I recently had a wonderful conversation with my mentor Howard Stein — also my Columbia University MFA Playwriting Chair and head of the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies, and now lifelong friend — concerning the appropriateness of ending an English sentence with a preposition.
Society is materialistic. The university used to be a safe haven where ideas mattered and thoughts were given greater standing than finding ways to make more money. Peter Thiel believes higher education is a bubble ready for the bursting — but you can only agree with Thiel’s thesis if you also believe students attend university to get a job. I don’t happen to purchase his premise. I believe students should attend university in order to learn what they do not know.
Continue reading → Did the Business School Ruin the University?
When did the Playwright turn away from others as a topic of his plays and turn into himself to become the Autobiographer of his own wishes, dreams and experiences on stage? The Amazing Howard Stein and I recently shared a conversation on this topic and Howard wondered if the first instance could be found in Aeschylus who wrote “The Persians” in 472 BC.
Continue reading → When Did the Playwright Decide His Own Life Was Worth Examining in a Play?
If you have been to college in the last 2o years, an internship was likely part of your valuable learning process. Interns must be paid at for-profit companies — either by the company or the school — or else one risks abusing volunteer student work as slave labor.
Continue reading → The Disgrace of Unpaid Interns at For-Profit Companies
At the end of the nineteenth century, in a graduation speech to Barnard College graduates, William James made the following statement:
Continue reading → Dr. Howard Stein and the Habit of Intelligent Choice
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