John J. Desmond

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Throb is an American television sitcom broadcast in syndication from 1986 to 1988, created by Fredi Towbin. It revolved around thirty-something divorcee Sandy Beatty who gets a job at a small New Wave record label, Throb. Beatty's boss is Zach Armstrong, who looks like Michael J. Fox but dresses like Don Johnson. Beatty also has a 12-year old son named Jeremy. Beatty's best friend was Meredith, a single teacher who lived in her building, and her co-workers included hip business manager Phil Gaines, and Prudence Anne Bartlett, nicknamed Blue. During the second season, Sandy moved from her original apartment to the recently vacated penthouse in her building. She took in her co-worker, Blue, to help with rent, but the differences between straitlaced Sandy and the very free-spirited Blue became more pronounced as they both lived and worked together. Notably, it was the first time much of the American TV audience saw Jane Leeves, who later gained fame as Daphne Moon on Frasier. Also notable is the casting of a young Paul Walker, who played Jeremy Beatty for the first season. Walker became a leading man in Hollywood some 15 years later, particularly after his breakthrough role in The Fast and the Furious.

Anton Chekhov's play "The Seagull" is brought to life in this acclaimed 1975 production directed by John Desmond. Seeking to reform the theater, Konstantin (Frank Langella) has written an experimental play with the lead to be acted by his beloved, Nina (Blythe Danner). He arranges the first performance to take place at a country estate, but the presence of his self-absorbed mother (Lee Grant) and her novelist lover disrupts the production.

This drama tells the story of Irish insurgents and the captured British soldiers whom they are assigned to guard. While confined to a remote farmhouse the foursome enjoy card playing, jig dancing, and a great deal of amiable bickering. Throughout the conviviality, however, Barney Callahan is haunted by the knowledge that reprisals will be in order if the Irish harm their British captives.

TV biopic about the first US President's wife.

As a famous man lies dying, his family—including both his wife and his mistress—gathers inside, while members of the media converge outside for news of his death in this filmed-for-television staging of Edward Albee's play.

Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her. When a gentlemanly neighbor makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true—when her husband dies in a mining accident. When Charles Holroyd's body is brought home from the mine, and his wife and mother must wash him and lay him out for his funeral, we see for the first time the other side of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd—now, when it's too late.