By Myra Chanin . . . I've seen many versions of A Chorus Line, but the recent FAU Festival Rep 2023 production was the most diverse, touching, passionate and compassionate. On a bare stage o…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Already in this young season, three plays have dribbled with the game of basketball, King James, Flex, and Inua Ellams's The Half-God of Rainfall, now at the Ne…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Judging by the explosive opening night reaction at the Winter Garden to the new Broadway musical based on Back to the Future, the popular 1985 sci-fi movie abou…
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . There's an incredibly famous saying in the entertainment world: "Never work with children or animals." Now, on the basis of Second Stage Uptown's production o…
Industry Reading . . . MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL the 1994 iconic blockbuster book by John Berendt, which still holds a New York Times bestseller list record, is being developed…
By Marcina Zaccaria . . . An evening of bliss becomes a morality tale as we follow a 67-year-old woman who encounters the truths of an unseemly past in The Saviour. Marie Mullen (Tony Aw…
By Ron Fassler . . . Walking into the theater for A Musical About "Star Wars," you expect it will be funny and satiric (especially when the usher swipes your ticket and tells you to "get…
By Alix Cohen . . . The McKittrick Hotel Club Car is very dark. A very long, candlelit table is set attractively for dinner. Visual resembles Hogwarts. Scottish illusionist Scott Sil…
By Myra Chanin . . . During the long-gone days of my youth, I considered the Berkshires a cultural summertime wonderland and loved its endless pastures, dotted with unpretentious barns-c…
By Carole Di Tosti . . . What could be better than a comedy of manners in the style of Oscar Wilde, "inspired by the works of Noël Coward," heightened to riotous farce with a modern t…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Deirdre Kinahan's The Saviour, a one-act, two hander, running a shade over an hour, is now receiving its world stage premiere (following an online debut) at the…
By Ron Fassler . . . As a teenager, I watched Lucie Arnaz week in, week out on her mother's CBS-TV series "Here's Lucy" over the course of its six season run (Monday nights at 9 PM). She was…
By JK Clarke . . . Musicals that take place during revolutions or periods of historic social upheaval tend to not only be compelling to audiences but have a fairly good track record. Thi…
By Walter Murphy . . . In recent years, my wife and I have been spending time in Ireland during the summers. While there we try to visit many of the excellent national museums and parks.…
By Myra Chanin . . . I first visited Florida as a new mother in the 1980s. We drove down accompanied by our little darling, Steven, a toddler whose possessions filled the entire trunk of…
By Stuart Miller . . . There's a moment somewhere in the middle of I'm Going to Marry You Tobey Maguire when you start to see the seams of Samantha Hurley's sketch comedy writing backgro…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . For the past couple of weeks, I'd been wondering if my visit to the Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Hamlet was to be or not to be. First, a weather s…
By Carole Di Tosti . . . Everyone should write their own story. But how is this possible if an omnipotent narrator demands obedience upon the threat of banishment? We discover dreams can…
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . To quote the great Noel Coward: "I've been to a marvelous party." It was filled with soigné New Yorkers of every age and shape, dressed in glamorous 1920s-in…
By Alix Cohen . . . Alex Edelman has been doing stand-up since he was a teenager and honing his show, Just For Us (which has just moved to Broadway's Hudson Theatre), since 2018. Charism…
By Myra Chanin . . . Harrumph!!! Where in the world can a theatergoer find a well performed farce nowadays? I just reveled in the perpetually amusing Will Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors …
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . Anyone remotely involved in the world of entertainment knows the meaning of the phrase "triple threat": someone who can act, sing and dance. Anyone who has be…
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . You don't see a miracle? Luckily, there's a quick fix for that dilemma"this weekend only"if you can grab a ticket to City Center Encores' vocally gorgeous and emo…
One of the last greats of Broadway's Golden Age, and celebrated lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, Sheldon Harnick died Friday in NYC at the age of 99. Born in Chicago in 1924, Harnick …
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Given the cultish popularity of the 1989 high school movie Heathers, about serial killings, and of its 2014 stage musical version, you'd imagine anyone contempl…