NEW YORK – Alan Ayckbourn and Marian Seldes will receive 2010 Lifetime Achievement Awards during the Tony ceremony June 13 at Radio City Music Hall. Ayckbourn is the author of more than 70 plays, including “The Norman Conquests,” a trilogy that was revived on Broadway last season, winning a 2009 Tony for best revival. Seldes, […]

Ireland’s Declan Hughes can be as hard-boiled as the best noir crime writers.

I remember my childish puzzlement at a photograph, in American Heritage or some such publication, of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. The caption described him giving his famous order — “Gentlemen, charge!” — in a “high falsetto.” Surely American Heritage was mistaken. Even if you know it, it’s hard to […]

Sebastian Faulks mixes a keen reporter’s eye with entertaining intelligence.

PORTLAND — As the cynical old proverb has it, “Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.” I went to the University of Southern Maine Youth Ensembles concert on Friday night at Merrill Auditorium to see how the next generation of musicians is coming along, and to hear some student work […]