Rock & Roll Man
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . Like it or not, the so-called "jukebox musical" has become a staple of New York City theater and shows no signs of disappearing. The latest example, Rock &…
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . Like it or not, the so-called "jukebox musical" has become a staple of New York City theater and shows no signs of disappearing. The latest example, Rock &…
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . If you believe everything you see in the movies, "cabaret" often consists of a cool, soigne-dressed songstress delivering sultry standards to a barely involved au…
By Marilyn Lester . . . In what was possibly one of her most magnificent cabaret shows to date, Natalie Douglas proverbially blew the roof off Birdland with A 60s Songs Juneteenth Jubile…
By Marcina Zaccaria . . . John Rubinstein remembers victory as the 34th President of the United States in Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground. Social unrest, race riots, and eventually the …
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Apart from Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt, perhaps, the play with the most sustained dramatic and intellectual power now playing in New York is The Doctor, at the …
By Adam Cohen . . . Rent at the Paper Mill Playhouse remains a wonder to behold, a sumptuous song-fest to enjoy, a spiritual boost for all. Director Zi Alikhan delivers a crazily brillia…
By Ron Fassler . . . A Simulacrum is a world premiere production presented by the Atlantic Theatre Company and co-written by Lucas Hnath with Steve Cuiffo. Hnath, a playwright whose cred…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . When it comes to supernatural pop cultural tropes that keep popping up in shows, movies, and TV series, few are as common as vampires, zombies, and dragons. For a r…
By JK Clarke . . . What better way to get into the spirit of Pride Month than with a pride of amazing singers performing some of Judy Garland's biggest hits (and a few deep cuts)? Hard t…
By Carol Rocamora . . . London theatre has been soaring this spring with a striking variety of offerings, ranging from the sensational to the scintillating to the sentimental. Nichol…
By Alix Cohen . . . Bronx-born Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (1904 "1943), jazz pianist, organist, composer and vocalist copyrighted over 400 songs, most co-written with Andy Razaf who describ…
By Carol Rocamora . . . "Two people stranded at sea . . . Two stranded people are we . . ." So goes the leitmotif of Days of Wine and Roses, a heartrending new musical now filling the Atlant…
By Marcina Zaccaria . . . Ropes with pulleys flying through the air are a visual sign of the intense muscularity of dock work, lauded in The Hook. Brave New World Repertory Theatre chall…
By Adam Cohen . . . Abe Burrows, Jo Swerling, and Frank Loesser's 1950 musical comedy, Guys and Dolls, is one of my favorite shows. When the opportunity came to travel to London, seeing …
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . More than once during her Monday night performance of California Dreamin': Jessica Vosk Sings the Songs of Laurel Canyon, the singer joked that she was treati…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . I'm sure most people would agree that, even if they have no idea of what Wet Brain Syndrome is, it makes a more intriguing play title than Wernicke-Korsakoff [o…
The original Off Broadway cast recording of "Other Lives: The Story Songs of Michael Colby" (Jay Records), a cycle of story songs by lyricist Michael Colby (Charlotte Sweet, Ludlow Ladd), wi…
By Ron Fassler . . . In the years since the AIDS crisis first loomed in the 1980s, there have been many plays on the subject. Is there such a thing as too many? Has everything that needs…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . The key figure in Tori Sampson's (If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka) promising, well-acted, but less than satisfying play, This Land Was Made, at Off-Broa…
By Carol Rocamora . . . Meet Bert. He's the best friend a fellow could ever have"at least according to Kenneth. He's warm, funny, supportive, and always there when Kenneth needs him"espe…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Bernarda's Daughters, by Diane Exavier, is a title guaranteed to trigger thoughts of The House of Bernarda Alba, the distinguished play by Federico GarcÃa Lo…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . The Manhattan Theatre Club is having a friendship moment. Over at its Broadway venue, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, David Auburn's Summer, 1976 follows the on…
By Ron Fassler . . . When I was eighteen years old, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) played my local cinema. My brother and I went to see it and were among the few in the theater t…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Like courtroom dramas, plays about people involved with branches of psychotherapy have a built-in theatrical premise. One or more characters gradually expose tr…
By Stuart Miller . . . When my son and I saw Molière in the Park's staged reading of Tartuffe in Prospect Park two years ago, we laughed frequently and marveled at the relevance of Moli…