Retta Blaney is the author of Working on the Inside: The Spiritual Life through the Eyes of Actors, which features interviews with Kristin Chenoweth, Dudu Fisher, Edward Herrmann, Liam Neeson, Phylicia Rashad, Vanessa Williams and others. Her freelance work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Newsday, Jewish Week, American Theatre, Back Stage and other publications. She is editor of the anthology Journalism Stories from the Real World, a book of essays, and has taught at Brooklyn College, New York University and Marymount Manhattan College. As a full-time reporter, she worked for newspapers in Maryland and New York.
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Playwright Holnes brings 16th-century hero of Panamanian slave rebellion forward
Throughout the creation of "Bayano," as he has with his other work and his life, Darrel Alejandro Holnes has been strengthened by his Catholic upbringing in Panama and the African spirituality that mingled with it.
Perspective
Sharon Langley's carousel ride made US history and reverberated in my life
Perspective: I was there that day in 1963 in Baltimore, too, but my experience was different. Recently, we chatted by phone about being "two sides of the same coin" at a moment in civil rights history.
In 'Gospel of John' onstage, actor takes on John's voice, telling his story
Theater: What began with memorizing John's Gospel as a form of prayer became a recitation of it that actor Ken Jennings took to churches, and is now a fully realized theatrical production in New York.
Play portrays post-war friendship of hero priest and jailed Nazi
Based on actual events, "Kingfishers Catch Fire" centers on the soul-saving relationship between two World War II enemies. The popular play resonates amid the real-life rise of anti-Semitism.
