Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 20

Countdown to Mystery: Zero Effect

Some of the greatest detectives don’t work alone. Think of Holmes and Watson, Cagney and Lacey, Batman and Robin.

You get the idea.

Among the most interesting pairings are Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, from the series that the members of Bouchercon (the World Mystery Convention) nominated as the “Best Mystery Series of the Century” in 2000. What sets Stout’s detective team apart from most others is that Wolfe is a morbidly obese recluse who never leaves his home, while Goodwin is a ...

Countdown to Mystery: The Last of Shelia

One strategy for writing an effective mystery: plot backward. Determine the ending, build from there.

I’ve heard that’s the strategy employed by actor Anthony Perkins (Murder in the Orient Express, Psycho) and Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim (A Little Night Music, West Side Story) in writing their only produced screenplay – the intricately plotted who-done-it The Last of Shelia (1973).

The film has a set-up similar to that of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth, in which mystery writer Andrew Wyke  (Lau...

Countdown to Mystery:Murder on the Orient Express

We’re counting down to Prime Stage Theatre’s release of A Knavish Piece of Mystery, the first installment in a roster of virtual programming running this fall on Prime Online. The series has been generating good press in the past few days, with preview stories appearing on Local Pittsburgh and Trib Live. And I understand there are more to come in the next few days. Stay tuned!

Our two previous posts highlighted Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth and Ira Levin’s Deathtrap. Both feature writers who find the...

Countdown to Mystery: Deathtrap

In our previous installment, I mentioned the meta-aspects of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth – a cat-and-mouse thriller about a writer who turns his estate into an interactive mystery in an effort to ensnare the man who’s been sleeping with his wife.

Today’s recommendation is Deathtrap (1982), and this time the story centers on playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Cain of Sleuth) whose latest play has just bombed on Broadway.

As one critic opines early in the film: “Sidney Bruhl’s new whodunit Murder Most ...

Countdown to Mystery: Sleuth (1972)

With a week to go before Prime Stage Theatre lifts the curtain on my new mystery series A Knavish Piece of Mystery, I thought it might be fun to look back at the plays, films, and stories that first got me interested in mysteries. I don’t intend this to be a definitive list of the all-time best of the genre. Rather, with a nod to Josh Olson and Joe Dante, whose podcast The Movies the Made Me invites screenwriters and filmmakers to discuss films that have shaped their art, we’ll make this a kind ...

Upcoming Events at Prime Stage Theatre:Mystery, Monsters, and More …

This site has been quiet for a while.

Things have been busy, what with dodging the microscopic shrapnel of World War C. Through it all, I’ve been doing my best to learn from the examples set by writers who lived through past epidemics – Sherwood Anderson, Beatrix Potter, and W.E.B. Du Bois (all of whom wrote during the 1918 flu outbreak); and Francesco Petrarca, Thomas Nash, and William Shakespeare (who penned some of their greatest works during Europe’s deadliest plagues).

Clearly, staying at h...

Moving Forward:Life in a Science-Fiction Novel

A few months back, while prepping for The International Conference on the Fantastic, I wrote a piece titled Existential Threats that considered how social media and digital tech were reshaping our culture. The essay centered on two sf classics, Ray Bradburys The Murderer (pictured at left) and Arthur C. Clarkes Dial F for Frankenstein. Since the conference would focus on the Anthropocene, I figured the essay would fit nicely into [read more at The 21st Century Scop].

Moving Forward:Life in a Science-Fiction Novel

A few months back, while prepping for The International Conference on the Fantastic, I wrote a piece titled “Existential Threats” that considered how social media and digital tech were reshaping our culture. The essay centered on two sf classics, Ray Bradbury’s “The Murderer” (pictured at left) and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Dial F for Frankenstein.” Since the conference would focus on the Anthropocene, I figured the essay would fit nicely into the discussion of how technology is transforming the world...

Fiction for the Ears:Storytelling for Shut-Ins

[] there would be three months of enforced isolation and leisure, between the harvest that takes place just before the rise of the swamps and the clearing of new farms when the water goes down []. As the swamps rose, the old men found it too difficult the walk from one homestead to the next, and [] as the swamps rose even higher all activities but one came to an end []. They drank and sang or they drank and told stories.

The above is from Shakespeare in the Bush (1966) by anthropologist Laura...

Fiction for the Ears:Storytelling for Shut-Ins

[…] there would be three months of enforced isolation and leisure, between the harvest that takes place just before the rise of the swamps and the clearing of new farms when the water goes down […]. As the swamps rose, the old men found it too difficult the walk from one homestead to the next, and […] as the swamps rose even higher all activities but one came to an end […]. They drank and sang or they drank and told stories.

The above is from “Shakespeare in the Bush” (1966) by anthropologist La...