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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Mixtape: A Confluence of Genius
Yesterday, Lin-Manuel Miranda once again introduced something thoroughly unique to the world. The full Hamilton Mixtape finally dropped last night and like pretty much everything else Lin-Manuel touches, this Hamilton Musical inspired multiple song release exists in a world all its own. Miranda has done more than gather big named musicians to croon covers from […]
A Review of Disney’s The Little Mermaid Musical (The 5th Avenue Theatre Touring Production)
When I first heard The 5th Avenue Theatre was mounting a production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, I prepared myself to write a somewhat cynical and sarcastic review lamenting the Disneyfication of musical theater. However, after watching The Little Mermaid’s opening night preview, I am reluctantly unable to do much more than just praise the […]
Is The Jim Gaffigan Show Too Mean to Jim Gaffigan?
I’m a big fan of Jim Gaffigan and a faithful viewer of The Jim Gaffigan Show. The show is in its second season on TV LAND during a time slot that is unbeknownst to this avid DVR aficionado. I think it airs sometime on Sundays following reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond while preceding reruns of […]
Carried
[I wrote this poem a couple years ago…rediscovered it today. I still really like it.] Carried by Doug Bursch Today I’ve been feeling sad, heart heavy, soul weary. I presume I could find a reason for the feelings, but it seems to me that the feeling arrived before I could ascribe to it cause. Some […]
Anger and Racial Injustice
A systematically unjust world will produce perpetually angry people. Anger flows from a lack of control, power and value. When we are powerless, devalued and controlled by societal injustices, anger is the appropriate response. In fact, it would be wrong to tell systematically sinned against people to relinquish their anger. Anger is a natural, logical […]
A Beautiful Song Changes Everything: Thank You Jessie Mueller!
I believe music was created so I’d be able to find my heart no matter how cruel and cold the world becomes. A few weeks ago, while watching the musical Hamilton rightfully steamroll the Tony awards, I happened upon a non-Hamilton related song, voice and performance that was nothing short of a revelation. I’m going […]
The Problem with Transparent Pastors
Early on in my pastoral ministry, I went to a regular pastors’ gathering where we prayed for each other. After a couple of meetings, I realized the pastors didn’t really share any serious problems. It kind of annoyed me. One week, I shared that my wife and I needed prayer because we had been fighting […]
A Review of The 5th Avenue Theatre’s Lerner & Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon
I must admit I was rather giddy to see the opening night of Jon Marans’ new book adaptation of Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon at the 5th Avenue Theatre last night. Reading the production notes about Marans’ collaborative working process with director David Armstrong, music supervisor Ian Eisendrath and choreographer Josh Rhodes only added […]
Everyone on the Internet is Real-how to develop a philosophy of social media (part 2)
This is the second part of a conversation Tim Fall and I are having about social media. We asked each other some important questions about social media and responded without looking at each other’s answers. We found that we have a bit in common. Anyway, You can read the first post at Tim’s blog by […]