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, 2021
- 9 min
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, 2021
- 3 min
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, 2020
- 3 min
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, 2020
- 2 min
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, 2020
- 8 min
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, 2020
- 6 min
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, 2020
- 12 min
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, 2020
- 5 min
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, 2019
- 6 min
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, 2019
- 5 min
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, 2019
- 5 min
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, 2018
- 4 min
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, 2017
- 7 min
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, 2016
- 4 min
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, 2015
- 4 min
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, 2015
- 3 min
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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Richard Byrne
- Aug 27, 2015
- 1 min
Balkans via Bohemia - Moving Day
Balkans via Bohemia is moving house from Blogspot to my lovely new home page. No worries. The archive of Balkans via Bohemia can be...
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