Bob Dylan turns 70

Dylan is 70!

Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Hibbing, Minn., on May 24, 1941, is celebrating his 70th birthday today. His songs are among the first I remember listening to - and loving. So happy birthday, Zimmy!

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about my favorite Dylan tunes, most of which date from the 1960s. As much as he fought against the whole "voice of his generation" label, his music really did help to define that tumultuous decade.

I've only seen him perform once, in 1988 at The New York State Fair. As usual, he didn't say much between songs but he did play a couple that I especially love: "The Times They Are A-Changin" and "Like A Rolling Stone."

But my favorite - and most likely the first Dylan song I ever heard - is "Blowin in the Wind," from 1962. Based on the spiritual "No More Auction Block," it became an anthem of the civil-rights and antiwar movements and remains an American classic.

More than four decades later, "Blowin in the Wind" resonates deeply with a simple, direct question that continues to define the struggle for equal rights: "How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?"

Here's a young Dylan singing what is arguably his most famous song. I listened to this a few times last night when I found it on YouTube and what struck me was how sweet he sounds.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

The show in which I made my Broadway debut - Hair - is closing today at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre after 548 performances and a Tony for Best Revival of a Musical.

I wish it could have run longer but one thing I've learned, except for The Phantom of the Opera nothing lasts forever.

I love the songs from Hair, I saw the movie in 1979 and I caught a touring production once in Syracuse, years ago.

But this revival, directed by Diane Paulus, is the one that truly got to me. I love the way it evoked the be-who-you-are spirit of the 1960s while not ignoring the more tumultuous events. Here's my review.

Inviting the audience onstage at the end of the show was a perfect way to celebrate a decade that was all about breaking down barriers. It was a thrilling experience and I'm happy I could share it with Kevin, my friend and fellow blogger.

(And how great was it that the cast of Hair were such strong supporters of marriage equality, bringing forward the decade's commitment to freedom and social justice.)

Paulus could have turned Hair into an exercise in hippie nostalgia - a look back at a time of sexual liberation, when young people dropped out, got stoned, wore tie-dyed shirts and bell bottom trousers and men grew their hair long.

Instead, she made the story relevant and compelling by keeping the focus on the most divisive and politically charged aspect of the decade - the Vietnam War.

Through Gavin Creel's terrific portrayal of the conflicted Claude, the musical brought home the difficult choices young men faced. Young men, that is, who weren't as fortunate as Dick Cheney or Richard Blumenthal.

For me, more than the fashions and hairstyles, Claude's plight was a stark reminder of how much has changed.

There was an article last week in The New York Times that pointed out, America's "all-volunteer military continues to fight two wars that the vast majority of American society pays little or no attention to."

Forty years ago, at the height of protests against Vietnam, that detachment would have been inconceivable.

I saw Hair on Memorial Day weekend in 2009. It's a powerful reminder of the care we should take before sending Americans into harm's way, whether they're draftees or volunteers, our loved ones or someone else's.

While Hair is closing on Broadway, a national tour begins this fall. I am so glad I had a chance to see it.

The music that changed history

Last week at the White House, President Obama hosted "A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement." It aired on PBS but I caught the concert online here.

I love the music of the 1960s, especially the songs that became civil-rights anthems. They were designed to inspire and lift the spirits of people who had been battered and bruised in the fight for equality. This was music meant to be actively sung, not simply listened to passively.

As Jon Pareles put it in his New York Times review, "If any music can claim to have changed history, it was the songs of the civil rights movement."

And how stirring to see and hear these songs not in some grainy black-and-white news footage from some small Southern town but in the elegance of the East Room.

Yolanda Adams sang Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come," a song that always gets me choked up. I liked John Mellencamp's rockin' "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize."

How cool was it to hear Bob Dylan sing "The Times They Are A-Changin" for an audience that likely included actual senators and congressmen!

Of course, Joan Baez sang "We Shall Overcome," the song she performed at the March on Washington in 1963. What a perfect bookend to history.

It was incredible to listen to these songs and think about the people who sang them half a century ago, people who were beaten and jailed and even killed simply for trying to register African-Americans to vote.

Now, these same songs are performed at the White House in front of our country's first African-American president. Could anyone ever have imagined it?

Here are the performances by Adams:



And Dylan



And Baez

Tweeting JFK's road to White House

For a week now I've been watching another kind of drama unfold via Twitter. The Kennedy Library in Boston is re-creating John F. Kennedy's race for the White House in 1960 by tweeting events from his daily schedule.

Last Saturday the Massachusetts senator announced his candidacy for president, on Jan. 2, 1960. By today's campaign standards, he was literally a Johnny-come-lately. You can watch a newsreel report here.

Kennedy's campaign-related events during that first week included an appearance on Meet the Press (still on the air!) and lunch on Madison Avenue with the editors of Look magazine (no longer published).

Interestingly, he also met with an Episcopal bishop and Methodist minister from Delaware, perhaps indicating how early in the campaign the Roman Catholic Kennedy was confronting questions about his religion.

For a 1960s buff like myself, this is all pretty interesting stuff - and such a great way to look back, in a half-dozen or so 140-character chunks per day.

There are all kinds of little social and cultural details you can pick up on, too - like the dinner Kennedy attended at the National Women's Press Club on Jan. 6, 1960. The National Press Club was still a male-only bastion. Women weren't admitted until 1971.

I'm looking forward to the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, in September. And speaking of Richard Nixon, the vice president announced his candidacy on Jan. 9, 1960. It would be great if the Nixon Library did something similar on Twitter.

The 1960 presidential campaign was a watershed - the first in which both candidates were born in the 20th century, the closest electoral vote since 1916, the first televised debate, the first election in which Alaska and Hawaii participated.

It's so hard to believe 50 years have passed.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

First, via the Wayback Machine, here are some of the plays and musicals that will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2010.

The musicals that opened in 1960 include:

Bye Bye Birdie, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Irma La Douce and Camelot on Broadway; Oliver! in London's West End; and The Fantasticks off-Broadway.

I've never seen The Fantasticks, which is currently playing at the Snapple Theater Center in Times Square. So maybe this will be the year!

Among the plays that opened on Broadway in 1960 were:

A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney; Becket, by Jean Anouilh, Toys in the Attic, by Lillian Hellman, The Best Man, by Gore Vidal, and All the Way Home, by Tad Mosel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Interestingly, there were two stage adaptations of noteworthy novels that opened on Broadway in 1960: John Hersey's The Wall and Allen Drury's Advise and Consent.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2010! I hope it's a year filled with great theatre. And as always, thank-you so much for stopping by.

At Stonewall, stepping into history

Sometimes it's nice to go "off the grid" of midtown Manhattan's numerically organized streets, which is why I love walking around Greenwich Village. So on the evening I was seeing Our Town at the Barrow Street Theatre, I went early to explore and enjoy a terrific dinner before seeing a great play.

Another thing I love about New York is that I'm always stumbling across someone or something unexpected.

On Christopher Street, I spotted The Stonewall Inn. I knew about its place in the gay-rights movement and I'd read Frank Rich's column in The New York Times on the 40th anniversary of the uprising that followed a police raid on the bar, on June 28, 1969.

I love seeing the places where history was made, so after snapping a few pictures, I went in to look around. (Later I learned that this isn't the original Stonewall, which was a little disappointing. But I think it's close to the original location.)

I made some personal history, too - it was my first time in a gay bar. It's not that I avoided them, I've just never been a big bar-hopper and I never had the opportunity, never had any friends take me to one.

Inside, it's a pretty ordinary place - subdued lighting, a pool table, rainbow-colored decorations hanging from the ceiling. It wasn't crowded on a Thursday afternoon - some men sitting at the bar. I thought about what it must have been like 40 years earlier and how the men in the bar that night could have been my friends, people I love.

I walked around, looking at historic photos and newspaper clippings on the walls, including one from a New York City paper the Sunday after the incident that made Stonewall famous, with the unbelievable headline: "Homo nest raided, queen bees are stinging mad."

I know that raids like the one at Stonewall are far from history. In fact, Texas authorities raided a gay club in Forth Worth in June, on very anniversary of the Stonewall riots, sending one person to the hospital with a head injury.

Coincidentally, I visited Stonewall the same afternoon that President Obama was in New York, speaking to the 100th anniversary gathering of the NAACP. The president talked about how far we've come in dealing with prejudice and discrimination but noted that we're not there yet.

To his credit, he did mention the struggle by gay and lesbian Americans for equal rights. Although I wish the rhetoric would be backed up by action to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act and to push for passage of the Matthew Shepard Act that would authorize the Justice Department to investigate hate crimes based on sexual orientation.

The president also talked about how change in America comes from the people, including the four black college students who sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 and refused to leave until they were served.

While that was an act of nonviolent resistance, being in Stonewall still reminded me of those fearless young men. Sometimes history is made in the most unlikely places, at times when ordinary people who have been discriminated against, oppressed or shut out decide that they've simply had enough.

Of course today, no one would deny that our rights as Americans should include the ability to have a cup of coffee at the lunch counter of our choice. It seems to me that those rights should also include sitting down in a bar and having a drink without fear.

In 1999, when Stonewall and the area around it were added to the National Register of Historic Places, Assistant Interior Secretary M. John Berry said:

''Let it forever be remembered that here -- on this spot -- men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose and love whom our hearts desire.''

Katharine Hepburn and Kent State

Last week, my passion for the theatre and my interest in the history of the 1960s intersected in a most unexpected way.

It happened when I went to see the Katharine Hepburn exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center. It runs through Oct. 10 and I definitely recommend a visit.

The exhibit, drawn from Hepburn's private papers, documents her stage career from the 1920s to the 1990s, including her Broadway appearances. I got a kick out of seeing her name in college productions from her years at Bryn Mawr, her first Equity contract.

But near the end, I saw something that surprised me: an unusual request made of every Broadway cast on one night in May 1970.

Regular readers of my blog know that I've always had a keen interest in the 1960s - in the culture, the music, the history of the civil rights and antiwar movements.

One thing I didn't know was that audiences on Broadway were asked to observe a moment of silence following the killing of four students at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970.

On May 7, 1970, Ms. Hepburn was appearing on Broadway in the musical Coco, based on the life of French fashion designer Coco Chanel. She received the following telegram at the Mark Hellinger Theatre from Keir Dullea, on behalf of Actors Equity:

"Would the cast join us in asking the audience for a moment of silence on Friday May 8 after the curtain to remember the four Kent State students and to ask that such a tragedy shall never be repeated."

This was such a polarizing time in American life. I'd be interested in finding out whether all Broadway casts complied or whether there was some resistance. I know Broadway marquees are often dimmed when a stage notable passes away but this was something different.

Hepburn decided not only to ask for a moment of silence but composed a short speech, which you can see as part of the exhibit.

Her niece, the actress Katharine Houghton, told The New York Times that the remarks were a surprise. Hepburn usually was “very careful not to mix politics with the theater,” and often quoted Spencer Tracy's comment that “actors who got involved in politics can suffer the fate of the man who shot Lincoln.”

But the shootings were so horrifying that she apparently felt an obligation to speak out. And what Hepburn wrote was so moving. I love that she talked about how these were "our kids" and "we belong to each other." Here's an excerpt:

"Now you may call them rebels or rabble-rousers or anything you please. Nevertheless, they were our kids and our responsibility. Our generation are responsible and we must take time to pause and reflect and do something. You can pray but we must think! And together, for we belong to each other. If we don't, we're lost."

So long, teenage Baltimore

Of all the shows closing on Broadway this month, including nine that play their final performances today, I think every theatre fan probably has one that they're saddest to see go. For me, it's Hairspray, which ends a 6 1/2-year run at the Neil Simon Theatre this afternoon.

I first saw Hairspray on tour, in May 2007, and I loved the energetic choreography, catchy songs that capture an era and moving story about teenager Tracy Turnblad's effort to integrate a dance show in 1962 Baltimore. For me, Hairspray illuminates American history in way that's never preachy, always entertaining. It's about the possibility of change, a reminder of our struggle to become a more just society.

How much do I love this show? Well, I still have the confetti that dropped from the ceiling at the end of that performance and the Broadway cast recording has been in pretty steady rotation on my iPod ever since that afternoon.

Since then, I've had two terrific Hairspray-related experiences. The first came in May, when I met Scott Wittman who, with Marc Shaiman, his creative and life partner of 30 years, wrote the score. And in November, I had a chance to see the musical on Broadway, with the amazing, wonderful, hilarious Harvey Fierstein reprising his Tony-winning role as Edna Turnblad. As wonderful as it is to see something new, I loved sitting in the audience anticipating every scene, every song, every laugh.

I think my fellow blogger Patrick Lee, of Just Shows to Go You, who paid a visit to Hairspray last month, captures exactly how I felt: "I spent the first act with the wildly enthusiastic audience marveling at how feel-good a well-directed, delightfully choreographed and terrifically scored big Broadway musical can be when everyone is on their game."

In this case, everyone includes, in addition to the composers, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, book writers Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, director Jack O'Brien, costume designer William Ivey Long, set designer David Rockwell, hair and wig designer Paul Huntley, and of course, filmmaker John Waters, who drew on his childhood in Baltimore for the original 1988 movie.

While some movie-to-stage adaptations I've seen have felt a little flat, to me, this one hits the mark. I think it's a combination of music that captures the era, a compelling story and memorable characters. The more shows I see the more I realize that those three things aren't easy to accomplish.

After a tryout in Seattle, Hairspray begin previews on July 18, 2002 and opened on Broadway on Aug. 15. By the time it closes, it will have played 31 previews and 2,641 regular performances. Hairspray won eight Tony awards, including Best Musical and for its score, book, costume design and direction. In addition, Fierstein, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Dick Latessa won Tonys for their performances as Edna, Tracy and Wilber Turnblad.

The musical spawned a 2007 movie and now, there are plans for a sequel, with Shaiman, Wittman and Waters all involved. What I'm hoping for is that Hairspray has long and successful life in high schools and community theatres around the United States.

The specifics of Hairspray's story are fictitious. But I love the way it truly evokes the spirit of the early 1960s, a time of optimism and hope, when Americans confronted the stain of segregation and tried to make this country a more equal and just place for all its citizens. It's about standing up for what you believe in and the power of an individual to effect change.

When I think about the 1960s, the music is one of the things that comes to mind. At it's most basic, Hairspray is about the power of music to break barriers and bring people together. For nearly seven years, the show has brought audiences together on Broadway.

And while I enjoy the original movie and the movie musical, there's nothing like seeing this joyous show live, in a crowded theatre, with an audience laughing and cheering and being moved by the story. The beat stops on Broadway today, but it will go on.

Welcome to the end of the '60s

All history buffs have their passions and mine happens to be the 1960s, especially the antiwar and civil rights movements. While my interest isn't as great as it once was, a good '60s story still gets to me. So this week, in some ways a culmination of that much maligned and misunderstood decade, has been pretty dramatic.

And on Wednesday night, there'll be one more bit of 1960s-tinged drama. I'll be in the audience at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre watching Hairspray, with Harvey Fierstein reprising his Tony-winning role as the oversized and over-stressed housewife Edna Turnblad. Fierstein's come back to take a victory lap with Hairspray, which ends its 6 1/2-year Broadway run Jan. 18.

I've loved the musical ever since I saw it on tour last year. The book, by Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, based on John Waters' movie, does such a terrific job bringing to life the struggle to end segregation. It's done in a way that doesn't seem preachy or overly sentimental. The effort of white teenager Tracy Turnblad to integrate a Baltimore teen dance show, so that black teens could dance every week, makes learning about history entertaining - fun even.

Plus, Hairspray has some great pop tunes by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman that really capture the decade's early years - a time when America was on the cusp of change. The original Broadway cast recording is one of my favorites.

When I saw the show on tour, one song really got to me. Yvette Monique Clark's rendition of "I know where I've been" was so powerful, so emotional. The song, with lyrics "There's a dream in the future, there's a struggle that we have yet to win," truly evokes the civil-rights anthems of the 1960s. At the end, black kids and white kids, standing from one end of the stage to another, are holding hands. It was the first time I ever felt like giving a song a standing ovation.

With the election of Barack Obama, I suspect hearing that song again will be even more poignant, By the end of Hairspray, I fully expect to be a wet, blubbery mess. (Must remember to pack extra tissues.)

It's kind of fitting that Hairspray will close the same week of Obama's inauguration as our nation's 44th president. In some ways, they're bookends for the 1960s. And as op-ed columnist Gail Collins wrote in The New York Times this week, the baby boom generation deserves a round of applause:

"The boomers didn’t win any wars and that business about being self-involved was not entirely unfounded. On the other hand, they made the nation get serious about the idea of everybody being created equal. And now American children are going to grow up unaware that there’s anything novel in an African-American president or a woman running for the White House. We’ll settle for that."

So I'm looking forward to seeing Hairspray on stage for a second time, when I'll applaud and likely shed a few tears as I watch Tracy, Edna and company take a well-deserved bow.

They were not afraid

This is in memory of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, two Jews and a black man who were murdered in 1964 simply for trying to ensure that all Americans had equal rights and equal protection under the law. I've been thinking about them this week in light of Barack Obama's election to be our next president.



All three showed great courage. Schwerner and Goodman could have enjoyed their comfortable white, Jewish middle class lives, but something compelled them to go to Mississippi. This was a time of legal segregation, when African-Americans in the South could not vote. They knew that until we're all free, no one is free. Somewhere along the line, we forgot about that on Tuesday - in California, Florida, Arkansas and Arizona, were antigay ballot measures were approved. Here's another reminder:

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."
Coretta Scott King

One for the history books

Some people have the Olympics, but if you're interested in American history and politics, there are more important quadrennial events - the Democratic and Republican conventions. And the roll call of the states is the most exciting part. It's like swimming, gymnastics, basketball, track and field all rolled into one.

I love the roll call because it gives each state's delegation a moment in the spolight, a chance to whoop it up and holler and recite the litany of things that make their state great. (Sports teams and food are big). And believe me, in the roll call, every state is great. It's always fun and I usually learn a few things I didn't know. But this roll call at the Democratic National Convention was infused with so much history and symbolism.

Anderson Cooper at CNN got it right: this is a day for the history books. Barack Obama is nominated by acclimation as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, the first African-American ever to be nominated by a major party.

The Massachusetts delegation, led by the state's first female Senate president, Therese Murray, and first African-American governor, Deval Patrick paid tribute to the Red Sox and the Patriots and the Celtics, but also to the state's heritage as a pioneer in education and universal health care and the first in equality in marriage in the United States. (Take note, Democrats. Don't soft pedal your commitment to equality for all Americans - trumpet it proudly.)

The Mississippi delegation referred to the state as the home of the blues and of the late Fannie Lou Hamer, an African-American who was a leader in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that challenged the state's all-white and anti civil-rights delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention.

The New Hampshire delegation noted the historic nature of Hillary Clinton's victory in that state's primary. Clinton released her delegates earlier in the day, and recalling a line from Martin Luther King's dream "from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire," the state cast all of its votes for Obama.

Of course, there's always a lot of boosterism in the roll call: Kansas, a pioneer in wind energy and home of the Orange Bowl champion Jayhawks; Minnesota, the state that always has the highest voter turnout in the country; Louisiana, home of gumbo, jambalaya crawfish pie, Kentucky, home of next month's Ryder Cup golf tournament.

But my favorite was Maine: "The sun comes up in Maine first in the nation and we feel very honored to have that as our singular, whatever, privilege. As Maine goes - you've heard this before - so goes the nation."

The roll call used to occur in the evening, on national television. Now, sadly, it's banished to early evening on CNN and C-SPAN. It's really a shame because even though we know the outcome it's still got plenty of humor, poignancy and drama. And this year, for all Americans, no matter what your race or political viewpoint - history.

Democrats, Denver and history

I'm on the couch, in front of the tv, my feet up on the coffee table, watching CNN, ready for the Democratic National Convention, live from Denver. It's going to be an exciting four days of political theatre.

Whatever your views, this is truly a historic week in American history. Consider that in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born, black Americans living across a large swath of the southern United States were not permitted to vote. Now, a major political party is preparing to nominate an African-American candidate for president. It's something that no one could ever have contemplated when Obama was born.

Sometimes it's easy to throw up your hands and feel that one person can't make a difference. But in the 1960s, ordinary Americans, surmounting fear and acting with tremendous courage - black and white, college students and housewives - put aside their own personal safety to secure civil rights for black Americans. In the process, some of them were jailed, beaten and even killed. They were not afraid and they helped make this country better - for all Americans.

It was the sight of peaceful marchers being attacked by the police while walking from from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a bit of incredible coincidence, ABC was showing Judgment at Nuremberg, a film about Nazi racism, that night in March 1965, and broke into the movie to broadcast the bloody images that horrified a nation.

A week after the violence, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and urged passage of the Voting Rights Act. (The picture is of Johnson signing the act into law, on Aug. 6, 1965.) It's a remarkable speech and a great example of using the office of the presidency as a bully pulpit. You can listen to the speech here.

In his speech, Johnson made the struggle for equal rights for black Americans a struggle for all Americans, invoking the words of the civil-rights anthem by saying, "We shall overcome." In the decades since the act was passed, the number of black elected officials has climbed from 300 to more than 9,100. Including, of course, the junior senator from Illinois.

If you want to read a compelling novel about the struggle, I recommend Freshwater Road, by Denise Nicholas. The protagonist is a young African-American woman from Michigan who ventures south during Freedom Summer, which brought hundreds of young, mostly white and Northern, volunteers to Mississippi in 1964 to try and register black voters.

Okay, enjoy the convention. I'm looking forward to Michelle Obama's speech tonight and an appearance by Sen. Edward Kennedy, who's undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Obviously, that will be an incredibly emotional moment.

Update 9:38 p.m. Teddy just finished speaking. It was a poignant moment and he sounds like he's got plenty of fight left. His comment that "this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans" really got to me and I'm a little teary right now. Plus, he's absolutely right about health care for all Americans - it's a right, not a privilege. Here's a transcript of his speech.

Update 10:58 p.m. I thought Michelle Obama's speech was pretty good. It softened her, showed where she came from and served as a good introduction to her husband. She was passionate without sounding strident. She's not a forceful, stand-and-deliver type of speaker, her voice reaching a crescendo as she gets to an applause point. The fact that she seemed a bit nervous, that she didn't quite know what to do with her hands at times, was kind of endearing.

I think the part that will resonate with a lot of voters was at the end, when Barack Obama appeared by video hookup from Kansas City. Watching him interact with his wife and two young daughters was terrific. They seem like a close, loving family, people you'd want to have for your friends or neighbors. In a country where too many white people don't have friends or coworkers who are African-American, that may be the most important thing her speech accomplished. There'll be plenty of time for policy talk later. You can read her remarks here.

Guess who may be coming to Broadway?

While it can be a bit cringe-inducing to watch today, 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, directed by Stanley Kramer, is an iconic 1960s "message" movie.

Even if you've never seen the movie, you probably know the plot, or at least understand the meaning of the title. It's about an affluent couple, played by Spencer Tracy (in his final film role) and Katharine Hepburn, whose liberal values are tested when their daughter (Hepburn's niece, Katharine Houghton) brings home her African-American fiance, a brilliant doctor portrayed by Sidney Poitier.

I haven't read anything since last summer about plans for a stage version, to be directed by Kenny Leon. But this week, some casting rumors surfaced on FoxNews.com. According to Roger Friedman's story, Debra Winger and either Bill Pullman or Barry Bostwick are in line to play the Hepburn and Tracy roles, with Amanda Bynes as their daughter and Mekhi Phifer possibly stepping into Poitier's very big and legendary shoes. Of course, with Broadway shows falling by the wayside left and right, there's no guarantee that this will even happen.

Still, I hope it does. It's tempting to think of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner as hopelessly dated, a relic of its times. The movie was released right around the time of the landmark Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia that found laws barring interracial marriage were unconstitutional. Obviously, interracial marriage is much more common and accepted today.

The plot of the movie does strain credulity. It's easy to poke fun at Tracy and Hepburn's characters as upper-class white liberals who squirm uneasily when they finally have to practice what they preach. They have a very short time to decide whether they'll give this impending marriage their blessing.

And the way Poitier's character is written, he's so perfect that the only possible objection they could have is his race. (In truth, there's a very logical and understandable objection - the fact that their daughter only met him a short time ago, when she was on vacation in Hawaii!) Plus, Houghton's character seems a tad flightly. I mean, what does Poitier see in her!

But let me try to make a case for the continuing relevance of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

First, there are still, unfortunately, many families in which bringing home someone of a different race, religion, ethnic group - or the same gender - would not be greeted with open arms. One of the most poignant - and pointed - scenes in Passing Strange comes when Daniel Breaker's Youth realizes that his left-wing German friends aren't so eager to have him come meet mom and dad at Christmas.

What I appreciate about Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? is that there's no time for equivocation. This was the baby boomers demanding of their parents, tell us right now whether or not you believe in the American values of freedom and equality that we were taught in school, because we do believe in them.

And that tension - between what we say we believe in and what we actually do - is still relevant. It's very easy to say that we believe in freedom and equality and free speech, that we judge people by the content of their character. But there aren't many times in our lives when we're truly tested. As imperfect as it may be, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? is about what happens when that occurs.

Zimmy & Me

On Sunday, Bob Dylan will perform at the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore. In honor of the occasion, fans of Zimmy are weighing in at The Washington Post with their Top 5 Dylan songs.

Dylan has always been one of my favorite songwriters, even when I preferred other people singing his songs. I was shocked that so few people mentioned my all-time favorite, so I came up with a list of my own. (For a different take on the matter, my friend Dan weighs in with his picks at Media Nation.)

1. Blowin' in the Wind (1962) - Based on a spiritual, "No More Auction Block," this song became an anthem of the civil-rights movement, especially after it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. I think it's an American classic, and Dylan's finest song. (I'm certain it's also the first Bob Dylan song I ever heard). While some critics contend that the lyrics are ambiguous, I disagree. "Blowin' in the Wind" resonates deeply more than four decades later with a simple, direct question that continues to define the struggle for equal rights: "How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?"

2. The Times They Are A-Changin' (1963) - While Dylan always rebelled against being labeled a protest singer or the voice of his generation, in songs like "The Times They Are A-Changin," I think he perfectly captured that generational divide. "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."

3. Like a Rolling Stone (1965) - I think "Like a Rolling Stone" is a great example of Dylan's skill as a storyteller. I also think that the sense of alienation in the lyrics, the sense of being a little adrift and uncertain of your place in the world, must have struck a chord with people in the mid 1960s: "How does it feel to be on your own with no direction home, a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone?" Haven't we all felt like that at one time or another?

4. Mr. Tambourine Man (1964) - Sometimes the lyrics in Dylan's songs can be a bit cryptic, but I think this is one of his most beautiful, with some of his most evocative and unusual imagery: "Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind. Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves. The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach. Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow."

5. Chimes of Freedom (1964) - My favorite version isn't Dylan's, but Bruce Springsteen's cover of it. Springsteen performed it in 1988, and it was released to benefit a tour in support of Amnesty International. I love the mixture of poetry and protest in the lyrics: Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake. Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an' forsaked. Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake. An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

Ok, you're probably sensing a theme here. All of my favorites were written in the early to mid-1960s. What can I say? I've always been interested in the history, politics and culture of the sixties. As much as Dylan fought against it, his music really did help to define that decade. In many ways, I guess they're the obvious picks. They're probably Dylan's most well-known songs. I know he wrote plenty of great music after 1965, but these are the ones that I love listening to the most. It's my folkie side coming out, I guess.

I've only seen Dylan perform once, on Aug. 31, 1988, at The New York State Fair, in Syracuse. (Wow, 20 years ago this month. I didn't realize it had been that long!) As usual, he didn't say much between songs. But it was a great concert and he played a couple of my all-time favorite tunes. Here's the track list:

Subterranean Homesick Blues, I'll Remember You, Tangled Up In Blue, All Along The Watchtower, Every Grain Of Sand, Highway 61 Revisited, To Ramona, Girl From The North Country, Don't Think Twice, One Too Many Mornings, I Shall Be Released, Silvio, Like A Rolling Stone, Times They Are A-Changin', Barbara Allen, and Maggie's Farm.

In a great bit of coincidence, a week after that anniversary I'll be making my first visit to Minneapolis, where a teenage Robert Zimmerman came from the North Country city of Hibbing to attend the University of Minnesota, where he got involved in the folk music scene, and where he became Bob Dylan.

Mad Men, Season 2

Tonight at 10 on AMC, it's the premiere of Season 2 of Mad Men, my most favorite summer television series ever!

If you're of a certain age, doesn't the idea of summer television strike you as, well, odd? When I was kid, back when there were only three channels and a very fuzzy PBS station that you could maybe tune in if you fiddled with the rabbit ears, summer meant only one thing - reruns. Now, there's an entire summer television lineup. Entertainment Weekly even had a summer television preview issue. Progress!

Granted, there's not always a lot of drama in this drama about life at Sterling Cooper, a second-tier Madison Avenue advertising agency, circa 1960. The big secret that ad executive Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, was hiding didn't seem all that interesting when it was finally revealed.

Still, I'm fascinated by Mad Men. It's such a stylish, faithful look at a an era in the not-too-distant past. It's a time that we may even remember a bit of from our own childhood but now look back on in horror - the smoking, the sexism, the racism, the lack of things we take for granted today, like seat belts and microwaves.

I feel almost giddy with anticipation knowing how much the lives of these characters will change over the course of the next decade. How will they cope with the advent of the civil-rights movement, the women's movement, the antiwar movement, affirmative action and free love? We're looking at America on the cusp of change and I wonder who will adapt and thrive, and who will fall off the edge.

Alex Wichtel wrote in the New York Times magazine about spending three days on the set of Mad Men. Creator Matthew Weiner says that he chose advertising as his subject because “it’s a great way to talk about the image we have of ourselves, versus who we really are. And admen were the rock stars of that era, creative, cocky, anti-authority. They made a lot of money, and they lived hard.”

Season 2 takes place in February 1962, 14 months after the Season 1 finale. At the television critics press tour earlier this summer, Weiner said "I honestly felt that picking up the story right after the finale was limiting. It would've really turned it into more of a soap opera than I would want it to be. " Weiner told the critics that he wants the show to be in 1968 by Season 5.

Finally, in a very clever spoof, Advertising Age designed vintage 1960 issue featuring Mad Men. Here's one story that made me smile: Sterling Cooper wins Kodak Projector Account." Apparently, Kodak was getting ready to launch a "revolutionary new technology" in slide projectors dubbed "the wheel," a removable circular tray for holding slides and dropping them into the projector.

Revolutionary new technology? I had no idea! I just happen to have a Kodak projector sitting all-but-forgotten in the back of my closet. I bought it to show off the 700-plus slides I took during my trip to Europe the summer after I graduated from college. Sadly, very few of my friends ever wanted to see them. And if you want one today, you're out of luck. Kodak stopped making slide projectors in 2004.

Thurgood

Gratuitous Violins rating: **** out of ****

This week's decision by the California Supreme Court to overturn a ban on gay marriage is the latest in a long line of battles to expand civil rights in America that have been waged - and won - in America's courtrooms. All of those struggles can be traced back to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed school segregation. In a unanimous decision, the justices said that separate can never truly be equal.

In the 1950s, before he became the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, was known as the lawyer for Linda Brown. She was the young black girl in Topeka, Kan., whose family wanted her to attend school closest to where she lived, a school that was designated for white children only.

Marshall's story, and the story of the fight to end legalized segregation in the United States, are brought to life by Laurence Fishburne's wonderful, totally absorbing performance in Thurgood, a one-man show playing through July 20 at Broadway's Booth Theatre.

When I was a young, I remember watching on television one-man shows with Henry Fonda as Clarence Darrow and James Whitmore as Harry Truman. Through their mannerisms and manner of speaking they became those men. I'm sure that a one-person show has got to be one of the most difficult roles for an actor. You're out there in front of an audience all alone, walking on a tightrope, without a net. Yet they pulled it off. And Fishburne is absolutely their equal. Quite simply, his performance blew me away. I totally suspended disbelief and felt like I was watching Thurgood Marshall tell me the story of his life. I just hope someone tapes this for posterity.

This was my first time seeing a one-person show live. Before I went, I was a little afraid that it might be a slightly dry recitation of the facts, something that was more good for me than entertaining. But Thurgood is immensely entertaining. And Fisburne is mesmerizing as he takes us on a journey through Marshall's life. While George Stevens Jr.'s 90-minute play takes the form of a lecture Marshall is giving at his alma mater, Howard University Law School, I never felt like I was being lectured at, but rather regaled by a masterful storyteller.

The set, by Allen Moyer, is simple but works fine - a long oak table, a lectern and couple of chairs. Elaine McCarthy's projections on a stucco-colored flag on the back wall - the Supreme Court building, a sharecropper's shack, a sign pointing to the balcony of a movie theater where black patrons were forced to sit - give us a feel for the time and place where these events in Marshall's life are occurring.

And under Leonard Foglia's direction, Fishburne, almost always in motion, is a commanding presence on stage. I was in the third row, on the aisle, so when he sat down, he was literally right in front of me. There was one point when I wanted to sneak a glance at the other side of the stage, but I didn't dare take my eyes off of him - he was looking right at me, or at least that's what it felt like.

Fishburne makes Marshall a very compelling character, but also folksy and very human - blunt at times, funny and self-deprecating, honest when talking about his shortcomings. Marshall comes across as a towering figure, totally determined to fight the evil of segregation, someone who was fierce in his beliefs, never wavering from his convictions on issues that were important to him, such as his opposition to the death penalty. And as a bonus, Fishburne does a terrific impression of Lyndon Johnson.

I knew the outline of the story from Simple Justice, Richard Kluger's excellent, detailed history of the Brown case. But Fishburne really brings those facts to life as he weaving together all of the different strands of Marshall's life - growing up in Baltimore, his decision to become a lawyer, the triumph of the Brown decision, the pain of losing his first wife to cancer. And his passionate delivery makes the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, with its equal-protection clause, sound practically like poetry. There's also one very funny anecdote about a white lawyer who joins the NAACP legal team that I remembered from the book, but hearing Fishburne as Marshall recount it truly brought home the difference between reading a story and hearing it.

When we think about the fight for civil rights, the first things that come to mind are Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus, peaceful protesters being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses. Those are all important things to remember. But that's only part of the story. What Fishburne reminds us of so forcefully in Thurgood is the equally important other part: the hours spent putting together cases, researching and writing legal briefs, arguing before judges who weren't always kindly predisposed to African-American lawyers.

It's a simple idea really: equal justice under law. Those words, engraved on the front of the Supreme Court, include far more Americans today than they did a half century ago. While we have a ways to go to truly include everyone under the banner of equal justice, we've certainly come a very long way. And for that, as Laurence Fishburne demonstrates so compellingly, we have Americans like Thurgood Marshall to thank.

Postscript: I've gotten a few queries asking whether Laurence Fishburne comes to the stage door after the show to sign autographs. At the Sunday matinee I saw, he did not come out. But there was someone at the door who would take your Playbill inside and get it autographed.

Broadway times two

When I reviewed the current Broadway revival of South Pacific, I mentioned that if you combine it with August: Osage County, you have a perfect pair of bookends for the Greatest Generation that grew up during the Great Depression, fought and won World War II, and sired the baby boomers.

South Pacific is the idealized, romanticized beginning of the Greatest Generation - full of youthful optimism and self-confidence. August: Osage County is when it all comes crashing to an end, in old age and illness, in a torrent of anger and bitterness. Together, they'd make a very interesting and thought-provoking day at the theatre.

Well, I've been thinking about some other shows that would make great Broadway double features. Here's my list so far:

Thurgood and Hairspray: Ok, this one's practically a no-brainer. They're both about the civil-rights movement. Hairspray takes place in Baltimore, and Thurgood Marshall was from Baltimore. I understand that one is a musical about a fictional character and the other, starring Laurence Fishburne, is a one-man play about a legendary civil-rights lawyer who became the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice. I'm not trying to make light of Marshall's achievements by comparing the show to Hairspray, and I haven't seen Thurgood yet. But they both recall an important time in American history, one that changed this country in profound ways. They're both about the power of the individual to affect change. And I think, or at least I hope, that they both have the ability to educate and inspire as well as entertain.

Passing Strange and Sunday in the Park with George: I've only seen SITPWG on DVD, with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. But like Passing Strange, it's about the process of creating art and all of the struggle that involves for the artist. In one case, it's a painter working on a canvas, in the other, an aspiring musician trying to compose a song. They both examine all of the people and events that pass through an artist's life and help to inspire his or her work. I also think that Passing Strange bears more than a passing resemblance to The Wizard of Oz, so pairing it with Wicked would work, too.

Wicked and The 39 Steps: Both of these take classic films and reimagine them in very creative, inspired ways. Ok, The 39 Steps is pretty much a word-for-word retelling of the Alfred Hitchcock movie, as opposed to Wicked's expansion of the story and characters we know from The Wizard of Oz. It doesn't take the story any further or expand our understanding of it the way Wicked does. Still, despite the differences, I think these are two interesting examples of taking material from another source and putting it on stage.

The Lion King and Macbeth: Yes, one's from Disney and one's a bloody Shakespearean tragedy about a power-hungry Scottish general that's clearly for an adult audience. But let's examine the plot of The Lion King: a young prince, believing his uncle is responsible for his father's death, tries to avenge the crime. I'm not the first to notice that it bears a strong resemblance to Hamlet. I'll be taking in both The Lion King and the current revival of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart, next month, although not, unfortunately, on the same day. But close enough for comparison.

Hairspray

I hadn't started my blog when I saw the Broadway musical "Hairspray" on tour in May, or when the movie came out in July, and I'm not sure the Internet had even been invented yet when the original John Waters movie came out in 1988. So, with the DVD of the movie musical being released on Tuesday, it's a good time to catch up.

I watched the original movie again a few months ago, after seeing the musical for the first time. Let me just say that the story of plus-size Baltimore teenager Tracy Turnblad's attempt to integrate a television dance show is captivating in any form.

Nikki Blonsky, plucked from obscurity at a Long Island ice cream parlor, makes a plucky and sweet Tracy in the musical version. While I love Harvey Fierstein's gravelly-voiced Edna Turnblad on the Broadway cast CD, John Travolta does a good job in the movie, especially in his duet with husband Wilbur, played by Christopher Walken.

But while I enjoy all three versions, I'd have to say that the stage musical is my favorite. There's just nothing as thrilling as seeing the songs performed live. You simply don't get the same sense of energy, the same adrenaline rush, seeing it in a movie theater. Although the movie is still a lot of fun.

For me, "Hairspray" really brings home the optimism of the early 1960s, in the years before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There was a sense that America was becoming a better place, a more inclusive place, not just for African-Americans, but for all Americans. And the move toward greater freedom and equality was unstoppable.

"Hairspray" is all about the power of music to bring people together, to galvanize a movement, to change lives. Writing partners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who have also been life partners for more than 25 years, have created some brilliant, catchy pop tunes.

Here's a good interview with Shaiman from last spring, when he received the ASCAP Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award in Film & Television Music. And here's a 2005 interview with Shaiman and Wittman in Washington, D.C.'s MetroWeekly, where they talk about how they became involved with "Hairspray."

Ok, I know I'm partial to pop-oriented Broadway scores, but I especially love the music from "Hairspray." I never get tired of listening to it. Perhaps the music, and the book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, make "Hairspray" more mainstream, more saccharine sweet, but I think they also make it better.

Songs like "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids in Town," "You Can't Stop the Beat" and "Run and Tell That" perfectly capture the spirit of 1962. Plus, "I Know Where I've Been" is such a great civil-rights anthem, it sounds like it could have been written in the '60s. After hearing and seeing it performed on stage, I wanted to jump up and give the song a standing ovation. (And Queen Latifah performs it beautifully in the movie).

Another thing I like about the musical is that it has great roles for white and black actors. It would have been too easy, and wrong, to make "Hairspray" a civil right story told solely from the perspective of a white teenage girl. But "Hairspray" truly is an integrated musical, in its characters, its storyline and its songs.

Shaiman told MetroWeekly that the creators of "Hairspray" were preparing to license it for high school and middle school productions. There was concern, Shaiman said, that some schools might not have enough black students to put on "Hairspray." They've been asked if "we wanted to think of how to rework the show so that it's not about the black civil rights movement but [something else]. But no, it is what it is. John wanted to make a musical comedy about racism, so it's important."

The two-disc version of the DVD, which of course I plan on getting, sounds like it has some great extras. There are two documentaries, one on the making of the movie and a second tracing the evolution of the original film and the Broadway stage show. There are also two commentaries, one with producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, and a second with director Adam Shankman and Blonsky, as well as deleted scenes and a feature on the music of "Hairspray."

The message of "Hairspray," about standing up for what you believe in, about believing in yourself, seems to have staying power. In movie theaters, "Hairspray" made nearly $200 million worldwide. When a strike hasn't shut it down, the show plays to near-capacity audiences at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre. It continues to tour across the United States. Stage versions are also being enthusiastically received in London and South Africa.

I'm just glad that the story is finding such a wide and enthusiastic audience, no matter what form it takes. It's been 45 years since the events depicted in "Hairspray," and while much has changed for the better in America, it's still worth a trip back in time to see how far we've come and what it took to get there.

Welcome to the sixties?

I've always said one of my biggest regrets is that although I was alive during the 1960s, I wasn't old enough to enjoy them.

After watching the brilliant AMC television series "Mad Men," about a second-tier advertising agency in Manhattan at the beginning of the decade, let me amend that remark. I have no regrets that I wasn't old enough to be a woman in the work force in 1960. This is the sixties before they became "The Sixties."

I came to "Mad Men" late, after seven episodes had already aired. But through the wonders of a convenience Americans couldn't even fathom in 1960, I got caught up thanks to my DVR and an all-day marathon. And I'm glad I did, even though the blatant predjudice, the womanizing, the ever-present cigarettes and alcohol is almost too difficult to bear. But for some reason, I can't turn away.

I watch in horror as two young children bounce around in the family car like a couple of beach balls, and I think, of course, there were no seat belts back then! Dad forgets to pick up a cake for his daughter's birthday party, so a neighbor brings one over from her freezer. It's stone cold, and of course, you can't nuke it in the microwave! A divorced mother of two moves in down the street and of course, it's a scandal!

Every episode brings new revelations of what life was like in America in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration, before the New Frontier, the women's movement, the civil-rights movement and the Summer of Love. Not to mention before smoke-free workplaces, diversity and anti-harassment policies.

Yes, it was a different world back then, and "Mad Men" brings it to life in exacting detail. And apparently, adultery was as common as the three-martini lunch back then. Who knew?

The plot's interesting, focusing mostly on the senior executive Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm. Draper, clean-shaven and square-jawed, exudes a steely self-confidence. But we know there something mysterious in his background that haunts him.

And the roster of clients, including Richard Nixon and a cigarette manufacturer, touches on some of the era's most contentious events. (It was very cool to watch John Cullum play the tobacco executive a mere two months after I saw him on Broadway in "110 in the Shade" and met him at the stage door!)

Last week's episode showed the ad executives seated around a conference table watching television commercials for Nixon and Kennedy. The Kennedy ad has a theme song and a montage of campaign signs and ends with a photo of the very telegenic JFK, Jackie and Caroline. "It's light, it's catchy and it doesn't cloud your mind with, I don't know, issues," Draper remarks. By contract, Nixon is a talking head, perched on the edge of a desk against a dark background. "The president is a product, don't forget that," says one of Draper's colleagues.

To me, that scene epitomizes what's so compelling about "Mad Men." We're viewing America on the cusp of change, at a time when so many of our modern attitudes were being formed, when ad men were trailblazers and a presidential candidate was simply another product to be packaged and sold to the public.