Curt Schleier is a freelance writer and author who covers business and the arts for a variety of publications. Follow him on Twitter at @tvsoundoff.
Curt Schleier
By Curt Schleier
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The Schmooze Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Top 8 Roles
It’s no surprise that the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” boasts Maggie Gyllenhaal in the role of Anna. She is a strong, intelligent activist and actor, a key player in this drama about marital love and infidelity. It’s the type of character Gyllenhaal regularly and successfully inhabits. For the young…
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The Schmooze Learning Jewish History on ‘Finding Your Roots’
Photo Courtesy of WNET/Joseph Sinnott Henry Louis Gates’ PBS series, “Finding Your Roots,” is invariably emotionally powerful. And tonight’s episode, which profiles the background of three leading Jewish Americans, is no exception. Carole King, Tony Kushner and Alan Dershowitz are the subjects. As always, Gates and his research team have done an excellent job checking…
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The Schmooze ‘Finding Your Roots’ Goes All Jewish
WNET/ Joseph Sinnott If you’re not familiar with it, “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates is in part a PBS response to the genealogy craze, people increasingly curious about where they came from. The next episode is all Jewish, as we learn about the ancestors of three celebrated Americans. Tony Kushner delves into the…
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Books King (Norman) Lear Looks Back at Those ’70s Shows
When he was 9 years old, Norman Lear had a life-defining epiphany. He was at home one evening, fooling around with a crystal radio set he’d gotten as a gift, when he managed to tune into a broadcast by Father Charles Coughlin, the infamous anti-Semitic Roman Catholic priest. “At 9 I learned that people disliked…
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The Schmooze PBS Wades Into the ISIS Quagmire
“The Rise of ISIS,” the latest documentary from the award-winning Frontline PBS investigative series, is likely to leave you with one major takeaway. Despite the best of intentions, pretty much everything the U.S. has done in the Middle East has contributed to the chaos. We are Westerners lost in a strange land with absolutely no…
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The Schmooze ‘Disgraced’ Asks Uncomfortable Questions About Islam
Photo Credit: Joan Marcus “Disgraced,” which opened October 23 at Broadway’s Lyceum Theater, is breathtaking. Literally. There are moments when the entire audience gasps at something so surprising or disturbing on stage, it’s as though all the air is sucked out of the room. Those gasps, however, are the only sound the audience makes throughout…
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The Schmooze Jay Black’s 7 Favorite Songs
Jay Black has been singing professionally for 51 of his almost 76 years. That “almost” comes out November 2. He’ll be celebrating that birthday with a pair of concerts, one at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, N.J., and the other at NYCB Theatre at Westbury on Long Island. We chatted with him about…
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The Schmooze How Jay Black Got Kicked Out of Yeshiva
Jay Black isn’t feeling well. Descriptions of his aches and pains are pretty much the first thing out of his mouth, even before he asks why I’m about to interview him. “You’re going to be doing two dates around your 76th birthday next month,” I tell him, “And, well, you’re Jewish.” “How do you know…
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