And so, back to the ’50s (again), with the consciously modest Broadway musical A Catered Affair.

Modesty doesn’t really suit Broadway; it implies “good taste,” discretion, refinement, art—Stephen Sondheim. The British director of A Catered Affair, John Doyle (of the recent minimalist Broadway revivals of Mr. Sondheim’s Company and Sweeney Todd), has treated what’s essentially a wheezing old potboiler as if it were a mini-opera. It’s a rare thing on Broadway in that sense: a tearjerker that induces no tears.  read more »

On Monday, April 14, the Transom visited with actor-writer Harvey Fierstein at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where his new play, an adaptation of the 1956 Gore Vidal-penned film A Catered Affair, is scheduled to open later this week.

So far Mr. Fierstein’s dressing room contains about eight pieces of folk art, a second passion for him.  read more »