No one really expected the L.A. production of “The
Producers” to eclipse or even match the original Broadway
show that nabbed 12 Tonys, breaking “Hello
Dolly’s” 1964 all-time record.

English Professor Deborah Banner teaches a literature class
titled “Rocket’s Red Glare: 20th Century American War
narrative.” Her syllabus includes the tribal rock musical
“Hair.”
Daily Bruin: Why are people today still so wildly interested
in seeing “Hair”?

A lot of people live their lives according to what they call the
“American way.” They champion First Amendment rights,
spit on communism and tyranny, and can’t get enough of that
life, liberty and warm apple pie.

Mobs of screaming fans, paparazzi following your every move and
a complete loss of privacy might be the accepted reality for the
typical celebrity. But what about authors, people like Sandra
Cisneros or Amy Tan, whose names you’ve grown up with but
whose faces you don’t recognize? 
Authors are a different breed of celebrity, walking the streets
everyday completely anonymous to the general population. The
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, coming to Royce Quad on April
26 and 27, will play host to an astonishing number of these mostly
faceless superstars as they sign books and chat with the thousands
who flock to this annual literary Lollapalooza.

Going to meet writer Susan Orlean at the Avalon Hotel, I
don’t know if I was subconsciously expecting to find Meryl
Streep donning a straw hat and clutching a potted orchid.

“The Orchid Thief” By Susan Orlean
Ballantine Books

Those expecting to read an extended version of
“Adaptation” when picking up “The Orchid
Thief” will be in for quite a surprise.

It may be three months after Christmas, but the Associated
Students of UCLA is decking the halls of the student union with
student-created artwork.
The ASUCLA Student Commissioned Art Program formally introduced
four additional art pieces Wednesday to grace the walls of Ackerman
Student Union and Kerckhoff Hall.

Many have deemed Lee Miller a “muse” for her
mysterious, sexual beauty and her status as inspiring lover, wife
or object of desire to prominent artists such as Man Ray, Roland
Penrose and Pablo Picasso.

Some cultures believe that when a person’s photograph is
taken, their soul is stolen. Well beyond the advent of the camera,
British painter Lucian Freud’s portrait painting simply
borrows his subjects’ souls, mixing them with his own, and
subsequently transforming their minds and bodies into art that
lives on its own.

It’s so fashionable for merlot-sipping theater snobs to
dismiss Neil Simon’s plays as sappy comic drivel, especially
with his last two endeavors, “45 Seconds from Broadway”
and “The Dinner Party,” which theater critics welcomed
like open mouth sores.