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Dr. Maya Cantu

@mayamcantu.bsky.social
1K followers 383 following 837 posts

Greasepaint Puritan: Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes, University of Michigan Press ‘24; Drama, Bennington College. mayacantu.com/the-world-of-bradford…

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Justin Chang @justincchang.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
DIGGER: kinda dug it? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
newyorker.com
Tom Cruise Is a Scream—and a Gas—in “Digger”
In Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s conceptually elaborate apocalyptic farce, hectoring satire and visual sublimity fight to a draw.
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 5h
I love this story by Robert Wilson. “Even all of the girlfriends & boyfriends left!” the-talks.com/interview/ro...
It’s strange. I once did a work in Judson Church many years ago where only one person came to the theater. He was an old man, and about halfway through he left. (Laughs)

Did you stop playing or did you finish?

No, I finished! I also did The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin in Copenhagen. It was a 12-hour play, it went from seven in the evening to seven in the morning, and we were supposed to do ten performances. And on the third performance, at two in the morning someone came backstage and said, “There’s no one in the audience! They’ve all gone!” We had 128 people performing and even all of their girlfriends and boyfriends left! They asked, “What do we do?” I said, “Well, we keep performing! We have 128 people performing!”
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Gaijin "Jiangshi" Rando @gaijinrando.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) Directed by Charles Lamont
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Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 30/09/2026
Watching 42nd Street last night, I suddenly realized what "habit" lyricist Al Dubin was referring to in "You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me." "I used to think your love was something that I could take or leave alone But now I couldn't do without my supply"
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tnyfrontrow.bsky.social @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
With the Greek classics back in fashion, worth seeing what their very expensive cheapenings and bowdlerizations miss: Pasolini's ecstatic, terrifying, fanatically detailed Medea is at @metrographnyc.bsky.social at 3:45pm: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...
newyorker.com
Movie of the Week: “Medea”
Opera singers rarely make successful transitions to movie acting, but Maria Callas did—in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Medea,” from 1969.
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100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Sept. 28, 1926: "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a play adapted by Anita Loos and her husband John Emerson from her bestselling novel, premieres on Broadway. The sharp social satire centers on not-so-dumb blonde Lorelei Lee (June Walker) and her success at manipulating the wealthy male elite.
The first edition of the novelWalker (second from left) and Frank Morgan (second from right) in the 1926 productionThe New Yorker caricatures Walker as Lorelei
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Frank Conniff @frankconniff.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Watched that Backrooms motion picture last night. Very good. Obsession was also excellent. If this is the kind of cinema the crazy kids today with their hula hoops and fax machines are giving us, I’m not going to yell at them to get off my lawn, I will instead welcome them with lemonade and cookies.
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100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Sept. 26, 1926: Julie London, a husky-voiced torch singer of the 1950s and ’60s whose hits included the first recording of “Cry Me a River,” is born (as Peck) in Santa Rosa, Calif. She was also an actress who played Nurse Dixie McCall in the TV drama “Emergency!”
In the 1960sIn “Emergency!” (died 2000)
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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
[POPEYE] Shelley Duvall takes the funny-page drawing of Olive Oyl and breathes her own spirit into it. Possibly she can do this so simply because she accepts herself as a cartoon to start with, and working from that, goes way past it. (1980)
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Remembering George Gershwin on his birthday 🎂 📷 Edward Steichen, 1931 "I like New York in June, how about you? I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?" - a great tribute from Arthur Freed & Burton Lane, 1941 youtube.com/watch?v=jgoG...
Gershwin wearing a tuxedo, seated at a grand piano,
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Tom & Lorenzo @tomandlorenzo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I honestly think Sabrina Carpenter as Ginger Rogers is genius
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100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Sept. 25, 1926: Anny Ahlers appearing in the operetta "Lady Hamilton" by Eduard Künneke, premiering in Breslau, Germany.
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Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 25/09/2026
Fred Allen and Guy Kibbee (a story from Fred Allen's Letters). In 1953, two young writers, Ed Simmons and Norman Lear (yes, that one) wrote asking to form a Fred Allen Fan Club. It was meant as a joke and Allen understood it as such. His reply is classic: 1/5
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Henri Matisse @henrimatisse.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Creole Dancer (1950) emerged after Katherine Dunham gave a performance in Matisse's studio. He built the cut-out in a single day, reimagining her Afro-Caribbean movement as leaping shapes of pure colour. He gifted the work to the Musée Matisse in Nice.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026
Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Alisha Grauso (She/Her) @alishagrauso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hwæt? As an Olde English nerd who once took an entire Beowulf class in the original language, this is dope. As a Shakespeare nerd, I also have to explain to people that Shakespeare is Early Modern English.
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Max Ernst @max-m-ernst.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Set Design for Alfred Jarry, Ubu Enchaîné www.artic.edu/artworks/117397
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro
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100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Sept. 21, 1926: “Mme. Toa Teje as she appears in the principal part in ‘Our Betters’ by Mr. Somerset Maugham, now the play of the hour in Stockholm.”
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La Femme Merveilleuse Invisible @larwoolf.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Agnès Varda, Portugal, 1956.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 20/09/2026
ICYMI: The forever funny Julie Klausner (@julieklausner.bsky.social) shared a can't-miss movie pitch with us this week. buff.ly/PSniJtx
buff.ly
Backrooms, but for Introverts
Logline: “A guy not particularly fond of fresh air or crowds enters a nightmare universe full of the kind of outdoor spaces that give introverts panic attacks.”
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tnyfrontrow.bsky.social @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Have been meaning to write for a while about Lena Dunham's remarkable memoir Famesick, which is a treasure trove of keen insights and candid observations—and a grim vision of an independent filmmaker's encounter with big-time TV: www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...
newyorker.com
Lena Dunham’s “Famesick” Is a Cautionary Tale of Filmmakers Doing TV
In chronicling the making of “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s memoir reveals the cost of moving from the freedom of independent filmmaking to the corporate demands of television.
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jondmaas.bsky.social @jondmaas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This is fun. In honor of Burt Shevelove's birthday, this is from the 1941 production of Aristophanes’s "Frogs" staged by then-drama student Burt Shevelove in a gym swimming pool at Yale. In 1974 he got Steve Sondheim to write songs for it when he staged it there again with Larry Blyden.
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
For Greta Garbo's birthday, "The Mysterious Lady" by Ruth Harriet Louise, 1928 🎂 "She is so young, & so sad; she has so many moods, & even when she smiles I always sense a great sadness." - RHL Garbo & Louise were both only 22 years old in 1928
Garbo in fur; she looks to the camera on the side.
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100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Sept. 16, 1926: A Broadway play titled "Broadway" premieres, propelling the career of co-writer and co-director George Abbott (with Philip Dunning). The comic drama, crisp with wisecracking dialogue and bold in its portrayal of the raffish nightlife demimonde, wows audiences and critics alike.
Lee Tracy questioning Sylvia Field in a scene from "Broadway"The published playAbbott and Dunning
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
For his birthday, a picture of Jean Renoir with (for some reason) Jean Cocteau & Cab Calloway 🎂 One day I'll put all my "(for some reason)" posts into a visual #NonSequitur thread 🧵
The three, all dressed in suits & ties, pose together
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aaron @imaaronrobert.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
rip bob mackie 😭🤍✨
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Howard Sherman @hesherman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Farewell to costume designer Bob Mackie, a designer of spectacular gowns for great divas, but also the creator of perhaps the greatest costume sight gag in history.
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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 13/09/2026
bonus birthday Claudette with Glenn Anders in Eugene O'Neill's Dynamo (1929) As I recall, I think accurately, O'Neill was not happy with CC's going well out of her way at every opportunity to show off her legs.
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Neglected Books @neglectedbooks.com · 11/09/2026
Midcentury American hotel letterheads, gleaned from the papers of actress/author Ilka Chase.
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tnyfrontrow.bsky.social @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
newyorker.com
What to Read and Stream: The Remarkable Out-of-Print Book That Inspired “42nd Street”
The novel, by Bradford Ropes and published in 1932, reads less like fiction than like a documentary about the lives of New York’s theatre people.
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tnyfrontrow.bsky.social @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
One of the most underrated of great filmmakers, Busby Berkeley, creates one of the most exhilarating moments in all cinema in the title sequence of 42nd Street (@tcmtv.bsky.social 6:30am); word on the film and on the fascinating book it's based on...: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...
newyorker.com
42nd Street
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lou @wanlittlehusk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
What are everyone’s favorite Shakespeare adaptations…
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Michael Jay McClure @mjmimages.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Café. Um, the very quiet alt gay barista with a beanie is playing songs from alt musicals. Like Janine Tesori’s Violet. Like Michael John LaChiusa’s Marie Christine. Adam Guettel’s Days of Wine & Roses. Michael Friedman’s Pretty Filthy (!) This is the greatest weird day ever.
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Bruce LaBruce @brucelabruce.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I've heard from Edward Field's niece and she tells me that she and her nephew are unaware of any liaison between her uncle & Brando. She also says to keep an eye out this fall for the documentary about Mr. Field, brilliantly called "Field Trip", by queer filmmaker Hannah Raftkin
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Bruce LaBruce @brucelabruce.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
RIP openly gay poet Edward Field, born in 1924, dead at the age of 102. A veteran, bohemian NYC poet & longtime chronicler of gay life, he was part of the legendary Greenwich Village literary scene. One of his most infamous romantic liaisons was w/ Marlon Brando in the 50's
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Garrett Eisler @garretteisler.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Rosenman's work on Barry Lyndon may seem to be just selecting pre-existing classical music, but his contribution was much more profound. The main theme of the Handel Sarabande is his own completely original arrangement, expanding a simple instrumental piece into a powerful orchestral statement. 1/3
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Dr. Maya Cantu @mayamcantu.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Mourning, but also celebrating, the incredible life of Edward Field. He was a mentee of my great-uncle, Robert Friend; a dear friend of my mother; and I had the pleasure of having brunch with him years ago at one of his favorite West Village cafes. All at once, a great character, raconteur & poet.
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
On Edith Sitwell's birthday, this amazing photograph by Cecil Beaton, from 1930. National Portrait Gallery, London
The young Sitwell at a harp, in front of a huge allegorical tapestry.
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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Officially obsessed with the former home of the jazz musician Dave Brubeck.
A view of Dave Brubeck's amazing house through the woodsDave Brubeck's old living room, with its ridiculous mahoosive windows, stone walls and a sofa for all of his seventeen imaginary wives.A moon door in the garden of Dave Brubeck's house which is clearly an  interdimensional portalThe wonderful extravagant stone staircase at Dave Brubeck's house, and the piano where he probably wrote my favourite album of his, 'Jazz Impressions Of Japan'.
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IndieWire @indiewire.com · 26/08/2025
Nicholas Colia's feature directorial debut is a funny story with strong cast, including Melanie Lynskey, Owen Teague, and Everett Blunk.
bit.ly
‘Griffin in Summer’ Review: Imagine If the Delightful Nerds of ‘Theater Camp’ Had to Go at It Alone
Nicholas Colia's feature directorial debut is a funny story with strong cast, including Melanie Lynskey, Owen Teague, and Everett Blunk.
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Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is one of the few movies I had to see again the next night. Klaus Kinksi is perfect and the fact Herzog managed to hold this mad movie together is remarkable. Happy birthday to its writer/director, Werner Herzog. (yes, the poster is in my hallway)
the poster for Aguirre, the Wrath of God
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Project Gutenberg @gutenberg.org · 04/09/2026
Gerda Wegener: The Forgotten Queer Icon of Art Deco Gerda Wegener was one of the most popular illustrators of her time and the artist who celebrated queer experiences. www.thecollector.com/gerda-wegene... #art #lgbtqia
Queen of Hearts (Solitaire) is a 1928 Art Deco oil painting by Danish artist Gerda Wegener. The painting shows Lili Elbe sitting on a chair, surrounded by playing cards and holding a cigarette in her mouth. She wears a short, bright red dress, with part of her slip visible and her bare legs crossed. In her right hand, she holds the Queen of Hearts card.
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Dr. Maya Cantu @mayamcantu.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Images Cinema in Williamstown has the best marquees.
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David Cote @davidcote.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
davidcote1.substack.com/p/i-loved-th...
davidcote1.substack.com
I Loved This Movie: Late Fame
Ars brevis; vita longa
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Ruz-El @ruz-el.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
Movie a day! A beauty from Canada that is like a chilled out "Daisies" in Quebec. I adored it. I made me miss my friends near and far 📽 #Filmsky 🇨🇦 Dream Life on Letterboxd boxd.it/8xGiBT
boxd.it
A ★★★★ review of Dream Life (1972)
033: I really loved this one. A young woman Isabelle becomes friends with a girl at work, and her infatuation with a married man starts to bubble over both of their lives. It’s beautifully filmed, and...
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pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
CABARET demonstrates that when you revolt against the the organic OKLAHOMA! conception of musicals you can create a new organic whole by style and imagination—if you have enough faith in the audience to do it right. (1972)
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British Music Hall Society @musichallsociety.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Wonderful article in The Guardian yesterday featuring some BMHS members #musichall #variety…https://www.theguardian.com/stage/ng-interactive/2026/aug/29/showgirls-variety-stars-recall-days-on-stage-in-pictures www.theguardian.com/stage/ng-int...
theguardian.com
The showgirl sisterhood: five former variety stars look back at their wild careers – in pictures
The ‘Golden girls of Eastbourne’ first crossed paths more than 50 years ago. They recall flammable feather head-dresses, wardrobe malfunctions and topping the bill over the Beatles
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