52 stories by "FRANK J. AVELLA"
Lincoln Center Theater's sensational new production of the musical Ragtime, which began its renewed life as a Gala produced in 2024 by New York City Center, is a theatrical wonder for the ey…
The memory play is a genre that has grown a bit stale since Tennessee Williams shattered it with The Glass Menagerie's Broadway premiere in 1944. But Tony-nominee Bess Wohl has breathed new,…
Evita was the definite highlight of my recent London theatergoing experience. The production is truly inspired and I am so excited for it's Broadway run. You can read my rave HERE. But I did…
Even as someone who has special childhood memories tied to the show, I can admit Evita is a flawed work. It's more rock opera than book musical. The politics can get a bit muddled. And the f…
A true star performance is on display seven times a week in a smallish off-Broadway house on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Matt Rodin takes the stage at Theater 154 and metaphoric…
There's a (nearly) hidden, gay-themed gem playing this Pride season in Greenwich Village. A musical, seven-years in the making, that is rousing, disturbing and, ultimately, empowering. Beau …
Nicholas Barasch is currently wowing audiences as young Frederic in the Roundabout Theatre Company's splendid reworking of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera, now titled, Pirates! The Penz…
I managed to avoid reading anything about Call Me Izzy except for the obvious fact that it stars Jean Smart and it's a one-character play. Full disclosure, I am NOT a fan of one-person shows…
The last three Oscar ceremonies have had very intense and competitive Best Actress races. Truth to be told, it's the category that always excites and scares me, because of how much I invest …
Now that Patti LuPone has apologized: forgive her, support her or sharpen your pitchforks, but WAIT until after Broadway's biggest night. This year's Tony Awards will be one for the books si…
Who is Jack Stokes? He's an astonishingly impressive young British actor you may be hearing a lot more about in the coming years. Stokes is currently electrifying audiences in the play Shell…
Tony nominee Julia Knitel seamlessly slips into a slew of characters at each performance of the new Broadway musical sensation Dead Outlaw. The brilliant, non-linear show, which began life o…
Tony nominee Conrad Ricamora is currently wowing audiences portraying a closeted, hypermasculine Abraham Lincoln in the wacky Broadway comedy Oh, Mary!, playwright and star Cole Escola's 'fe…
Every once in a rare while on Broadway, especially in the last two decades, a bold, stirring, wholly original musical opens that dares to combine the darkly comedic with social commentary an…
In doing some geeky Tony Award rabbit hole research. It became clear that we are, happily, in a new golden age on Broadway where there are an abundance of fabulous shows, performances and te…
Australian-born musical theater actor extraordinaire Ainsley Melham is quite the sensation this season as Dwayne, the baby-blue-eyed, Jazz-loving beau of Jasmine Amy Roger's titular characte…
2025 has become one of the most fabulously fierce and competitive years for lead female awards contenders. First we had an Oscar race where no less than four truly worthy performances (Nicol…
It is not going where I think it's going! It is not going where I think it's going! Oh God, I think it's going where I think it's going! This was my near-breathless reaction to experiencing …
Broadway Diva Jennifer Simard has been killing it on Broadway for almost two decades. Note: I use the word "diva" in the best, most fabulous definition of that word. She's currently wowing a…
Certain misguided critics (and that one in particular) are gushing over a monumental mess of a musical, loosely based on a TV series, that just hit Broadway " with a thud. Yet some of those …
Your feelings about the new Sondheim revue, Old Friends, will probably depend on your familiarity with the composer-lyricist's work as well as whether you enjoy songs sung out of context. I …
I haven't been emotionally slayed at the theater in quite a while. And I can shamefully state that Ghosts is a Henrik Ibsen play I was not completely familiar with. In terms of the Norwegian…
One of the many great joys in watching Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' sometimes searing, always riveting new Broadway play, Purpose, is the trio of female performances. Not to take away anything fr…
Strangely, I thought about Luigi Mangione after seeing Sarah Snook's theatrical tour de force, The Picture of Dorian Gray, at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway"Okay, not really about him but…
Operation Mincemeat presents one of the most bizarre premises for a musical, and certainly a wholly odd choice of subject matter for a comedy. Blend the two together and add a British sensib…
