"Television corrupts," wrote Lord Acton, centuries ago. "Absolute television corrupts absolutely." Before the fact-checkers start yelping, let me confess that I've altered one key word to bring this familiar quotation up to date. TV and its Internet offshoots have largely replaced most modes of communication, interaction, and entertainment previously evolved by the human species. Inevitably, what remains of those earlier modes has increasingly come to resemble TV. Politicians, who used to speak in fully formed sentences, now talk in news bites; social conversation now largely sounds like soap opera or sitcom dialogue. And the Broadway musical—you knew where this was heading—regularly strives to emulate the TV variety show, or its younger... More >>>