8,501 stories from Backstage
What makes someone an Actor to Watch? It can be any one factor or a number of them. Sometimes, it's that indefinable "it" that can't be neatly qualified.
Anne Hathaway has nabbed the coveted role of Fantine in Universal Pictures' and Working Title Films' new production of "Les Misérables."
Mike Daisey's accidental eulogy to the late Apple CEO fuses personal narrative and journalistic storytelling to create a captivating and relevant evening of theater.
Despite major talent on stage and behind the scenes and some bright numbers, this tired musical about a Jewish-Catholic wedding is as dated as a 1970s sitcom.
This examination of hijinks at a regional theater, highlighting the role of the dramaturge, could do with some reshaping of its own.
Race figures heavily into this charming and deftly written play about a reverse-discrimination lawsuit, but the big issues ultimately take a back seat to a twisty, somewhat implausible fam…
Marcus Hummon's generic musical feels like a bad concept album onstage. Every song sounds like the one before it, and the repetitive lyrics disguise any hint of a compelling story.
Five musical performers get to show off their spectacular talents in this immensely enjoyable concert-style production, loaded with show tunes, pop and exhilarating dancing.
Bruce Graham's new play is more about philosophy than football. It ultimately fails to score a touchdown, proving to be as indecisive as its protagonist.
Katori Hall's two-character fantasy on Martin Luther King Jr. fails to delve into the complexities of American race relations and features an over-the-top performance by Angela Bassett.…
The playwright confesses that while her career is going great, her personal life is a bit of a mess. In the space of just three days, she's lost her transit card, her debit card and, just …
There are a couple of actors I saw who impressed the living life out of me. I saw Al Pacino in "American Buffalo," and I saw John Malkovich in "True West."
Here are the discoveries I've made in 25 years as a casting director:
In December of 1961, I was able to get—through the kindoffices of my friend Nancy Donahue, who introduced me to her agent Deborah Coleman—an audition for Arthur Kopit's play "O…
Discovering an exciting new artist is obviously thrilling—that moment when you know you've met someone with a talent that doesn't come along very often.
It must have been the fall of 1985. I was living in San Francisco, running the Eureka Theatre, and visiting New York. As always, I was trying to cram in as much theater as I could.
Many years ago, before I ran the Williamstown Theatre Festival or Center Theatre Group, I was a stage manager. I had never been trained for that job, in either an academic or a professiona…
Ken Ferrigni's clever "Mangella" starts out as a twisted romantic comedy between a man and his computer, and gradually becomes a twisted philosophical comedy about privacy and identity.
Using pantomime, storytelling and music, Bill Bowers examines what it means to be a man in America—and uncovers very little that is new for 21st-century audiences.
Playwright-actor Zoe Kazan continues to show promise in her second play, a funny and sad portrait of a family in crisis, but she needs to smooth out some rough edges.
The two met in 2000 when cast in a production of "The Berlin Circle," by Charles Mee, at the Evidence Room theater in Los Angeles.
Earlier this month, I became the new chairman and CEO of Back Stage, and I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and share with you how excited I am to be involved with the i…
A lovely, evocative title, a memorable central performance, strong design credits, plus impassioned advocacy of a worthy cause advance dramatic interest to a point, but don't completely sa…
Jerry Herman's first Broadway musical, with a surprisingly varied score and a dated story about Americans finding love in Israel, is given a competent barebones revival by Musicals T…
The rich milieu of South Central Los Angeles in the 1940s is well served by the music and overall look of the production, but the acting is uneven, the plot somewhat predictable—or t…
