All stories by Gordon Cox on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties' by Gordon Cox

What's the collective noun for a group of Betties? Based on Jen Silverman's play, "Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties," perhaps "a rage of Betties" would suit. When these five Betties g…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Listen: Broadway's 'Pretty Woman' Star on Nostalgia, Reviews and Why the Musical Works Now by Gordon Cox

Andy Karl knows a thing or two about Broadway musicals based on movies after playing the UPS guy in “Legally Blonde,” the Italian Stallion himself in “Rocky,” and the…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Listen: How Off Broadway Hit 'Be More Chill' Is Like 'Hamilton' by Gordon Cox

It’s one thing to be told that the Off Broadway musical “Be More Chill” is a viral hit on the internet. It’s quite another to experience the hype live and in the room…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:36PM[SHARE]

Summer Audiences Keep the Party Going at Bond 45 by Gordon Cox

Every night, just as Summer: The Donna Summer Musical is ending, the party's just beginning. That's how it feels, anyway, when the rousing curtain call " a buoyant, full-cast rendition of Do…

SOURCE: Broadway Direct at 07:11AM[SHARE]
Monday, August 20, 2018

Why The Summer Broadway Cast Album Is The Ultimate Souvenir by Gordon Cox

It was Monday morning in a Manhattan recording studio, and the cast of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical knew they'd made magic. The performers and musicians had all gathered on their first d…

SOURCE: Broadway Direct at 04:59PM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 16, 2018

Broadway Review: 'Pretty Woman: The Musical' by Gordon Cox

When the 1990 movie comedy "Pretty Woman" catapulted Julia Roberts to stardom, it was widely reported that Disney and late director Garry Marshall had tweaked J.F. Lawton's downbeat prostitu…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:06PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 13, 2018

Broadway Review: 'Gettin' The Band Back Together' by Gordon Cox

Producer Ken Davenport has racked up an impressive collection of Tony Award nominations (and a couple of wins) for shows like "Once on This Island," "Kinky Boots," and "Spring Awakening."Â�…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:06PM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 9, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'Be More Chill' by Gordon Cox

Technology plays a major role onstage in “Be More Chill,” the high school-set musical that uses a brain altering super-computer — masquerading as a popularity drug ̵…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Listen: How 'So You Think You Can Dance' Changed Broadway by Gordon Cox

Since starting his tenure on “So You Think You Can Dance” 10 seasons ago, Spencer Liff has choreographed Broadway productions from “Falsettos” to “Hedwig and th…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:24PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 6, 2018

Pre-Broadway Review: 'Moulin Rouge!' by Gordon Cox

Yes they can-can — they can transform Baz Luhrmann's 2001 absinthe-tinged fantasia "Moulin Rouge!" into a socko stage spectacular. The story's been strengthened in this splashy product…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:24PM[SHARE]
Friday, August 3, 2018

London Theater Review: 'Othello' With Mark Rylance, Andre Holland by Gordon Cox

From his unhinged Hamlet to a sympathetic Richard III, Mark Rylance has always been a great re-inventor of Shakespeare's key roles. Now, returning to the Globe in "Othello" after a few years…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:01AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'Twelfth Night' in Central Park by Gordon Cox

Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub's musicalized "Twelfth Night" is the kind of outdoor summer theater that transcends bad weather. Even if the skies crackle with lightning and showers s…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:48PM[SHARE]
Monday, July 30, 2018

D.C. Theater Review: 'Dave,' The Musical by Gordon Cox

This might sound familiar to film buffs: A lying and philandering U.S. president suffers a debilitating stroke and is furtively replaced by a body double, who then foils the plot by honoring…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:48PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 26, 2018

Broadway Review: Go-Go's Musical 'Head Over Heels' by Gordon Cox

It's really hard to laugh when somebody's holding a gun to your head. That's the way this Go-Go's feels in “Head Over Heels,” an over-written, over-designed, and generally overdo…

SOURCE: Variety at 11:42PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Listen: Zachary Quinto Reveals the Role 'I Have to Play Someday' by Gordon Cox

Zachary Quinto’s got a big role on his bucket list — and it’s in a stage musical. Listen to this week's podcast for free below and at Apple Podcasts: On the latest episo…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:15PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'This Ain't No Disco' by Gordon Cox

Here are lyrics from a song in the new musical "This Ain't No Disco" that creatives Stephen Trask ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") and Peter Yanowitz hope will make us yearn for the golden age …

SOURCE: Variety at 10:24PM[SHARE]
Monday, July 23, 2018

Broadway Review: 'Straight White Men' With Armie Hammer, Josh Charles by Gordon Cox

In “Straight White Men,” Young Jean Lee's cutting but deeply humane satire about straight white male privilege and pain, Armie Hammer, Josh Charles and, in an especially heart-wr…

SOURCE: Variety at 11:37PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 19, 2018

London Theater Review: 'Allelujah!' by Alan Bennett by Gordon Cox

Fifty years after his play "Forty Years On," Alan Bennett is still pining for the England of old. Just as his first play lamented the slipping standards of an old public school and, by exten…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:38PM[SHARE]
Friday, July 13, 2018

London Theater Review: 'The Lehman Trilogy,' Directed by Sam Mendes by Gordon Cox

In Judaism, death is followed by the sitting of shiva. For seven days, seated mourners reflect on their loss. The ritual recurs throughout "The Lehman Trilogy," playwright Steffano Massino's…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:46PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 12, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'Mary Page Marlowe' by Gordon Cox

In “Mary Page Marlowe,” Tracy Letts, the Tony-winning actor (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) and Pulitzer and Tony-winning playwright (“August: Osage C…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:18PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 5, 2018

U.K. Theater Review: 'Dusty' by Gordon Cox

Ashes to ashes, Dusty to Dusty. Almost 20 years after her death, the loss of Dusty Springfield still stings on these shores. Sniffles ring out at the end of Jonathan Harvey's jukebox musical…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:56AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 3, 2018

West End Review: 'Imperium' by Gordon Cox

"Imperium" builds Rome in a day. Robert Harris' trilogy of novels charts the city's slide from a great civilization to a grim imperial power, as democracy buckles and dictatorship digs in. O…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:48PM[SHARE]
Friday, June 29, 2018

Pre-Broadway Review: 'The Cher Show' by Gordon Cox

The new jukebox bio-musical "The Cher Show" captures a good amount of the vibrant personality and genuinely admirable perseverance that make Cher the ultimate celebrity survivor.  But lik…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:36PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Listen: Why One Tony-Winning Producer Thinks Broadway's Boom Is Just Beginning by Gordon Cox

Think Broadway is big now? Then get ready, because the boom is just beginning. So says Ken Davenport, the producer of the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of “Once On This Island,&#…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:12PM[SHARE]

Off Broadway Review: 'Log Cabin' Starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson by Gordon Cox

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the theater again without suffering through plays about straight couples caught up in parenting issues of interest to no one but themselves, along …

SOURCE: Variety at 03:04PM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 21, 2018

Off Broadway Review: 'Skintight' With Idina Menzel by Gordon Cox

Although Idina Menzel looks fabulous in "Skintight," the new play by Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews," "Significant Other"), her character, Jodi Isaac, is a total wreck when she flies into New York …

SOURCE: Variety at 10:36PM[SHARE]

Off Broadway Review: 'Sugar in Our Wounds' by Gordon Cox

Director Saheem Ali and the very fine designers of the Manhattan Theater Club have created a magical setting for Donja R. Love's "Sugar in our Wounds," a romantic drama (the first in a trilo…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:42PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Stagecraft Podcast: BD Wong Talks Basketball in Beijing, Dinosaurs and Batman by Gordon Cox

The thing about doing a play is: You gotta really like it. That's actor BD Wong's philosophy, anyway. "You need to enjoy it more in a play than a television show or in a film, I think," Wong…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:52PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Stagecraft Podcast: Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells on Broadway's 'Boys in the Band' by Gordon Cox

Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells may be starring in a Broadway show, but they can be superfans just like everybody else. The two actors, now appearing in the new revival of “The Boys in …

SOURCE: Variety at 02:33PM[SHARE]
Monday, June 11, 2018

Tony Awards: Everything You Didn't See on TV by Gordon Cox

When it comes to award shows, the viewers at home often get the best seats in the house: Their sofas, where presumably no one is as hot or as hungry as the folks in black tie packed into the…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:12PM[SHARE]
Friday, June 8, 2018

Tony Predictions: The Sure Things, the Best Bets and the Real Toss-Ups by Gordon Cox

It's a year of sure things and wild cards. As Broadway heads into the 2018 Tony Awards (airing June 10 on CBS), a lot of the night's biggest winners feel like foregone conclusions — ex…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00AM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off