Thought up by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene for a 1980 Off Off Broadway show that then moved to Off Broadway, the device works fitfully.

A notorious procrastinator who needed quantities of cigarettes and coffee to compose, Puccini had been working on the score fitfully since 1921.

In this time she nervously read over some Latin and some botany, and fitfully worked at some mathematics.

The other worked fitfully, coming to life momentarily, shrieking and vibrating in his hands and then stopping as if the spell animating it had ceased to function.

He worked on the Terragni book fitfully, employing small armies to help him with the drawings, including a young architect named Daniel Libeskind.

It works fitfully as reverie, as extended tone poem, but otherwise ambles (beyond the director Talvin Wilks's control) and rambles.

If it is director Joseph Discher's concept to gradually unfold the dark side, not only of the jester but of what is perceived as Shakespeare's merry prank, it works fitfully.

At the same time she fitfully worked at ginning up her own performing career, playing the lowest rung of New York bar gigs.

The children worked fitfully at their tasks of mending.

His imagination began to work fitfully.