Contemplating Cosmonauts: THE WRONG STUFF
In the annals of U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the decades after World War II, the so-called "space race" between the two superpowers was by far...
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Richard Byrne
Feb 294 min read
A Few Words About Lola Montez
This short essay was the program note for the world premiere of my play, An Evening with Lola Montez, at the 2019 Capitol Fringe...
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Richard Byrne
Jan 18, 202311 min read
Some Time in Belgrade: Dušan Veličković
1. My friend Dušan Veličković passed away last week. His death hit me hard. We had a deep professional relationship in the 1990s and...
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Richard Byrne
Dec 18, 20213 min read
John Spalek 1928-2021
Only recently did I learn that John Spalek - the great scholar of German exiles in the United States (and, in particular, Ernst Toller) -...
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Richard Byrne
Feb 12, 20219 min read
What Not Why: Making Art in a Pandemic
A version of this essay appeared in the January 2021 issue of The Ryder. 1. When the COVID-19 outbreak was on the cusp of graduating from...
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Richard Byrne
Jan 17, 20213 min read
FLAMINGO: COVID-19 & the Attack on Rebekah Jones
Sometimes drama can tell a news story better than journalism. That is why I wrote Flamingo. It's a 10-minute monologue about how Florida...
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Richard Byrne
Dec 24, 20203 min read
Christmas in Caporetto: A Holiday Play
Earlier this fall, I was asked to write a two-hander for possible filming. We didn't end up getting it done. But for the record, here's a...
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Richard Byrne
Aug 26, 20202 min read
Let The Darkness In: A New Play About Science & Politics
One of the darkest moments of a dark 20th Century was the sustained success of a agronomist named Trofim Lysenko in darkening the course...
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Richard Byrne
May 7, 20208 min read
Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne
Liner notes for Warner Brothers re-release of Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne It’s October 1993. The Midwest’s biggest deluge in almost 200 years...
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Richard Byrne
May 4, 20206 min read
R.E.M. - New Adventures in Hi-Fi
These are the liner notes I wrote for the Rhino reissue of R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi in 2005. After more than a decade of...
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Richard Byrne
Apr 30, 202012 min read
Uncle Tupelo - No Depression
These are liner notes published with the Sony Legacy rerelease of Uncle Tupelo's No Depression. WITNESS TO THE REVOLUTION Uncle Tupelo’s...
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Richard Byrne
Apr 15, 20205 min read
Our American Cousin: A Sort of Defense (Revised)
One of the most popular posts on Balkans via Bohemia was a piece I wrote back in 2009 in response to a Slate piece by Timothy Noah that...
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Richard Byrne
Apr 16, 20196 min read
Dachau 1919 and Dachau 1933
The world knows the town of Dachau because of the horrors of the Nazi death camp there. Created in 1933, Dachau was the first of these...
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Richard Byrne
Mar 1, 20195 min read
A Farewell to Riley
I didn’t want a dog. There were lots of reasons for that from childhood I won’t get into here. But in 2005, after I got married, I was...
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Richard Byrne
Feb 22, 20195 min read
Kindred Spirits: Kolář & Hrabal
One of the deeper layers of Jiří Kolář (1914-2002): Forms of Visual Poetry, now showing at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts
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Richard Byrne
Jun 20, 20184 min read
Mona Mansour's The Vagrant Trilogy
This entry is the first in a continuing series of appreciations of work I find interesting as a playwright. They are not reviews, though...
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Richard Byrne
Aug 30, 20177 min read
Fromme Her to Eternity
The personal essay in Helmsley’s hands becomes an often-understated but relentless self-interrogation, never veering into self-pity or mythm
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Richard Byrne
Aug 13, 20164 min read
Washington DC in John Strausbaugh's City of Sedition
John Strausbaugh has been a mentor and friend for 30 years now, so it's a delight to report that his new book -- City of Sedition: The...
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Richard Byrne
Oct 30, 20154 min read
A Few Words on Trace
Back in the autumn of 1995, I was living in St. Louis and working at The Riverfront Times. It was a strange time for me. I was in a...
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Richard Byrne
Oct 8, 20153 min read
Becoming Nixon (and Tito)
Today on Vox, playwright Justin Sherin writes about the genesis of his @dick_nixon Twitter account. Read Sherin about it first. Then come...
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