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Dr. Luke isn’t Dr. Death

Despite the fact that his songs are superficial, soulless and sorely lacking in actual songcraft, Dr. Luke is nevertheless not “ruining music” [“Doctoring the Charts,” Aug. 15].

I am pleased he has created a canon that my two tween kids can claim, generation-wise, as their own. That being said, in 10, 20, 30 years — when my son and daughter will be living in college dorms, getting married and throwing their own dinner parties — I can almost guarantee they will be cueing up Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra, not Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson, and Dr. Luke will have long since taken his rightful place a small footnote in pop music history.

Scott Lenz

Los Angeles

“Tik Tok” is “sophisticated songcraft”? Seriously?

Dr. Luke is symbolic of all that is wrong with the music industry. He is truly a schlockmeister who concocts crappy novelty songs and then records them with interchangeable nonsingers who he then Auto-Tunes in the studio.

Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus are a joke, as is this knob-twiddler posing as an actual producer.

Posted by: TStella G

From: latimes.com

Roasts lack

the old spark

I found Greg Braxton’s article on the Comedy Central Roast well done [“In the Heat of the Roast,” Aug. 15], although I wish he would have delved even deeper into the fact that probably half the “roasters” don’t know the “roasted,” a point well-illustrated with Chevy Chase’s experience. At least with the old Friars Club, most of the people had worked together at some point in their careers.

Also, the Friars Club had the best comedians of the day. The Comedy Central version seems composed predominantly of midlevel comics who have had specials on that network joined by three D-list celebrities.

A word on Lisa Lampanelli. Take away the profanity and vulgarity and she’s got nothing. The only reason she’s achieved any measure of success is because she’s willing to be the crudest person at the mike and, as a female, that seems to make her a circus freak show attraction, not a talented comic.

Cy Bolton

Rancho Cucamonga

What starts as

a kernel of talent

Love how this story [“It’s a Long Way From Blog to Blockbuster,” Aug. 15] demonstrates that, no matter what people in the industry say, there’s opportunity and hope for the undiscovered with talent.

Posted by:

jan_stanton

From: latimes.com

Who’s starring on the stage?

I greatly appreciated Charles McNulty’s and Steven Leigh Morris’ intelligent, well-written reviews of the Antaeus Company’s production of “King Lear.” However, their dialogue [“Small Theaters: Having Impact,” Aug. 8], influenced by film criticism, suggests that this wonderful production was not a good example of director Bart Lorenzo’s work because it was produced at a company run by actors and therefore did not have an “auteur” stamp on it.

Most purely director-driven shows are musicals. Plays are about words. The director doesn’t say those words, the actor does. The director’s most important job, as the great Tyrone Guthrie defined it, is to be a stimulating, creative, imaginative, responsive, advisory audience: an audience of one.

This is because theater is and has always been actors’ theater first and foremost. Great theater usually requires great acting. The director, in the context of theater history, is a new invention. The purpose is to stage a play in a way that most illuminates it. To complain about Antaeus’ “King Lear” on the grounds that the theater is run by actors is as odd as denigrating the National Theatre of Great Britain because Laurence Olivier ran it, or the Old Vic today because Kevin Spacey runs it.

Jonathan Lynn

Pacific Palisades

Lynn is on the Board of the Antaeus Theatre.

‘Overrated’ but still over-hyped

Lady Gaga is a fitting choice for the “Overrated” column [Aug. 15]. To me, Gaga’s talent is questionable.

On the other hand, Stan Chambers, a true professional in every sense of the word, retires and gets minimal coverage from your paper. The same day Calendar ran a skinny column about the veteran newscaster, it published a splashy, long article about the “overrated” Lady G. Why wasn’t he mentioned in your Aug. 15 “Underrated” column?

David Tulanian

Los Angeles