J.B. Spins

Almost half of all U.S. Medal of Honor honorees served during the Civil War. It has been bestowed posthumously 621 times throughout histo...

Negin Farsad has a lot of metaphors for Iran, but the “bootleg” is not one of them. That stuff is for real. Indeed, in a country she likens ...

Joe Mal does not seem to know actors are supposed to call Macbeth the “Scottish Play.” It hardly matters though. There is no possible way h...

Though his roots were humble, young Russian-Jewish immigrant Israel Baline would eventually represent the American experience through music ...

It makes sense Lucifer would have a spot in his heart for those famously dressed in black. He can also appreciate the wreckage Hamlet and Dr...

One could say that the blood-sucking parasite of Conor McPherson’s vampire play is actually a theater critic, but that would be too easy. Dr...

It seems Elizabeth “Lisl” Polk was frequently overshadowed by her sister, Lilia Skala, the glamorous actress best remembered for her Academy...

Though not widely translated in the West, Ludmila Petrushevskaya is one of Russia’s most respected contemporary authors. Not coincidently, ...

Italians have always been quite hospitable to American expat jazz musicians, perhaps most notably with Chet Baker in the 1960’s (at least be...

For years the Japanese government denied responsibility for holding an estimated 200,000 women captive as sex slaves for their military duri...

How did Mayor Bloomberg celebrate his inevitable victory overturning the term-limit measure New Yorkers twice approved at the ballot box? I...

Fatigue for the recent proliferation of one-person shows would be understandable, but exception should be made for Great Performances ’ broa...