Small world department: at dinner tonight my husband and I were reminiscing about Ms. Rebeck's earliest plays that were produced as either readings or staged productions at New Playwrights Theatre of Washington in the mid-to-late 1970s. I wonder how she feels about them now.
She can definitely be proud of that house.
2
Great house. Love the porcelain doorknobs and keyhole covers against the wood.
And the radiators. Always a disappointment to see baseboard heating in an old house.
And even the kitchen is understated.
A Victorian sensibility. Thank goodness.
2
What a lovely home. It's filled with many things I love: books, art, music and ... color. Thank you for this.
Coincidentally, we have tickets to see Bernhardt/Hamlet (Goodman Theatre) next week. Can't wait.
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I love the Sarah Bernhardt poster--is the artwork by Alphonse Mucha? It has that look. The wallpaper is gorgeous as well.
This place looks both beautiful and comfortable, filled with art and books.
7
Well done! "What I Love" and "Sunday Routine" are my favorite features of The New York Times. Thank you for sharing this remarkable treasure of a feature.
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When I try to look through the slide show of images, the captions are visible for one second before a Sotheby's ad covers them. (Using Chrome.)
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@MM that sounds very annoying, I didn't have that experience on Chrome (I saw Sotheby ads but they were in between the photos of the apartment)
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@MM I use chrome and the captions go away too.
Ms Rebeck and Mr Lynn are good stewards of their home. Thank you for sharing.
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What a delightful house! And what delightful residents!
6
When I'm at work and I have a short break, I read the NY Times, and you know, it turns out that not everything is about the Trumpian nightmare we force ourselves to read about daily. Some stories, like this article and the one I read yesterday about a couple's garden, are soothing and lovely and transport me to a real state of happiness. Thank you for sharing this treasure. It is beautiful, as are the residents of this architectural and artistically pleasing home.
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@Eva Lockhart, adding on to that - I'm really enjoying what seems to be a stepped-up effort at cross-referencing articles that can appeal to readers of two different categories.
I'm delighted to. at times, get deposited by the subject heading in a section of the online paper that I rarely read - like here, the Real Estate section. The ads there are at price levels that, even when I had the money, I wouldn't have touched, but a much livelier section than I ever thought.
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Appreciation for Ms. Kaufman, the writer (and the house). This made me laugh: "Ms. Rebeck has a Ph.D in Victorian melodrama. The décor reflects her interest in the era and her desire to stay true to the roots of the house, which was built in the 1870s. 'This isn’t a spare, modern place,' she said, quite unnecessarily."
Thanks!
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@Connie Moffit, I appreciated learning more about a group whose success has inexplicable become a group, for whom a surprising thing is that it's even an issue that her being female and having this level of success is not just a story of. successful playwright who happens to be a woman. (Also a reminder that any so-called "negatives" we've heard about Ms. Rebeck's TV celebrity-writer "Smash" period have to be looked at from the vantage point that she is now one of maybe at most 3 or 4 female writers on Broadway that have been able to achieve the prominence that allows them to get producers seeking them out.
There were so many when I was growing up and also going back to the eras of Lillian Hellman and Mary Chase and in musicals Dorothy Fields and Cryer & Ford or Carolyn Leigh. Wha happened? As an example, Paula Vogel, Marsha Norman and Susan Birkenhead (also Carol Hall in the 1970s and early 1980s) were just theater writers who happened to be female through the early 1990s - this century, it feels like how great female writers are being done at all! Why are Sarah Ruhl and Lynn Nottage having power to get their work done seen as progress the they'd have been just writers IMHO if they were writing 30 years ago?
That she's an exception rather than a norm in commercial theater should raise concern. This glimpse shows a person so different from what seems to get reported. This was a delight- here, she's a successful playwright, not a successful female playwright.
3