911 stories by "Michael Riedel"
"Cats" is back, and with it T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, posters, key chains, socks, baseball caps and mouse pads " each one emblazoned with the famous cat's-eyes logo. Merchandising has long be…
London's National Theatre will mount a revival of "Amadeus" " Peter Shaffer's celebrated play about the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri " in October. The National hasn't produced "Amadeus…
James M. Nederlander, who built an empire of theaters that stretched from Times Square to Los Angeles, died Monday night in New York. He was 94. Nederlander, along with his rivals-turned-fri…
While Broadway goes through its "Hamilton" craze, London is obsessed with Harry Potter. Advance sales for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" at the Palace Theatre have hit $32 million, whic…
Before composer Alan Menken went off to Disneyland to write "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast," he was working on a Broadway musical called "Kicks." It never got off the ground,…
The title of Woody Allen's "Café Society" conjures up three famous haunts of the '30s and '40s: the '21' Club, El Morocco and the Stork Club. Those Midtown joints were largely restricted to…
Here’s a promising cast: Victoria Clark, Tony-winning star for "The Light in the Piazza"; Montego Glover, who was the highlight of "Memphis" a few years back; and Tsidii Le Loka, the o…
Al Capone will forever be associated with Chicago, City of the Big Shoulders, as Carl Sandburg put it in 1914, where "gun[men] kill and go free to kill again." But America's most notorious g…
HBO is quietly developing " dare I say in the dead of night? " a Broadway musical based on its popular vampire series "True Blood." Director Pam MacKinnon, who barely survived the fiasco tha…
There was some consternation on Broadway last week over the abrupt closing of "Shuffle Along." A few people blamed producer Scott Rudin for not supporting the show after leading lady Audra M…
"My name is Popov, Dusko Popov." Well, it doesn't have the same bite as "My name is Bond, James Bond," but Dusko Popov, a Yugoslavian double agent during World War II, may well have been the…
Josh Groban better start hip-hopping all over the place like Lin-Manuel Miranda if "Natasha, Pierre & Great Comet of 1812" is going to make it on Broadway. I've been riffling through the…
Is "Groundhog Day" ever going to come out of its burrow? Since Scott Rudin abruptly severed ties a few weeks ago with the musical adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray film, word is the show wo…
If anything's ripe for parody, it's "Hamilton," which rode a wave of hype to sweep the Tonys on Sunday. And who better to take a few potshots at "Hamilton"-mania than Gerard Alessandrini, cr…
Elvis Costello was in town last weekend for a reading of his musical adaptation of Elia Kazan's great movie "A Face in the Crowd." This show has been flying under the radar for a while, but …
Broadway celebrated its latest cultural phenomenon Sunday night " "Hamilton" — which captured 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. But the celebration came the same day an ISIS-insp…
Groundbreaking. Game-changing. Revolutionary. That's what the critics have called Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton," which won a bevy of Tony Awards last night. So what will be the next "groun…
At Sunday's Tony Awards there is opportunity in losing. With Broadway set to crown "Hamilton" the greatest show in the history of mankind, the also-rans are scrambling to make the most of th…
At Sunday's Tony Awards there is opportunity in losing. With Broadway set to crown "Hamilton" the greatest show in the history of mankind, the also-rans are scrambling to make the most of th…
In the early 2000s, when TV ratings for the Tony Awards seemed perennially stuck in the basement, Broadway fretted that CBS might ditch the telecast. Rumors swirled that the Tonys would go l…
I first interviewed Peter Shaffer in 1990 when he was about to open his play "Lettice and Lovage," starring a delightfully daffy Maggie Smith, on Broadway. I'd been a fan of Shaffer's plays …
Jeff Daniels was an overnight sensation as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." Not on Broadway " at his Chelsea, Mich., high school. "I'm 18. I'm blond. Not a clue what Jewish was," he says. "Bu…
"There are two cardinal rules of show business," Max Bialystock says in "The Producers." "No. 1: Never put your own money in the show. No. 2: Never put your own money in the show!" Steve Mar…
Jesse Tyler Ferguson made his Broadway debut opposite Lea DeLaria in the 1998 revival of "On the Town." Ferguson was shaped like a beanpole in those days; DeLaria, we have to admit, was not.…
As we close in on the June 12 Tony Awards " the excitement mounts! " here's a snapshot of the race: "Hamilton" has a record-breaking 16 nominations, but it's not going to topple Mel Brooks' …
