Letters Column

I know from speaking with the clerk in charge of merchants' licenses in St. Ann that no one contacted her regarding the Hip Hop Kafe. Sounds like Westhoff decided to go with race baiting instead of journalism.
Paul LaBelle, Overland

BLIND PHYLLIS, DECEMBER 29, 2005

Sour Note The fine art of self-promotion: How appalling to see Mike Seely dismiss an entire art form (musical theater) when he obviously has so little knowledge or understanding of it. An art form can't be good or bad, trivial or profound, only the uses to which it is put. I could list for you, without a lot of effort, 100 musicals that are serious, intelligent, insightful pieces of drama. With a little research, I could probably top 300.

And Seely should be doubly chastised since he lives in a city with a theater company devoted exclusively to intelligent, substantial, issue-driven musical theater: New Line Theatre.

Dismissing an entire art form doesn't make you sound smart or hip, just a bit ridiculous and a lot shallow.

By the way, the film version of Best Little Whorehouse badly trivializes a very serious true story about the abuse of the media and corruption in politics, giving it a sappy happy ending instead of the real-world tragic ending.
Scott Miller, artistic director, New Line Theatre, St. Louis