230 stories from Kritzerland
DOCTOR FAUSTUS and THE TEMPEST will never be confused with summer movies. Still, how nice that two plays that were written more than 400 years ago are back in New York as spring gives way to…
It opened in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1954, long before I became aware of musical theater and prior to my learning to drive. Even after I got a license, I didn't discover The North Shore Mu…
Another season has come and gone. Bless the hits from 2014-2015 and adieu to the shows that closed faster than Seth Rudetsky talks.
On my recent Virgin Atlantic flight to London, I perused the in-flight entertainment, and what did I find? A film version of J.B. Priestley's 1945 play AN INSPECTOR CALLS, revived to great a…
All hail Fred Abramowitz, Jason Flum, Susan Berlin, Bill Bickel, Byrd Bonner, Brigadude, Gary Cherpakov, Seth Christenfeld, Dennis Dorner, Adrian Durlester, Paul Ford, Laura Frankos, Ingrid …
Come to the York Theatre Company and see Robert Creighton in drag.
"What's he doing?" you ask. "LA CAGE? ROCKY HORROR? PAGEANT?"
No, a musical about James Cagney.
Musicals have always been consumed with time. Time signatures, curtain time, A TIME FOR SINGING. GOODTIME CHARLEY, "As Time Goes By" (which originated in a musical and not CASABLANCA), and T…
I was excited to hear that Thornton Wilder's lost manuscript for A DAY IN SANTA FE has finally been found. Rumors had abounded for years that Wilder did not limit his full-length play output…
Of all the Oscar-winning films I've seen, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS is the one I like the least.
Nine nominations yielded nine Oscars. Never before had a film with so many nominations made a clean sweep. But that's what GIGI achieved when it won the Academy Award for 1958's Best Picture…
Think of how joyous that Friday night must have been. Only five days earlier, the four-year war had ended. Now at last there could be unmitigated happiness. That was especially true in the n…
At first it was only a few, but then more and more of you wrote in. "Aren't you going to say anything about FISH IN THE DARK?" I answered "Well, you know what they say. If you haven't anythi…
Faithful readers will recall that a few weeks ago, I wrote about the sadness that actors endure when they say a line or sing a lyric that refers to a closing when the show is actually closin…
Let's give a warm twenty-first century welcome to ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
We've had theatrical pieces about show business, commerce, science, religion, prison and everything else you can think of from A(RT) to Z(ULU AND THE ZAYDA).
Nice to see that Peter Gallagher has returned to ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY after missing a peck of performances. I was getting a little worried there that he was going to take his leave. More…
Well, with one of the most frigid February on records, we certainly answered Joanne's question in COMPANY in no uncertain terms. On Broadway, everybody this month indeed wore a hat.
The only thing is that what I couldn't have imagined is that there wouldn't be a single Broadway opening during the entire month of February.
My hat is off to Peter Alfano, Mel Atkey, AnyaToes, Susan Berlin, Tristan Blakely, Brigadude, Annie Breslin, Jon Allen Conrad, Ilene Nancy Cooper, Lorraine Ford DeMan, Andrew Duxbury, Christ…
Every New Year's Day, I wish that the 1980 musical HAPPY NEW YEAR had received an original cast album. What would be a happier way to start the New Year than to hear 14 Cole Porter songs?
Call it the first important sibling musical.
For the 1924 hit LADY, BE GOOD! had brothers George and Ira Gershwin collaborate on their first full score. Although the two had written a son…
Do you know Herb Gardner's 1974 play THIEVES? Although it wasn't a moneymaking hit, it did run a respectable nine months and spawned a 1977 film. It concerned one Sally Cramer, now suddenly …
While the musical is an inherently American art form, it hasn't neglected other nationalities " as is proved by the 50 examples that make up this year's Broadway University Mid-Term Exam.
Were you at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre on Monday night January 5? If you were, you saw my one-on-one discussion with Dame Diana Rigg. A good time was had by us, and, I daresay, those i…
I didn't get what I really wanted for Christmas.
An original cast album of THE UNDERCLASSMAN.
