Although the 'New York Times' annually declares that Broadway is on its deathbed, news of its demise is greatly exaggerated. There's a lot of life yet in the old tart.

Death of a Salesman' is a brilliant taxonomy of the spiritual atrophy of mid-twentieth-century white America.

Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence.

When Elvis made his mass-media debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' - his notorious gyrations filmed only from the waist up - I fell off the family chaise longue with delight.

The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak.

I was the first critic ever to win a Tony - for co-authoring 'Elaine Stritch at Liberty.' Criticism is a life without risk; the critic is risking his opinion, the maker is risking his life. It's a humbling thought but important for the critic to keep it in mind - a thought he can only know if he's made something himself.

Did you come of age in those sweet summers of the early nineteen-sixties, when the airwaves were full of rock and roll's doo-wop promise of joy and the nation was full of J.F.K.'s eloquent promise of a New Frontier? I did. Life seemed to be laid out before us like a banquet; everything was for the taking, especially hearts.