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NBC News
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC News
Syracuse professor shows how bygone pop culture references can bridge generations
SYRACUSE, New York — University professor Bob Thompson has been 'teaching television' for about 40 years, tracing his interest in watching the tube back to reruns of Groucho Marx. 'That to me, is a medium and an art form different from any other art form in its own unique ways,' the Syracuse professor says. On a Tuesday 18 years ago, Thompson hosted an informal get-together to watch unedited TV broadcasts — beginning with the Kennedy assassination news breaks, but later transitioning into lighter content. In the following Tuesdays, Thompson would introduce episodes of 'Howdy Doody' ('ran for president … didn't win'), 'Mr. Ed' ('about a talking horse!'), and 'The Flying Nun' ('about a nun who flies!'). Other days have featured viewings of 'MASH,' 'The Twilight Zone' and the early days of YouTube. His joy in the class comes from the intergenerational sharing of pop culture. In its current form, 'Tuesdays with Bleier,' a reference to Thompson's dedicated university program on TV, sparks conversation among students and faculty of all ages and backgrounds — including janitorial staff. 'To be able to connect with people who are much older than you about stuff that they watched when they were a kid, and see them light up about it. It's really beautiful,' said Yasmin Tiana Goring, a Syracuse graduate student. Goring is also Thompson's teaching assistant. His students have left his classes with new cultural reference points, helping them at times connect with their parents. 'Out of context, I would text my mom and be like, have you seen 'Mork & Mindy' before, or ALF,'' said Sam Turin, a sophomore who brought his parents to the spring semester's final Tuesday showing. Thompson recalls that the 'Howdy Doody' class inspired one student to talk about it with his grandmother, who was in the latter stages of dementia. She began to sing the song from the show. Often, the lectures are less about the shows than the context they were originally made and viewed in. For Thompson, the class serves as a 'Trojan horse,' one where attendees watch TV for fun, but learn something about pop culture — and the world at large — along the way. 'If you want to understand the country we live in, you have to understand its presidencies, the wars that if it's fought, its political parties. But you also have to understand its lawn ornaments, its love songs and its sitcoms,' Thompson says.
Los Angeles Times
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Ron Sossi, founder of the provocative Odyssey Theatre in L.A., dies
Ron Sossi, the founder of L.A.'s experimental and boundary-pushing Odyssey Theatre, has died. He was 85. Sossi died of congestive heart failure March 19 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, an Odyssey spokeswoman said. Sossi, a legend in the local theater community, was known for challenging conventional thinking and creating a space where new ideas would be greeted with open arms. 'His theater defied convention — producing work that many of L.A.'s larger stages might shy away from, ignoring financial models in favor of risk, passion and artistic necessity,' said Bart DeLorenzo, director of more than a dozen plays at the Odyssey, who noted the theater's early history of premiering important work. 'His Brechtian sensibility, his belief in theater as a political force to shape a culture, and his embrace of direct theatricality has left an indelible mark on a whole generation of theater-makers and audiences.' Sossi was born Nov. 22, 1939, in Detroit. He attended the University of Michigan and graduated with a degree in writing for theater and television. He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, where he won the Samuel Goldwyn award for screenwriting. As an MFA student, he supported himself as a wedding photographer and water filter salesman. He also worked as an actor and singer. While in school, he traveled to Korea, Japan and Guam for a college production of 'Carousel.' On that trip he met Bonnie Franklin, and the classmates and co-stars were later married from 1967 to 1970. After graduating from UCLA, Sossi got a job as a program executive at ABC overseeing shows such as 'Bewitched,' 'The Flying Nun' and 'Love, American Style.' When working in television lost its shine, Sossi redirected his artistic efforts to the theater. In 1969 he opened the Odyssey on an unglamorous part of Hollywood Boulevard, next to a porn theater. Sossi started to push his creative limits with its first productions — 'A Man's a Man' by Bertolt Brecht, 'The Serpent' by Jean-Claude van Itallie, 'The Threepenny Opera' by Brecht and Kurt Weill and 'The Bacchae' by Euripides. Presenting a mix of new work and reimagined classics, the Odyssey found its niche with L.A.'s theatergoers. This creative hub soon became known for welcoming the avant-garde of the past and present. 'I think my approach is a little different than most people's,' Sossi told The Times in 1989, 'in that I'm attracted to metaphysical ideas and philosophical ideas, but not to a lot of sociological and political stuff.' He recalled various dinner gatherings with other directors. 'There was a strong feeling that you were only doing serious theater if you were doing political theater — and everything else was escapist entertainment,' Sossi said. 'I remember saying, 'Wait a minute! What about theater that deals with the great philosophical questions — you know, the meaning of it all. What's it all about? What's life? What's death? What's time? What's space?' They kind of pooh-poohed me, like, 'Come on, grow up.'' In 1973, Sossi moved the Odyssey to a 99-seat theater in West L.A. Over several years he developed the venue into a three-theater complex. In 1989 the building was sold and Sossi relocated the Odyssey to its current location on Sepulveda Boulevard. That complex officially opened in 1990 with Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer.' In recent years, as the Odyssey welcomed the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, María Irene Fornés and Gertrude Stein, Sossi connected a new generation of theater-makers with their audacious and influential forebears. For more than 50 years, Sossi's admirers said, the Odyssey artistic director provided a platform for those committed to reimagining what a theater could be, no matter the prestige or pedigree of an artist. Instead of a service or ceremony, Sossi's wish was 'that the ongoing vibrancy of the theater he built would serve as his only memorial,' according to a press release. Sossi is survived by his wife, Séverine Larue, and his sister, Nancy Foley. L.A. Times theater critic Charles McNulty contributed to this report.
