From time to time, my occasional work as a performing arts critic in Texas causes me to miss some important event here in New York. That was never truer than on last March 9, 2015 when Marc Baron, the leader of America’ oldest theatrical club, The Lambs, hosted a memorable Shepherd’s Luncheon at the Club to honor the esteemed President of SAG-AFTRA, actor Ken Howard. But all was not lost when I learned that Mr. Howard’s important union would make available a full internet video of his fascinating remarks on that gala occasion.

A "revival" production, technically, is a show whose premiere run ended less than two years before its remount, the latter featuring all or most of the same cast. Nowadays, it can also refer to plays not yet old enough to be called "classics"—a term most often applied to plays over fifty years past their inception. What, then, are we to call new adaptations of venerable fixtures long assimilated into the dusty archives of "standard repertoire?"

The word "classic" is tossed around pretty casually these days—indeed, it's not uncommon for Baby Boom geezers to affix that appellation to anything recalled from their youth, regardless of lasting historical significance ("Yellow Submarine" might qualify as "classic" pop, but should "Mellow Yellow" share that status?)

According to sages at Windy City Times, a play can be called a "classic" only if it's more than 100 years old—otherwise, it's a "revival." With that definition in mind, here are some of both to see this fall:

UNDISPUTED CLASSICS

Despite opposition from the local Actors’ Equity Association and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, the national leaders of AE have voted to impose a $9 hourly minimum wage for members who perform in L.A. County theaters with fewer than 99 seats.

This year’s conference of the American Theater Critics Association overlapped and interacted with the 29th annual Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival. David Kaplan, curator of the ten-year-old Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, was on hand to direct a co production of the Hotel Plays.

Terence Boyle traces his ancestry to Protestant Northern Ireland, but he is, himself, Catholic and teaches at the Jesuit-affiliated Loyola University. The openly gay Boyle's play, allegedly based on the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, is titled ”The Queen's Speech”—and that's "queen" as in "drag."

It was a Monday morning following a grueling weekend of five performances of Satchmo at the Waldorf at Shakespeare & Company. Compared to a norm of six weeks, there had been only three weeks of rehearsal before opening night. John commented that he had been averaging three hours of sleep. Asked why, he described restless nights running new lines and constant changes in the first play by the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout. It is also his first experience of performing a one-man show.

Plays drawn from the repertoire of Western drama are usually dismissed as "safe options" for theaters—what could be more reliable, after all, than a script arriving with a decades-long track record of pleasing audiences? This popular impression renders all the more astonishing the degree of daring reflected in this winter's selection of (at least) twice-told tales.

BIG RISKS

Even if the line of dialogue you couldn't wait to quote after Chris Hainsworth's adaptation of Monstrous Regiment for Lifeline Theater was "Things couldn't get any worse if it were raining arseholes," a more accurate summary of Chicago theater in 2014 might be ”ars victrix"—in English, "art endures."

Elizabeth Ashley is one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation. Born in Florida but raised in the deep South of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, once she made the decision to come to New York, her dazzling (and some have said seductive) beauty, gorgeous legs, an aura of mystique, and unique, rapid-fire voice dripping with Southern Comfort and mint juleps infused with magnolias, got her quickly noticed and cast in major roles.

This summer at Williamstown Theater Festival, we saw emeritus artistic director, Jenny Gersten, only during opening night of the first production, June Moon. There was a hug signifying a relationship that evolved from tempestuous to respectful. There had been growing pains on both ends.  Gersten would go on to become executive director of Friends of the High Line, an elevated park being built in Chelsea.

Hundreds of anti-Israeli – and, in some cases, anti-Semitic -- protestors have disrupted shows at both the International and Fringe festivals this year. Two shows at the Fringe have been shut down by the protestors: The City, a hip-hop opera from The Incubator, a Jerusalem-based theater company; La Karina, a dance recital by the Pola Dance company from Ben Gurion University; and a third show, The Jewish Chronicles, a solo songfest performed by Daniel Cainer, was singled out for public condemnation.

Brilliant, vicious, magnetic, dedicated, massively insecure, and bitterly competitive, Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was endowed with a talent and a jealousy unchallenged by his contemporaries. In the new biography, “Olivier” (Quercus Publishing, 460 pages), prize-winning author Phillip Ziegler virtually leaves no stone unturned as he examines not only what made one of our most famous – and occasionally infamous – actor/directors of the 20th Century tick but also the work that influenced generations of actors.

Playwrights, a producing artistic director and an award-winning actress had “Creative Conversations” about theater and their work in it on April 12, 2014 during the annual Greenfield Prize Weekend in Sarasota, FL. This partnership between the Greenfield Foundation of Philadelphia and the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, FL, offers six week residencies to artists to work on creative projects. The Greenfield Prize, an annual $30,000 commission to create a new work of art, went to playwright Nilo Cruz.

"Dream what you want to dream, go where you want to go, be what you want to be," James Dean has been quoted as saying, "because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do." Another time, he stated, "The only success, the only greatness is immortality." By that standard, Dean has achieved immortality. Long after his untimely death in 1955, the fascination with Dean lives on. On February 8, 2014, the forever young Dean would have turned 83.

Beginning October 10, 2013, La Comedie Italienne, the sole Italian theater in France, began its 40th season of continuing the centuries-old tradition of Italian players and scripts appearing there on stage, especially in Paris. On Christmas Day, the troupe's founder and artistic director, Attillio Maggiulli, was arrested for protesting a devastating cut in national subvention of the theater by attempting to drive his car into an Elysee Palace gate. The most recent news I've learned is that Maggiulli was sent to Police Headquarters and then for psychiatric evaluation.

Tracy Letts has been known to get excited when honing and honing and honing his work “to make what I’m working on the very piece.” When things didn’t necessarily please him, there are rumors that he screamed, called people names, and wrote exhaustively long e-mails. In writing the screenplay for his Pulitzer Prize, Joseph Jefferson-, Tony-, and Drama Desk Award winning August: Osage County,which played Broadway in December 2007 for 18 months after premiering in his Chicago hometown’s Steppenwolf, he was probably just as vocal, but to himself.

It’s been said that Margo Martindale has gone from being an actress whose face moviegoers and TV viewers know to one who now has a brand name. “It’s nice when people come up to me and actually know my name! Usually it’s ‘Aren’t you -- ?’ or ‘Weren’t you in -- ?’ or ‘Hi, you’re the lady at my bank!’” Now, thanks to capturing the coveted role of Mattie Fae in the film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County[The Weinstein Company] and her boisterous and blistering performance, everyone’ll know her name.

PBS Great Performances and THIRTEEN have classic treats in store to ring in the holidays. First, on Friday, November 29, 2013: “Barbra Streisand: Back to Brooklyn,” a telecast of the diva's historic Brooklyn homecoming to christen the 19,000-seat, $1-billion Barclays Center, which marked her "home" concert since her childhood (and her first concert in six years). She performs 27 tunes from her five-decade career, joined by guests Il Volo, Chris Botti, a 60-piece orchestra led by William Ross, and, in quite a touching segment, her son Jason Gould.