: I am a Melissa Benoist superfan. The star of the CW show, Supergirl, Benoist first rose to prominence when she joined the cast of a fading Glee and was charming and low-key in stark contrast to Lea Michele’s increasingly needy and pushy headline performance (IMHO). I would have just called myself a fan -- I tune into Supergirl every week; again, I am not proud -- until the ads started popping up promoting her planned stint in Broadw