Benjamin Dreyer

27 Nov 2024

Greetings, new people here at House of Copyediting. Besides first-rate, IISSM, prose advice, you'll get: • a random theater photo of the day, sometimes more than one • birthday alerts for dead actresses, and occasionally live ones • Sallie updates And it's all free!

Someone elsewhere put out a call for “post-1940s plays with large casts” and maybe a dozen people weighed in with Our Town, and I simply couldn’t process that.

Of course the suggestion of A Delicate Balance simply floored me. Six. SIX.

Someone elsewhere put out a call for “post-1940s plays with large casts” and maybe a dozen people weighed in with Our Town, and I simply couldn’t process that.

nashvillescene.comBrent Taylor's Sexting ProblemState Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) has sent unsolicited nude photos as recently as 2021, dismissing past sexual advances as “youthful indiscretions” that marked his 30-year marriage.

Even if you missed the s (I’m trying to be compassionate here): No.

Benjamin Dreyer reposted

Kevin M. Kruse

@kevinmkruse.bsky.social

So hard to pick a favorite part of this article. Pretending that sending unsolicited dick pics at 53 was a “youthful indiscretion” is good, but don’t sleep on the argument that his wife forgave him for subjecting other women to unwanted nude photos so everyone else should too

Nashville Scene@nashvillescene.com

Republican congressional candidate Brent Taylor asks voters to forgive past sexual advances as "youthful indiscretions."

Oh gosh, farewell to Susan Saint James. ❤️

(I will always wonder "Oh, what theater stuff did they do?," and it's rare that the answer turns out, as seems to be the case here: nearly none.) (I can track SSJ to a stock production of Ready When You Are, C.B.!)

"Assume the snark. Assume the snide." Assume the block.

Once again finding myself tempted to dine at a Cheesecake Factory, which I have not yet ever done. (The illustrated online menu makes it look like The Biggest Diner in the World.)

They had me at Cheeseburger Spring Rolls. ❤️

FRIED MACARONI AND CHEESE? PLEASE!

Happy Ruby Dee's birthday!

"...People are idiots. And we're counting on that."

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Q: Why shouldn't Alaskans find it insulting that the administration is suggesting they can't read the word 'incumbent' on their ballot and know to vote for Sen. Sullivan? JD VANCE: People are busy. People have lives. People have jobs.

today's semi-random theater photo: birthday girl Nanette Fabray and Ray Middleton in Love Life, by Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner (1948)

bonus Nanette!

Benjamin Dreyer@bcdreyer.social

today's random theater photo: Ray Bolger and Nanette Fabray in By Jupiter (1942), which is also the (rather improbable, I think) answer to the trivia question "What's the longest-running Rodgers and Hart original musical?"

...and Benay!

Benjamin Dreyer@bcdreyer.social

today's softly random theater photo Nanette Fabray, Benay Venuta, and Ray Bolger in By Jupiter

16h

I've just learned a new word! CLAGGY. Thank you, @nigella.bsky.social! (This trolley challenge is INSANE.)

17h

Not sure how you get Gazza as a nickname for Gary, but I guess it's cute. 🇬🇧 🫖

17h

More the fool I, but I really didn't imagine the current regime not simply leaning in to racism but braying it from every rooftop. Fuck RFK Jr., fuck his wife, and fuck anyone—anyone—who thinks that the Republican party deserves anything short of oblivion.

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com

RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."

my god i despise that schmackenpüssen

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kevin Hassett: "The affordability crisis is a myth"

(I could pretty much sing along with the entire thing entirely phonetically.)

17h

This one. It's my favorite, still.

my god i despise that schmackenpüssen

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kevin Hassett: "The affordability crisis is a myth"

A selberschmackenpüssen, if you will.

(I know as much German as I could infer from listening incessantly to Lenya's 1950s German Threepenny recording when I was in college. Specifically, in this case, "Selber Dreckhaufen!")

@tomasjmurray.bsky.social

❤️

Tomás Murray@tomasjmurray.bsky.social

Benjamin Dreyer reposted

Tomás Murray

It’s Teresa’s birthday tomorrow.

my god i despise that schmackenpüssen

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Kevin Hassett: "The affordability crisis is a myth"

If you'd like to be the second (or third, or fourth, or etc.) person to be blocked for responding "Actually, it's Backpfeifengesicht," knock yourself out. Preferably via a self-induced haymaker.

"I don't know you or even follow you, but you seem ignorant and I'm here to let you know that."

@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social

21h

👇🏻

Benjamin Dreyer@bcdreyer.social

It’s a T-shirt. Don’t call it a t-shirt unless, I dunno, there’s a headless neck sticking out of it.

Benjamin Dreyer reposted

Mic Wright

22h

I would only write this intro if I absolutely hated the person I was profiling.

👇🏻

Benjamin Dreyer@bcdreyer.social

"You've read your last free article" always makes me chortle. Like, it should be concluded with: ...pardner."

benjamindreyer.substack.comI’ve seen the future . . .[some questions, some without answers]

One final post on this baby (at least for now), then back in its box it goes. (It's about words.) (For a change.)

*clears throat loudly enough to be heard in Terre Haute*

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

JD Vance: "Gas prices are too high ... they skyrocket every time some tinpot dictator decides to throw a tantrum"

Speaking of Candide, I see that LA Opera is using the John Caird version of the Hugh Wheeler version. The former, as I recall from attending it in 1999, is notably uncomic, whereas the latter is sort of kind of one very very long rape joke. So: Good luck to everyone.

@kylegriffin1.bsky.social

On that London trip, I saw Oklahoma! (with Hugh) in the afternoon, and Candide at the National in the evening. It was a very long day at the theater.

Benjamin Dreyer reposted

William Shakespeare

@shakespeare.lol

The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!

Benjamin Dreyer reposted

Kyle Griffin

The Ramaswamy ad has pushed the largest newspaper in Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to reverse its position on endorsements. "A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party."

cleveland.comPlain Dealer/cleveland.com endorses Amy Acton for Ohio governorThe Plain Dealer editorial board endorses Democrat Amy Acton for Ohio governor, citing her preparedness and community engagement, while condemning opponent Vivek Ramaswamy's weaponizing of Acton's chi...

benjamindreyer.substack.comI’ve seen the future . . .[some questions, some without answers]

Whither English (and all that jazz)...

today's remarkably random theater photos four views of The Light of the World (1920)

It was written by Guy Bolton and George Middleton, who initially passed it off as a translation of a nonexistent French play by the nonexistent Pierre Saisson. Go figure.