230 stories from Kritzerland
I'm ashamed to admit it, but an inordinate number of years had to pass before I realized one salient fact about Broadway.
The week between Christmas and New Year's Eve is the time when ge…
Have you heard "I Dreamed a Dream," "Defying Gravity" and "The Impossible Dream" one time too many " or one hundred times too many?
Steven Gross knows the feeling. As a music director, co…
Oh, how I wanted at least one of the characters in SHEAR MADNESS to mention Queen Latifah, XANADU and Zoosk. Because after hearing a few up-to-now contemporary references that either didn't …
Yes, HAMILTON, the show that everyone's raving about, is the unquestioned musical champ of the nation.
Well, my heart is about to burst. My head is about to pop. I'm on my way to The Wick Theatre in Boca Raton, Florida. There I'll see Lee Roy Reams take his next adventure with HELLO, DOLLY!
As I mentioned in my column of Sept. 19, every now and then throughout this 2015-2016 season I'll take a 50th anniversary look at Jack Gaver's book SEASON IN SEASON OUT, which detailed the 5…
The biggest news this month may very well have come from the world of magazines. PLAYBOY announced that come January, it would no longer feature nudes in its monthly issues. So maybe it's ti…
You have watched, haven't you, the 1970 film of THE BOYS IN THE BAND with its original off-Broadway cast? Perhaps you've even listened to the far more complete version of Mart Crowley's land…
Recently I have not been The Most Happy Fella, although I have been singing the first lines of the 1956 hit musical " with one change of word.
Faithful readers will recall that last week I spoke to THE ROTHSCHILDS' bookwriter Sherman Yellen and lyricist Sheldon Harnick about their revised version called ROTHSCHILD & SONS. (It's now…
In his marvelous book BROADWAY BABIES SAY GOODNIGHT, Mark Steyn quotes Sheldon Harnick's opinion that "It is not specifically a love affair that a musical needs " just strong emotion."
So on September 12th right here, did we all celebrate the 48th anniversary of the off-Broadway opening of KLENOKSY AGAINST THE SLINGS AND ARROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE?
Many of us know of William Goldman's landmark work THE SEASON, which detailed every Broadway production of the 1967-68 semester. It's easily the book I've read the most times.
The meteorologists say that summer doesn't end until the final moments of September 22nd, but most of us disagree. Labor Day's the day when we say, as the Goldmans and John Kander wrote in A…
Congratulations to Stephan Artist, Steve Bell, Brigadude, Susan Berlin, Seth Christenfeld, Paco CM, William Cox, Jason Flum, Ingrid Gammerman, Kelsee B. Hankins, James Harris, Cathy Jones, N…
Summertime, and the traveling isn't always easy: plane delays, security lines, a crying baby in the seat next to you. But plays and musicals call from across the country, and so, I must go.
The best musical I've seen this season gives us George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and yes, you're already saying, we know: HAMILTON.
No, that was last season's show, as the Drama Desk, …
You certainly need many bodies to write, direct, design, produce and perform a musical. Perhaps that's why so many lyricists cite the human body in their lyrics.
We've lately been hearing a lot about A CHORUS LINE's opening forty years ago.
But THE WIZ did, too. And at the moment, the African-American urban take on THE WIZARD OF OZ " which only ra…
The sign outside the theater says "Every word in THREE DAYS TO SEE (except for the show's first moments) was written by Helen Keller." Yeah, there's no question that she didn't contribute to…
How considerate of Kristin Chenoweth to close ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY five days before her birthday. That way, the cast didn't have to go through the expense of cards, a cake, candles and p…
Unless my colleague Matthew Murray has squealed on me, no one knows I made a tremendous mistake late last year.
So I see that SOMETHING ROTTEN! " the marvelous musical at the St. James " is still advertising itself as "Loser! Best Musical! 2015 Tony Award!"
September 16, 1991. Studio B in the John Houseman Theatre on 42nd Street. I'm seeing a staged reading of a new musical called RUTHLESS!
It was the month of the Tony Awards, of course. The flag behind ON THE TOWN's sailors sported 48 stars, but we had plenty more in attendance at Radio City Music Hall on June 7.
