All stories by Jonathan Mandell on BroadwayStars

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Watch 5 New Broadway Musicals Previewed in Bryant Park by Jonathan Mandell

Watch musical numbers performed by cast members from the new Broadway musicals “Six,” “Diana,” and “Mrs. Doubtfire,” as well as the new revivals of “Company” and “Caroline …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:22PM
Friday, September 24, 2021

Sanctuary City Review. Ironic, heartbreaking tale of two young immigrants by Jonathan Mandell

“Sanctuary City” is full of surprises, rarely happy ones for the boy and girl who have grown up together — or for the audience. Martyna Majok’s challenging, intelligent play focuses …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:34PM
Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Phantom Pain Review. 5 Women Living Through Trauma, In One Body by Jonathan Mandell

Why are these five women in the same play? A prostitute in Amsterdam; a mother from Guatemala; a sister from the Midwest;  a food vendor in the Central African Republic; an international c…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:38PM
Tuesday, September 21, 2021

The Medievalists Review. A monstrous family, thanks to history by Jonathan Mandell

“I loathe that word ‘nice,’” Hallie says, and so apparently do both her parents; all three could not be more unlikeable in the first 100 minutes of the 110-minute play “The Medieva…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:29PM
Monday, September 20, 2021

Watch Broadway videos, from Sondheim to Six #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Over the past week, there has been so much hoopla bout Broadway — reopening nights, festival concerts, TV spots, heartfelt speeches about Broadway being back (Kristin Chenoweth: “There�…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:19AM
Saturday, September 18, 2021

Repulsing the Monkey Review: A play about gentrification, staged at the White Horse Tavern by Jonathan Mandell

“Repulsing the Monkey,” which is set in an old bar in Pittsburgh about to be sold to (and destroyed by) gentrifiers, takes place in an old bar in New York, the White Horse Tavern. This i…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:31PM
Friday, September 17, 2021

Wicked Back on Broadway by Jonathan Mandell

 “There’s no place like home,” Kristin Chenoweth said on the reopening night of “Wicked,” on September 14, 2021, eighteen years after it opened on Broadway (on October 30, 2003) a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:40PM
Thursday, September 16, 2021

Fall 2021 Theater Books: 3 Memoirs, 2 Biographies by Jonathan Mandell

Alan Cumming and Billy Porter have written memoirs that are being published this fall, which will also see biographies of Oscar Wilde and Emily Mann, plus a book “by” Noel Coward. Click …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:51PM
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Waterman Review by Jonathan Mandell

Thicket & Thistle is the kind of company that anybody serious about theater in America would want to encourage. This is what drew me to “Waterman,”  which turns out to be a Fringe-…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:52PM
Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Hamilton on Broadway 2021. A cast of newcomers and returning favorites. by Jonathan Mandell

Below are new production photographs of the 2021 cast of “Hamilton,” which is reopening on Broadway tonight, along with “Chicago,” “The Lion King” and “Wicked,” after eightee…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:53PM
Monday, September 13, 2021

Leslie Odom, Jr. and Audra McDonald Tony Awards hosts, with a catch. The busiest week on Broadway, and NYC. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

This week could not be busier. Today,  300,000 employees go back to work for New York City’s government, and a million students go back to the city’s public schools. Tomorrow, “Chica…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:48PM
Sunday, September 12, 2021

Angela’s Ashes the Musical Review: McCourt’s childhood trauma and lilting uplift by Jonathan Mandell

“It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while,” Frankie the narrator says at the beginning of  “Angela’s Ashes the Musical,” just as h…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:44PM
Saturday, September 11, 2021

The arts looking forward from 9/11: Q & A with Bill Rauch of the PAC at the World Trade Center by Jonathan Mandell

By the time that Bill Rauch became the artistic director of the performing arts center on the site of the World Trade Center, it had been nearly two decades in the making. On this, the twent…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:14AM
Thursday, September 9, 2021

What Happened? Review. 10 Pithy, Poignant, and Exasperating Aspects of Richard Nelson’s Rhinebeck Panorama formula. by Jonathan Mandell

In “What Happened? The Michaels Abroad,”  the dancer Rose Michael, already riddled with cancer, has died of COVID, and her family and friends have gathered around the kitchen table in …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:14PM
Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Return the Moon Review: Third Rail Projects latest site-specific experiment by Jonathan Mandell

If Third Rail Projects’ “Return The Moon” — an eerie, airy 75 minutes that is as much secular ritual as work of theater — had been produced by almost any other theater company, I m…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:29PM
Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Fall New York Theater 2021 Begins in Awe and Anxiety. by Jonathan Mandell

The Fall season means the reopening of some 20 big Broadway musicals, two of which began again last week to much hoopla, but it’s the large slate of new work, much of it unusual for Broadw…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:33PM
Monday, September 6, 2021

Theater Question for Labor Day: Does the Reckoning Over Race + Class = Intriguing New Plays About Workers and Workplaces? by Jonathan Mandell

Where are the American plays about unions, or workers, or even just workplaces? I started asking that question several years ago on Labor Day, a legal holiday created by Congress in 1884 …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:15AM
Friday, September 3, 2021

Labor Day Weekend 2021 Theater to Catch Up On by Jonathan Mandell

Here are shows you can still see either on stage, or online, or both, during Labor Day weekend, with links to my reviews. Of course, there are now four shows running on Broadway — Springst…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:27PM
Thursday, September 2, 2021

Hadestown Back on Broadway, Hot as Ever by Jonathan Mandell

“Hadestown” is back from the dead, reopening with most of its original principal Broadway cast intact*. “Has Hell ever sounded so thrilling,” I exclaimed in my review of the 2016 Off…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:30PM

Waitress Back on Broadway 2021: Sara Bareilles’ bittersweet treat of a musical by Jonathan Mandell

“Waitress,” a musical I savored when it opened in 2016, is back on Broadway. Its reopening tonight is unlike many of the other shows returning this season. Its run had ended in January 2…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:26PM
Wednesday, September 1, 2021

September 2021 New York Theater Openings and Reopenings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a selection of the abundant New York theater openings in September, organized chronologically by opening date*, which for the first time in eighteen months includes a full schedule …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:19PM
Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Theater Quiz for August 2021 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to the theater news and reviews in August? Take this quiz to find out. Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:39PM
Monday, August 30, 2021

IS This Broadway? #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Today, the Broadway League launches its “This is Broadway” campaign, featuring a new flashy website, a dazzling montage video narrated by Oprah Winfrey (see below), the lighting of the E…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:21AM
Saturday, August 28, 2021

Ni Mi Madre Review: My mother the diva, not always divine by Jonathan Mandell

Bete comes off as such an outrageous Latina diva that she could be a drag queen’s campy creation, especially since she’s portrayed by a man, Arturo Luis Soria. She compares herself to Ma…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:58PM
Friday, August 27, 2021

Pass Over on Broadway Review: Fiery, Foul, Funny, Flawed…and First! by Jonathan Mandell

“Pass Over” is more than just a foul-mouthed, funny, beautifully acted and blisteringly pointed play about two Black men stuck on a street corner, menaced by white men. It arrives on Bro…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:48PM
Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Canceled Culture. Broadway’s “New Deal.” Fringe Online. Puppets as NYC Immigrants. #Stageworthy News of the Week. by Jonathan Mandell

Lightning cut short the We Love NYC Homecoming concert in Central Park over the weekend,  which one hopes is not a harbinger of the desperately anticipated Fall season. Some culture has al…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:26AM
Monday, August 23, 2021

Edinburgh Fringe 2021 Review: The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. Puerto Rican NY activism in 1969. by Jonathan Mandell

“The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano”  revolves around a true incident that occurred around Christmas time 1969: The Young Lords, a group of young activist Puerto Ricans in New York, took…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:57PM

Puppets Are Immigrants Too by Jonathan Mandell

By Jonathan Mandell. Jonathan Mandell shares his experience at New York City’s first-ever official Puppet Week.

SOURCE: HowlRound at 01:59PM
Saturday, August 21, 2021

Edinburgh Fringe 2021 Review: Call Me Elizabeth. Elizabeth Taylor before Richard Burton by Jonathan Mandell

“I’m so sick of playing the part of Elizabeth Taylor,”  Kayla Boye says in “Call Me Elizabeth.” Of course, Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to be saying this, not Boye, who is portra…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:07PM
Friday, August 20, 2021

Edinburgh Fringe 2021 Review: Marrying Jake Gyllenhaal by Jonathan Mandell

“Actor. Humanitarian. Snack.” – Those are the first words we see on the screen, and they’re obviously meant to describe Jake Gyllenhaal. But filmmaker, writer and actress Melissa Cen…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:57PM
Thursday, August 19, 2021

Edinburgh Fringe 2021 Review: We’ll Dance on the Ash of the Apocalypse by Jonathan Mandell

What would be the most effective play about climate change?  That’s the question that Australian playwright Melissa-Kelly Franklin seems to have asked herself while writing this short pl…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:54PM