Given the Lincoln Center membership demographic they need to keep the defibrillators handy during a steamy fantasy scene in Flex, about…

by Bob Salzman (From The Corona Chronicles, an anthology of essays about 2020 and Covid edited by Andrew Lenoir, published in 2022 by Ellipsis Rare Books) My late mother was five years old during the pandemic of 1918. She never forgot the sight of a horse-drawn wagon piled with bodies passing her window in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. This year I often thought of what that terrified little girl saw and the haunting similarity between the street scenes of a frightened population in masks then and now.

My letter to the NY Times Editor May 23, 2023 Earlier this month, activists for and against the bill clashed at the State Capitol in Austin.Credit…Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press To the Editor: Re “Texas Bans Medical Care for Minors in Transition” (news article, May 18): There is clearly a generational tectonic shift in gender identity going on. Legislation to prevent young people from getting high-quality transition medical care ignores the recommendations of America’s leading medical organizations. This law is a cynical, dishonest play for votes and money. It is no way to treat our kids.

Minetta Lane Theatre, Greenwich Village — A six week limited engagement that started previewing on April 28. Michael Cruz Kayne is the writer and performer of this 70 minute one man show premised on the unspeakable loss of his infant twin at 36 days. Mr. Kayne’s resume as a comedy writer created expectations that he might achieve the impossible task of getting laughs in the telling of…

Bullet Review: The Coast Starlight, now in previews at Lincoln Center. It was tough to decide what I enjoyed most about the Coast Starlight Express, a new play by Keith Bunin, now in previews at Lincoln Center. …

September 2022 When 7 guys plan a 5 day walking and hiking tour of Yosemite National Park to celebrate a friend’s birthday, you would expect the pre-trip conversations to be about hiking boots and backpacks. …

My Letter to the Editor of the NYT 1993 In Defense of Court Street Lawyers March 5, 1993 To the Editor: Your Feb. 17 “About New York” column describes Tony Falese, cabbie advocate, as a man with a silver bracelet, a beeper and “the air of a lawyer, the Court…

Migrants Fleeing for Their Lives NY Times ; Letters (Wed. 11/16/22 on line; Thurs. 11/17/22 in print) Photo:Federico Rios To the Editor: “Climbing the ‘Hill of Death’ Without Her Mother” (front page, Nov. 12), about migrants fleeing for their lives along a 70-mile hellish jungle pass in Panama, reminds us that the current refugee crisis is not about “open borders,” as the Republicans have been allowed to frame the debate.

MIKE BIRBIGLIA-THE OLD MAN & THE POOL Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center Here is one, illegally long, sentence about what makes Mike Birbiglia’s, The Old Man and the Pool, now in previews at Lincoln Center and ending on December 30, 2022, a very funny, touching delight. Birbiglia is a brilliant, engaging, narrative standup, who just about filled one of the nation’s premiere…