RAISING THE ‘ROOF’: Local ears perked up when they heard that multi-Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein would join the national tour of Fiddler on the Roof, currently taking up residence at Bass Hall. And the local reviews would suggest his addition is a welcome one. “Fierstein’s singing is a raspy croak and he can’t dance,” [...]

A DEPARTURE IN FORT WORTH: Just six months into the job, the director of artistic planning and communications for the Van Cliburn Foundation has left her post. Janice Mayer tells the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, “I can’t talk anymore about it as I’m seeking legal counsel, and I don’t want to compromise myself.” The Cliburn Foundation [...]

LOCAL OSCAR NOTES: Of the story lines that touched North Texas last night at the Oscars, the most direct comes via “The Weary Kind” winning best original song. It was featured in Crazy Heart and was written by Ryan Bingham of Austin and T Bone Burnett of Fort Worth. Once onstage, Bingham was quick to [...]

WHITHER THE BLUES? When J&J Blues Bar announced in January that it was closing its doors after 25 years, blues fans in Fort Worth wondered, “How could this happen?” The city has an affiliation with the blues that stretches back to the 1940s. But the music that packed clubs in the city through the 1990s [...]

WaterTower Theatre’s Out of the Loop festival gets going tonight with Mike Daisey’s performance of Great Men of Genius: P.T. Barnum. Daisey will be Jerome’s guest on Friday during the Art&Seek segment of Think TV. But I’ve got a chance for you to see him tonight!
The first three people who e-mail me (sbecker@kera.org) with “Daisey” [...]

The Goodman Theater will present the Chicago premiere of Tracey Scott Wilson’s drama, The Good Negro — which got its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center in October 2008 – before it opened at New York’s Public Theater last spring. The nine-member cast at the Goodman naturally includes a host of Chicago-area actors — [...]

Did you make it up to New York a few years back to see Spring Awakening? Me neither. And I kinda wish I did – the musical only won eight Tonys in 2007, including best musical.
We can all remedy that this month, though, when the touring version of the show settles in at the Winspear [...]

A few days ago, rehearsals began in New York for Red-Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, starring Kathleen Turner (right) as the late Texas columnist-wit. The one-woman play, written by journalists and twin sisters Margaret and Allison Engel, opens March 19 at the Philadelphia Theatre Company – and is widely seen as a [...]

POETRY IN PRINT: You’ve heard the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach?” Well that’s not the case with University of North Texas creative writing professor Bruce Bond. His poem Blaze was published in the fall 2009 edition of The Southern Review. The journal receives about 15,000 entries and publishes just two percent. The Denton [...]

Getting some calls already on this one  because of the promos that have aired.
You can see the story listed in our front-page “NPR Arts headlines.”  But you won’t be able to hear the story by John Burnett and Wade Goodwyn until — well, now — during All Things Considered.
So here’s the summary from NPR: “There’s [...]