All articles by Jonathan Mandell
Lupita Nyong’o portrays a woman in the weeks and months and possibly years after she is hit by her boyfriend, in Marin Ireland’s play, reopening tonight at Greenwich House Theater after …
Three new shows were added to the Broadway lineup this past week, for a total of 25 with nailed dates and venues in the Broadway 2026-2027 season — the first Broadway productions of “Dow…
I resurrect my review of Sondheim’s Follies, which opened fifteen years ago today, September 12, 2011. When the sequined ghosts of showgirls past appear at the beginning of “Follies,” …
The opening of the new performing arts center at the World Trade Center site…has done what the rebuilders had hoped it would, at least for me. On the anniversary of 9/11, the imagery of Gr…
Sure I’m excited about the Broadway debuts of both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and “The Fantasticks” (both long overdue); I’m curious whether Raúl Esparza will make “Galileo” worthwhi…
Below are my two reviews of the original 2011 New York production of “Other Desert Cities,” by Jon Robin Baitz, which I’m resurrecting shortly before the play’s first Broadway reviva…
I needed several pieces of paper to watch Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson perform live in “A History of Paper” – a theater ticket, a train ticket, a plane ticket (in reverse order) …
The announcement that Bruce Norris’s controversial play “Downstate” would be opening in Fall 2026 on Broadway seems like a good time to resurrect my review of his first and only other …
“Downstate,” the highly controversial play by Bruce Norris about a group home for men formerly imprisoned for sex crimes against minors, was announced this morning as opening on Broadway…
Labor Day may have taken on extra meaning (check out: Theater in Socialist Mayor Mamdani’s New York), but the holiday still serves as traditional dividing line between summer and the Fall…
Mayor Mamdani: Who built the Empire State Building? Crowd: Union workers! Mayor Mamdani: Who keeps the magic alive on Broadway? Crowd: Union workers! Mayor Mamdani: Who drives our …
How well were you paying attention to New York theater this summer? Take this quiz to find out. Loading…
The posters were everywhere in Edinburgh for “The Bridge,” Alaa Shehada’s solo show, one of the 17 winners of this year’s prestigious Fringe First Awards. I had already been lucky en…
Below is a calendar of theater opening* in September, with some starry and inventive fare, including a herd of life-size buffaloes! Jasmine Amy Rogers comes back to Broadway after “Boop!�…
On Broadway, “Paranormal Activity” opened, “Here There Are Blueberries” will open, and “Six The Musical” will close. Dolly Parton and Tim Curry died on the same day, both at age …
The last we heard from Alex Edelman, the Jewish comedian had won a Tony and an Emmy for “Just for Us,” his account of attending a meeting of neo-Nazis in Queens. There are several ec…
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland’s latest show sold out its entire run at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe before the festival even began, with interest piqued by their three previous sold…
A Scottish woman sings Arirang. A Korean man dances in a ceilidh. Both words were new to me – the first a traditional Korean folk song; the second a traditional Scottish gathering that fe…
Below are my reviews of “Depths of Wikipedia,” “Glob,” “Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight,” “Twitch,” and “Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella,” all seen in a single day,…
Artificial Intelligence, sign language, clutter: I was drawn to these three disparate shows because of the personal connection I felt to each of their promised topics, and I felt rewarded be…
This misfire is neither about the attack on the US Capitol, nor is it really a musical; there are only a handful of songs, although these are catchy and performed with verve by the comedy du…
One is based on the true story of Genie Chance, a woman who steadied the city of Anchorage during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. The other is clearly inspired by another true American …
James and Lou move from Chicago to London to escape their past, but they soon discover that places aren’t haunted, people are, in this original story inspired by the seven films of the “…
“boobytrapped,” a play about a trans man who swaps bodies with a gay man, only succeeds if you focus on the points it’s trying to make about the realities of trans life rather…
Nobody can possibly be surprised that a show entitled “Judy Garland Is Fat at Carnegie Hall” is silly and in bad taste. What is more surprising is that the show works. I’ve seen it twi…
“Embro” is how people from Edinburgh pronounce their city, as poet Ken Cockburn explains at the beginning of his ninety-minute walk through wondrous sites like Dunbar’s Close Garden an…
“Women of Will” owes its inspiration and even its title to Tina Packer, the founding artistic director of the acclaimed Shakespeare & Company theater company of Lenox, Massachusett…
Short videos below of the buskers and flyererss I encountered on my trip along the Royal Mile. I was making my way to Edinburgh Castle, which featured the Crown Jewels and the oldest existin…
I picked up these two recently published books about the history of comedy in America for something to read on my long flight to Edinburgh. This felt ironic, because neither book spend…
Which of the eleven shows scheduled so far to open on Broadway between now and the end of 2026 are you most looking forward to? Why? And which do you want to know more about? Take the poll…
“Theater kid” revived as an insult; Superagent Ari’s takeover of ATG; AI taking over everything; a controversial casting choice; a eulogy for non-profit theater. There is no dearth of …
Tickets are on sale now for Broadway Week, 2-for-1 tickets to 25 Broadway shows, including some of the longest-running hit musicals and seven shows newly participating in this semi-annual d…
The dog days of August are a good time to get away, which may explain why there was so much New York coverage of theater festivals this past week that were out-of-town, some just a little o…
Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire, wants you to know he had humble beginnings. “My father was an Africana farmer, but he suffered great prejudice, bias, and hatred, and had to se…
Lavinia Draper would have reminded me of Carol Channing – an exaggerated show biz blonde with a theatrically raspy, half-spoken singing voice – if Channing had been a full-on floozy whos…
La MaMa is anything but retiring in its 65th year, an anniversary that will be celebrated with a free block party on East Fourth Street the afternoon of October 18th. The season promis…
The casts from two Broadway and two Off-Broadway musicals performed in the final Broadway in Bryant Park concert of the summer. From Heated Rivalry, the Unofficial Parody Musical’s “Big …
Short videos below sample the puppet parade and red carpet that launched the fourth International Puppet Fringe Festival NYC today, as well as six of the 18 puppet shows for adults that are …
The new production of the 1997 play “An American Daughter” has so much going for it that it takes a while to realize how much of a clunker it is. Written by the late Wendy Wasserstein…
Two of the plays that opened this past week dramatized the stories of two New York City architectural landmarks, one an imposing structure of granite, wrought iron and pine (the Brooklyn Bri…
The building of the Brooklyn Bridge is a remarkable story; in some ways a ghastly one. “Brooklyn’s Bridge,” an earnest and largely workmanlike musical, deserves respect for wanting to …
A dozen shows currently on Broadway were preceded by a movie with the same or similar name: They are either direct adaptations of the movies (Aladdin), or parodies of them (Titanique) or ins…
Three Broadway shows close this weekend. Two more close this month. I include details below — links to the shows’ websites to get tickets, links to my reviews, number of Tony wins, and d…
Below are video excerpts of the performances by the five Broadwaycasts who performed in the Broadway in Bryant Park midday concert today: MJ, The Outsiders, Operation Mincemeat, Two Stranger…
“I’m Jeremy, I’ll be your Bobby Darin tonight,” Jeremy Jordan says, working the room at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theater, which has been redesigned to look like a swanky n…
It’s a 150-foot spaceship in the middle of Manhattan, a stairwell to nowhere, a $200 million monumental misfire that New Yorkers love to mock. The Vessel is a troubled tourist attracti…
The revival of this 12-year-old English play about a closeted footballer might seem well-timed to take advantage of the heightened interest both in gay athletes (thanks to a certain TV serie…
The producers of “Hadestown” on Broadway rescinded the casting of Geno Segers as Hades, after OnStageBlog reposted Segers’ (now deleted) videos on social media that belittled transgen…
Below is a calendar of theater opening* in August, with some starry casts: Montego Glover, Robert Sean Leonard, et al in a revival of a political drama by Wendy Wasserstein; Raul Esparza, L…
What’s most exciting about “The Saviors,” a play ostensibly about two altar boys, is the feeling that you are witnessing the literal early stages of several major talents: Playwright B…
