617 stories by "Jan Simpson"
Bruce Norris has a knack for making people uncomfortable. His 2006 play The Pain and the Itch featured a 4-year-old with a genital rash, a metaphor for her family's dysfunction that call…
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& Juliet, the exuberant new musical that mashes up Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with the songbook of the pop hitmaker Max Martin wasn't made for me. It was made for the tween gir…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Miss Lulu Bett"1921 Pulitzer wi…
The writer Joan Didion once said that "we tell ourselves stories in order to live." But lately an increasing number of theater makers have not only been telling the stories of their lives bu…
The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway. Guest: Joseph Dougher…
My friend Seymour "Red" Press died yesterday. Although to call him a friend doesn't really describe what he meant to my husband K and me. Red was a longtime musical contractor and K, a trump…
As a recent story in the online magazine TDF Stages noted, James Baldwin is having a theatrical moment (click here to read more about it). The black writer and intellectual, who died in 1987…
Revivals used to be fairly simple. A producer would take a beloved title or maybe even an underappreciated one, cast it with a star or two and voilà , a show. But that's not how it goes no…
The very limited six-day run of Burn, Alan Cumming's solo performance piece at The Joyce Theater, ends this weekend but there is so much joy in it that I can't resist celebrating it.Â
Cu…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Death of a Salesman"1949 Pulitz…
Monday is Labor Day, which means that it's time for my annual tribute to some of the people whose labor makes the theater we all love work. I've been doing this for 15 years now and I can't …
Everyone who loves serious theater loves the idea of giving talented new writers a chance to show what they can do. The question is the timing. Too many workshops (and the notes that come al…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "A Delicate Balance"1967 Pulitze…
Greek tragedies don't get done a lot. Which is why I really try to see them when I can. So my theatergoing buddy Bill and I bought tickets for the new production of the Oresteia that is play…
So many musicals nowadays are based on movies or other pop culture IP (by which I mean jukebox musicals of one kind or another) that it's nicely retro to have one based on a book. That's the…
The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway. Guest: Brian Watkins,…
Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. At least that's the approach two recent plays have taken with the current political morass in which we all find ourselves. Selina Filling…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Harvey"1945 Pulitzer winner "Ha…
Now that Covid has been around for more than two years and vaccines have made contracting the virus a little less scary, a new kind of normal is settling in. The Tony award ceremonies return…
For the second time this month, there will be no regular post here. It's not because there haven't been shows to see and talk about: although it will be weeks before anything new opens on Br…
The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway. Guest: Madhuri Shekar…
The settings and the circumstances are the same in two new off-Broadway shows that portray the plight of the young Black and Brown people who are so often trapped in systems that view them"a…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "The Young Man From Atlanta"1995…
Dreaming Zenzile, the musical that opened at New York Theatre Workshop this week, began as a tribute concert. And it probably should have stayed one. Â
The show, a co-production wi…
The girls aren't what they're expected to be in Belfast Girls, the new show that opened at the Irish Rep this week. They also aren't what we've come to expect to find in historical dramas li…
