This pretty-as-a picture new musical is by newcomers to the musical theatre, book writers Claudia Shear and Tim Federle, Composer Chris Miller, and lyricist Nathan Tysen. The story, based on…
This vintage musical, now over 50 years old, was written by a team of masters of musical theatre. It is the perfect piece with which the Encores! series continues to fulfill its mandate, …
In the rush of incoming Broadway and off/Broadway productions mid-season, I somehow missed the 2nd Stage mounting of this original and quite remarkable new musical by a new trio of writers.Ã…
Eugene O’Neill’s masterwork shows up in London or on Broadway every other season or two, and with good cause. It remains a bravely probing look into a particular family, one whic…
I’m sorry to have to report that Jessie Mueller, the appealing young lead in last season’s Beautiful, the Carole King Musical, has moved on to the role of Jenna in the musical ad…
As I gleefully watched Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s brilliant tour de force performance in this one man telephone marathon called Fully Committed, I pictured him  playing so many lead…
From what would seem to be the most unlikely source material, Duncan Sheik and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa have fashioned a dazzling and original musical theatre piece. The source is Bret East…
A company called Wellington Road, LLC has produced this 80-minute play by Cate Ryan at the Beckett Theatre on Theatre Row on 42nd Street, with a company of five featured players, under the d…
I doubt if in 1777 Richard Brinsley Sheridan was giving much thought to whether or not his comedy of manners would have any relevance to New York audiences in 239 years. But here he is a…
Floria Zeller, the French playwright might have called his play The Father In Winter, for The Lion in Winter was already taken. In this one act and 90-minute tragedy, adapted from the Fr…
This revival of The Color Purple opened at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre on Broadway in December of 2015 but I wasn’t able to get to it until tonight, in the fourth month of its succes…
Jean Webster’s novel, on which Daddy Long Legs is based, was written in 1911 in a farmhouse in Massachusetts. and much of its New England common sense, dry humor, and old fashioned …
Arthur Miller’s 1953 play has been resurrected by Producer Scott Rudin and 20 cohorts in a production staged by Ivo Van Hove, who performed similar service to Miller’s A View Fro…
If you insist on edge in your musicals, Bright Star is not for you. On the other hand, if you care to spend a couple of hours in the mid 1940s and the early 1920s in rural areas of North Car…
I once heard the late director Moss Hart say that when a show is a great hit, there were omens that predicted its future. “For example,” he said, “when we were fine tuning …
If you’re in the mood for a visit with a shipload of fun loving actors, many of whom you’ve seen and enjoyed in shows like Guys and Dolls (Faith Prince), The Producers (Roger Bar…
Under Joe Mantello’s keen direction, Blackbird begins with a bang and ends with a cry in the night. In the 80 minutes that elapse between one and the other, his cast of two holds us ti…
Danai Gurira, the author of this white hot very topical play about sexual slavery in Nigeria, has made a remarkable start to a major career as playwright and actor. Perhaps best known as sta…
Jason Robards first played the central character in this Eugene O’Neill one-act mood piece; that was in 1964. That character isn’t “Hughie” — no, he’s…
“Suddenly there is God so quickly” is one of those gems in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, and it flashed into my mind as I watched Stephen Karam’s play…
Playwright Hazel Ellis is not a name that comes readily to mind. Her play, currently running at City Center under the auspices of the Mint Theater Company, was first produced in her nati…
John Patrick Shanley is a prolific and gifted playwright who’s had a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for his hugely successful play Doubt. He also wrote its screenplay and directed the film …
As a way of plugging in to the national conversation addressing issues of change in the United States, this highly regarded regional not-for-profit theatre has put several plays in to it…
I talked with Nick Wyman only minutes after his performance as President Lyndon Johnson in All the Way at a matinee on February 13th. We met in the lobby of the stunning Asolo Repertory Thea…
I’d seen the film, but never the musical on which it was based. The original with a score by Vernon Duke and John LaTouche opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway and only manage…