Given all the cancellations and delays caused by the Omicron variant surge (see news below),  digital theater is suddenly looking good again (see reviews below.) If the theater news th…
Sidney Poitier wasn't expected to live long; he was born prematurely in Miami, where his parents, who were tomato farmers from the Bahamas, happened to be visiting in order to sell their pro…
"I haven't done anything wrong," Chris Quinn says again and again in Caitriona Daly's play, which focuses on an accusation of rape. Chris is not the one accused. His friend Davey is, but Chr…
"Sweetheart, I'm fine, and I'm running for my life, I cannot talk to you right now," Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif) recalls telling her son, when he telephoned her while she was scrambling down…
Immediately after I watched the first-ever "simulcast" of a Broadway play   " the exact same live performance of Lynn Nottage's "Clyde's" on my computer screen that the audience was…
Was 2021 a cause for celebration or for sorrow? Was it a time for gratitude, grief or gall? Yes, say the theater bloggers in the roundup below. The strange mix of emotions might be summed…
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on Broadway, with "Ain't Too Proud" becoming the fourth Broadway show in little more than a week to announce it was shutting down ear…
Below is a day-by-day selection of theater openings scheduled for January organized by opening date*, featuring a Broadway play, "Skeleton Crew," and several intriguing shows Off and Off-Off…
Reynaldo Piniella made an abrupt Broadway debut portraying a go-getting actor in 2021 under strange and trying circumstances; "It's been such a crazy time," he says. "Within like a 24 hour p…
Let us celebrate surviving to a new and surely better year, by honoring these dozen Broadway veterans aged 90 to 104. Click on any photograph to see it enlarged and read the caption.
How much do you remember of this unusual year in theater? Â Answer these 20 questions to find out. Loading…
Below is a list of theater books to read in 2022, most of which were published in 2021.‡ Click on the titles to find more information and to purchase these books, grouped under four…
Below are some of the year's best reads and the most popular posts of 2021, which, not surprisingly, were largely about the reopening of Broadway, although the number 1 post was about the mo…
There were good things that happened in 2021 " in general (vaccines became widely available, Britney was freed, the coup failed, Derek Chauvin was convicted, Juneteenth was made …
A positive test in the company canceled what was supposed to be opening night. A torrential thunderstorm had canceled the first preview. "It's been harrowing, harrowing, harrowing, the w…
Below are some of the people from the theater community who died in 2021, listed alphabetically. Click on any photograph to read the caption, most of which link to an obituary.
Three of the most memorable moments on a New York stage in 2021 were of characters getting high; can you blame them, given the year we've had? Among the moments represented in the photo gall…
In "Theater of Lockdown: Digital and Distanced Performance in a Time of Pandemic"Â (Methuen Drama, 247 pages), Barbara Fuchs attempts to chronicle what she calls "the fundamental transfor…
The Broadway debut of "Trouble in Mind" some three decades after playwright Alice Childress' death is the most popular choice among critics whose lists of top 10 New York theater for 2021…
A third of all Broadway shows were canceled on Sunday because members of the company or crew tested positive for Covid, the latest in "a raft of cancellations unlike any in history," evidenc…
While others were busy assessing the trends in New York theater of the decade that had just ended, on January 1, 2020, I asked: What will be the trends of the future? I had a list of seven q…
It shouldn't surprise anybody who followed the race for New York City mayor that Eric Adams, who won and will take office on January 1, 2022, has a book out called Healthy at Last: A Plant-B…
This year's holiday season in New York is meant as a return to the annual tradition of live in-person Christmas Carols and Nutcracker Suites, as well as the usual mix of family fare, offb…
It's been 40 years since sex therapist Ruth Westheimer became a celebrity. The 4'7" "Grandma Freud," aka Dr. Ruth, who gave advice on her radio and TV shows in a sing-song European accent ab…
Deirdre O'Connell gave one of my favorite performances on a New York stage in 2016, and she returns in this latest of my annual lists of favorite theatrical performances  (not all o…