628 stories by "Jan Simpson"
Polls say that atheism is rising in the U.S. and that even
believers go to church less often than they once did. But God still seems to be
talking to America's playwrights.
Faith w…
In some ways, the Theatre at St. Clement's, a haven for so
many theatrical endeavors over the years, is the perfect place for Ten
Chimneys, a play about the legendary actors Alfred Lunt and …
It's not often that I'm haunted by a piece of theater but AdA:
Author directing Author, a pair of one-act plays that opened at La MaMa this week,
won't let me go. The funny thing is that I h…
Even if you've been in a coma for the past month, the news
certainly must have gotten to you by now that the first of the debates between
President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt R…
If There is I Haven't Found It Yet, the dysfunctional
family drama that opened at Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre
this week, has been getting all kinds of atten…
Red Dog Howls, which opened at the New York Theatre Workshop
this week, isn't a well-made play. It
has no real conflict. Crucial bits of information are held back in a strained
effort …
Sometimes, as hard as I might try, I just don't get it. For
instance, I know that I'm supposed to like Detroit, the new dark comedy that
opened at Playwrights Horizons this past week.
…
People have been so eager to badmouth the new musical
Chaplin that opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre last week that I've been
trying to figure out why they've been so hostile towards it.…
Like most of you, I've been looking through all the fall
previews that everyone else has been doing and, to be honest, I don't know that
there are all that many shows that I'm …
Let's face it, I'm not the demographic that the producers had
in mind when they decided to bring Bring It On to Broadway. And yet, like just about everyone else who
has seen this high-…
Over the past couple of weeks, I've lost two people who
played significant roles in shaping my life. So I'm taking time out from my
usual posts to pay honor to their memories.
Remy…
How did the summer pass so quickly that we're now staring in
the face of Labor Day? This is
always a bittersweet time of year for me because it means that the idylls of
summer are endi…
There are some playwrights whose work you can just rear back
and enjoy. And then there are others who
force you to sit up in your seat and work.
Sam Shepard has always fallen in …
Even though he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (not to mention an Oscar for the screenplay of "To Kill a Mockingbird") Horton Foote was often considered to be the most unsung
of America's m…
We should all be so lucky as to have a friend as good as Woody
Harrelson. As has now been told
many times, Harrelson worked a construction job in the summer of 1983 and
became buddies …
Unless a friend, relative or lover is doing one of its
shows, deciding what to see at the New York International Fringe Festival can
be daunting. Not to mention
disappointing. There ar…
Summer is supposed to be the quiet season for New York
theatergoers but somebody apparently forgot to send that memo to the folks who
organized all the theater festivals that have been going…
The first real writing I ever did was a reworking of Grimm's
Fairy Tales because they just didn't make sense to my 8 year-old self. As I
recall, I made them more agreeable by changing some e…
Yep, it's that time again. We're heading into the dog days of summer when everything
slows down. Including B& Me.
As seems to have become a tradition around this time each ye…
Actors and directors love to do classic works. It gives them a chance to size themselves up against the myths and memories of earlier, legendary performances and
produc…
It would be hard to find a show with a more impressive pedigree than
the one for Dogfight, the lovely little musical that opened at Second Stage
Theatre on Monday night:
'Its director …
There's a lot that's similar about Bonnie & Clyde, the Frank
Wildhorn musical about the Depression-era gangsters that closed in December
after just 36 performances, and Baby Case, the mu…
Several small off-Broadway shows have come and gone over the
past few months while I've been preoccupied with all the Broadway openings at
the end of the season, the deserved hoopla leading …
Summertime is tourist time in New York and one of the main things people want to do when they get here is see a Broadway show. But not just any show. Most want to take in a big B…
In keeping with this week's red-white-and-blue theme, I'm
going to recommend The Best Man (or Gore Vidal's The Best Man, as it is
officially billed) which is turning into a staple of electio…
