If a really good play goes up in a forest, does anyone care? I stumbled into Matthews Acting Studio last Thursday in my usual state— disheveled, confused, busily muttering banalities to imaginary socialites while bundled in my button-less vintage coat.

The last time I was in a “gallery” was when, having in my three months in Rome long exhausted all the great venues, I jumped into a cab and decided to take a look-see at the Roman Napoleonic Museum and Modern Art Gallery. How bad can be a Napoleonic Museum ...

Let me tell you a story—not too many months ago, a creative writing professor gave me some “truth hurts, kiddo,” criticism.

Attending Spettacolo! is like attending any number of Midwestern dinner theaters—the crowd’s mostly composed of silver-maned pensioners, the actors’ accents are comically bad and the plot is full of slapstick, “audience participation,” and a high degree of fuzzy-wuzzyness.

Once a long time ago, on a dampish isle some miles off the coast of France, C. S. Lewis wrote, “Flippancy is the armor against God’s Grace.”