When I think about "Rent" and about another theatrical classic of the era, "Angels in America," I often wonder, "What happened to the issue of AIDS?"

Based out of the newly opened Southwest Minnesota State College in Marshall, Minnesota, Heartland Productions was a professional Equity company whose focus was both theatrical classics as well as new dramatic works.

That's how the Devils lost, 1-0, in what will be remembered as one of the National Hockey League's theatrical classics.

Surely the whole challenge of putting on a theatrical classic is that you stick to the text as written and do something new and surprising with it.

For more than a decade, he has said he has wanted to create a nonprofit acting company that would present theatrical classics.

He prefers short texts, or he cuts theatrical classics radically and fills out the silences with gesture, movement and images.

By 1986 they had acquired a substantial reputation and began touring here and abroad, adding mime and visual arts, creating experimental works and adaptations of literary and theatrical classics.

His son, the organization's chairman, James M. Nederlander, also a Detroit native, coproduced over one hundred famous theatrical classics, including West Side Story, Hello, Dolly!

Michael Dewell, a producer, writer and translator who mounted theatrical classics on tour and on Broadway, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles.

CHARLES LUDLAM was a master at taking bits and pieces from theatrical and literary classics and rearranging them into original and entertaining mosaics.