The great Sondheim burst of the 1970’s was a decade of work unequalled by any other Broadway songwriter. [The Bock/Harnick run from “Fiorello” in 1959 through “The Rothschilds” in 1970 may be comparable, but that was their entire output. Sondheim, both before and after the 70’s, is responsible for several more musicals, including arguably three […]
I’ve been plugging away at a pseudonymous mystery series, but I’ve tried to keep a musical project going simultaneously. For the last few years, it’s been an adaptation of “Gilgamesh,” for which I am doing the book and my old Lehman Engel Workshop classmate Lawrence Rush is doing the score. More on that as we […]
My synagogue hosts the recent traditional Purim debate, which in the past has been on the relative merits of hamantaschen vs. latkes. This year, however, they changed the topic to Pastrami on Rye vs. Lox with Bagels. I was proud to represent Team Pastrami. Here are my prepared remarks: I turned 60 this past Sunday, […]
As the cracks in my cover grow wider, and the third book has just come out, my publishers have decided that I can go public at last with my pseudonym. Meet Allison Montclair, author of the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries. Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge are the proprietors of a licensed marriage bureau in 1946 London who find themselves drawn despite their best efforts into one investigation after another. The first book, “The Right Sort of Man,” was voted Best Mystery of 2019 by the American Library Association’s Reading List Council. It’s followed by “A Royal Affair,” in which the ladies are asked to vet a Greek prince seeking the hand of Princess Elizabeth; the e-story, “The Haunting of the Desks,” and the newest, “A Rogue’s Company,” which is a Publishers’ Weekly Pick of the Week as well as Poisoned Pen’s British Crime Club Book of the Month. [I know, I’m not British, but the setting is.]
Speaking of the Poisoned Pen, I will be making my first public appearance for this series June 17, 2021, at 9 p.m. EST. Here’s the link (and you don’t have to be on Facebook to see it!): www.facebook.com/thepoisonedpenbookstore/live