Alisa Bair

The experience is so deeply embedded that, even now, I occasionally dream about forgetting my lines on stage. I had been cast as Emily in...

“Lisa, Lisa,” she said, her soothing voice rising over her steaming cup. “You may have had your back to your daughters then. But now you...

Daughter Leslie texted a photo just after Thanksgiving with, “The gang’s all here!” I immediately recognized the nativity set we’d given...

In the living room of the modest Dotterer home that cool, autumn evening, I sat across from 55-year-old Ken, listening to him tell me...

It was late fall, 1979, and Mother Teresa had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I saw her on TV and was so deeply moved I needed...

She was born with a voice and knows exactly how to use it. So far, she is the embodiment of much that escaped me in my childhood and that...

This is the set of Hamilton, open to the audience when you first enter the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. I looked down at my...

He was sitting quietly toward the back of the pen in the barn when we arrived, shy and slightly larger than the others. A barefoot Amish...

Newark Penn Station, Thursday, July 13, 2:01 PM. The air conditioning must’ve been broken, because the train station was swelteringly...

The night was clear, cold and starry as my husband and I finished dinner near the wharf in Annapolis, Md., and headed down Randall Street...

It wasn’t exactly ideal weather to begin an October beach vacation. A low pressure system, driven by the northernmost bands of a...

This story ranks up there as one of my top five most embarrassing moments. It was April of my freshman year at a small college in...

Years ago we were returning from a trip, sailing along the turnpike to music on the radio. As we approached a mountain tunnel, we took...

It’s all over – as ephemeral as a rainbow or the enchanted village of Brigadoon rising out of the Scottish mist for one day every hundred...

Returning from a long walk this frigid April morning, I unwound my scarf, unzipped my down vest and heard myself say out loud, “What’s...