5,915 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
Birdman, the film about Broadway (sort of), received nine Oscars nominations, the most of any film, matched only by The Grand Budapest Hotel. A couple of new Oscar nominees are currently in …
The terrorist killing of French cartoonists was so shocking that it might seem offensive, at least initially, to pair that story with two happening in North Carolina. Tonight was the culmina…
The Good Wife is getting a theater award, which seems to raise the question yet again: What does “theater” mean in an age of screens? (See link in January 9th below) In this case…
Chita Rivera, who turns 82 on January 23, will star on Broadway once again as the richest woman in the world who returns to her hometown set on revenge in "The Visit," the last Kander-Ebb co…
The Oscar-winning song by Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson-Lopez gets a new workout in the premiere episode of the sixth and final season of Glee. Here is the original version from the anima…
At a time when the most talked about "theater" is happening on screens " Peter Pan Live, Into The Woods, and now Galavant — has the definition of theater changed? Can you call it theat…
The world continues to respond to the murder Wednesday of 12 people in the offices of the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo by masked terrorists – especially the world’s c…
Another publication for which I write has decided after several years to switch from spelling theater the standard American way — “theater” — to the British “th…
Win a script signed by the playwright or a Playbill signed by the entire cast of Disgraced, the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Ayad Akhtar that just announced it will close on Broadway on Ma…
This week, six shows closed on Broadway and three more announced they would be closing, in the theater's brutal version of ringing out the old. But it was also a week to ring in the new. I p…
If January is traditionally considered a kind of theatrical time out after the theatergoing intensity of the holidays — a time to take stock of the year ahead (here’s my Broadway…
Live theater is supposed to exist only for the moment, but some of the biggest hits Off-Broadway are returning for the Spring 2015 season. Two of them, “Fun Home” and “Hand…
January is the month for theater festivals in New York – more than at any time other than the summer - The reason these festivals have blossomed over the past decade is the pr…
Choose the show that you are most looking forward to. The list below is for shows that have opening dates on Broadway in Spring 2015 as of this writing, and they are listed chronologically b…
Below are the shows scheduled to open in Broadway theaters between January and April, 2015, listed chronologically by opening date. This is a work in progress. I don’t mean I have stuf…
Tony Danza, Richard Pryor Jr., Christine Pedi and cabaret legend Marilyn Maye are among the at least TWO HUNDRED SIXTY FIVE people planning to perform at The Metropolitan Room starting this …
Many of the most magical moments on stage are purely visual, such as the breathtaking sunsets in “The Oldest Boy” this year at Lincoln Center, or the astonishing effects that the…
How well were you paying attention to the theater news in the month, and the year? Answer these 13 questions and find out.
Continuing a tradition I started when I began this blog " here are the most-read stories of 2013Â and of 2012Â –Â here are the most-read reviews and essays that I wrote in 2014. …
The Broadway show schedule for New Year’s week, and a list of other shows, parties, concerts, intimate dinners, cruises and outdoor events you can still do on New Year's Eve 2015 (when…
What if Into The Woods had been directed by Vincente Minnelli for MGM around, say, 1949. “The theater is one of the few places left in the bright and noisy world where we sit in the qu…
Sarah Ruhl is the only playwright who’s an author of one of the 100 Notable Books of 2014 selected by the New York Times – and the book they selected is not a play. Â It is …
The year 2014 in theater was one of protest, and of cult obsessions " theater people trying to engage in the wider world, and retreating from it. It was the year of critic bashing, and the y…
The long-awaited, visually sumptuous film version of "Into The Woods" is likely to please theatergoers who are already fans of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's clever 1987 musical mashup …
The shows this season that have touched on religion offer different approaches, as I point out in an article in Howlround entitled "Does God Exist on Stage? Theater and Religion"Â Some ri…
