An emotional The Notebook debuts in Philadelphia
When the beloved 2004 film The Notebook was announced for a musical adaptation composed by pop star Ingrid Michaelson, everyone assumed it would be a hit. Unfortunately, the Broadway product…
When the beloved 2004 film The Notebook was announced for a musical adaptation composed by pop star Ingrid Michaelson, everyone assumed it would be a hit. Unfortunately, the Broadway product…
Dear Evan Hansen burst onto the scene in 2016 and became a cultural phenomenon, dealing with themes such as mental illness, loneliness, and social media. When I saw it on Broadway back then,…
The 2024 Best Musical Tony winner is now on Broad Street, with all the marvelous staging aspects that led it to being one of the biggest hits on Broadway. The Outsiders is playing at Ensembl…
Come From Away is, in my opinion, one of the greatest musicals of all-time. This Tony Award-winning musical tells the true story of 7,000 airline passengers stranded in Newfoundland after th…
New York City Center is becoming increasingly appreciated as a place not just to revive underappreciated musicals, but to put them on with all-star casts. From Parade to Ragtime, they've had…
The world premiere of an ambitious new musical is being produced at Theatre Horizon, and it's not to be missed. Wishing to Grow Up Brightly is a brand new musical created by some of th…
Rent is a piece of American musical history, a gift left behind by creator Jonathan Larson, and the Arden Theatre Company has re-tooled it for Philadelphia. The Arden is an brilliant regiona…
In the age of musical adaptations, it's understandable to be skeptical about one of the most enduring young adult properties coming to the stage. However, The Outsiders feels completely o…
Some art entertains, some art educates, and occasionally you get a fantastic confluence where a show does both tremendously well. Suffs, the new Broadway musical about the history of the …
Theatre Horizon has done it again. As they've done so many times since its founding in 2005 by Erin Reilly and Matthew Decker, Theatre Horizon has brought some of the brightest talent in the…
Most of us only know Lehman Brothers as a greedy bank that didn't get bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis and shut down, but there was so much more to their history. The Lehman Trilogy, …
"Phone rings, door chimes," in comes the national tour of Company to Philadelphia. The classic Stephen Sondheim musical is playing at the Forrest Theatre through December 10th. This producti…
Mischief Theatre is known for the hysterical The Play The Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong, but they've now brought an offshoot to New York. Mind Mangler : A Night of Tragic Illusion is o…
Composer Jonathan Larson is most remembered for the smash hit musical Rent, but he wrote a far more introspective musical called Tick, Tick…Boom! It was initially performed as a rock monol…
The Broadway stage has been home to many genres, but we haven't seen much horror. The new play Grey House by Levi Holloway isn't a slasher full of jump scares and murders, but it is a psycho…
More than 55 years after the premiere of the groundbreaking hit Cabaret, John Kander and the late Fred Ebb have a new musical on Broadway. New York, New York is a new work loosely based on t…
I'm not sure I'd ever lost my voice from laughing hysterically, until I saw Peter Pan Goes Wrong on Broadway. Six years after the premiere of The Play That Goes Wrong debuted on Broadway, Mi…
Life of Pi tells the story of one boy trapped on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for 227 days. It's hard to imagine, particularly after seeing the film, how…
The international smash hit Six is finally in Philadelphia and lives up to the hype. Six tells the story of the six wives of King Henry VIII through a concert format. This one-act show gives…
The Academy Award-winning movie Some Like It Hot is a classic and very much of its time. It took place in 1929, shortly before musical movies like 42nd Street became smash hits. It was relea…
The beauty of live theater is its ability to truly move you. Many shows these days can make you emotional, but the most heartfelt show to hit Broadway in years is an original musical called�…
Andy Blankenbuehler is the best choreographer working in theater, and his brilliance is on full display in the new musical Only Gold. This production, playing off-Broadway at MCC Theater, is…
You may not know the name Max Martin, but you undoubtedly know his music. Martin is a Swedish songwriter/producer who has written many of the biggest chart-toppers on the planet since the la…
A new Broadway show based on a beloved movie takes you back to the world of rock and roll in the '70s. Almost Famous, based on the Academy Award-winning film, is playing at the Bernard B. Ja…
There is an acting masterclass on Broadway in the new revival of one of theater's most prolific playwrights. August Wilson's The Piano Lesson starring Samuel L. Jackson, John Dav…
Philadelphia's most notable movie is back in town as a stage musical at the Walnut Street Theatre. Rocky the Musical was a Broadway show in 2014 and is now playing in the hometown of its sto…
The Kite Runner has transformed from Khaled Hosseini's bestselling 2003 novel into this new Broadway adaption. The Kite Runner tells the story of a boy named Amir, ranging from his childhood…
Billy Crystal is a Broadway musical star for the first time. The legendary comedian and actor is now the leading man in the new Broadway musical Mr. Saturday Night, playing at the Nederla…
In these trying times (do I sound like a politician yet?), we could all use a good laugh. Broadway isn't always hospitable to farces, not since The Play That Goes Wrong opened in 2017 …
The playwright Martin McDonagh loves to make audiences uncomfortable, and he has succeeded yet again with his new play Hangmen. Set north of Manchester in Oldham, England during the 1960'…
It's been nearly 40 years since the premiere of Little Shop of Horrors, the breakthrough musical about a sentient plant that feeds on human blood. Since the 1986 film adaption directed by Fr…
At the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony in September 2021, West End actress turned Ted Lasso star in her acceptance speech praised West End musical theatre performances, with the quote "give t…
The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, directed by Nell Bang-Jensen; streaming through December 20, 2020 at philadelphiatheatercompany.org. Â The Philadelphia Theater Company's production of The Wo…
My friend Walter Dallas has lost his battle with cancer. In loving tribute, we reprint here a profile that I originally wrote in 2005 about this gentle giant. Â Dallas told me, "I am an A…
Shakespeare in Love, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, based on the screenplay by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard. Matt Pfeiffer directs at Peoples Light, Malvern, PA through March 29. Â …
Hello, Dolly! Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman. Directed by Jerry Zaks. National tour at the Academt of Music, Philadelphia through March 1, 2020. Â She's back where she belongs " to pa…
Everything is Wonderful by Chelsea Marcantel. Philadelphia Theatre Company at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre through March 8, 2020. Â Good intentions do not guarantee a positive outcome. Tha…
Fool For Love by Sam Shepard. Directed by Brenna Geffers. EgoPo Classic Theater. Through February 23, 2020, at the Latvian Society Theater, 531 N. 7th Street, Philadelphia. (267) 273-1414 or…
The Children by Lucy Kirkwood. Directed by Abigail Adams, through February 9, 2020, at People's Light, Malvern, PA Â The Children is a beautifully written play that's receiving stunning p…
Originally published in The Opera Critic, the international website for professional musicians. Â Â The new production of Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera presents a stark contrast wi…
The Band's Visit, music and lyrics by David Yazbek, book by Itamar Moses. Philadelphia Academy of Music through January 19, 2019. Â The Band's Visit is a delicate, intimate show about the…
An Iliad by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare, directed by Rebecca Wright at the Arden Theatre, Philadelphia, through December 15, 2019. Â One of Philadelphia's best actors, Mary Tuomanen, g…
Jagged Little Pill, music by Alanis Morissette. Broadhurst Theatre, New York City. Â Jukebox musicals are everywhere, but very few create original stories focused not on an entire catalog…
Upon entering the Booth Theater for a performance of Freestyle Love Supreme I overheard a passerby ask an employee what the show was about. The answer, or lack thereof, is one of the main dr…
Concept albums are having a moment. Hamilton was originally intended to be a concept album and Hadestown was recorded as a concept album nine years before the Broadway album. In a similar pa…
Mandy Patinkin in concert: Diaries, at Verizon Hall in the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, October 30, 2019. Â Mandy Patinkin began a 30-city national tour in Philadelphia on October 30. The…
Buried Child by Sam Shepard. EgoPo Classic Theater, through November 10, 2019 at the Latvian Society, 531 N 7th St, Philadelphia. Â What's happened to this family? That's what these chara…
The National Dog Show, the annual television tradition that airs on TV on Thanksgiving Day following the Macy's parade, will be live in the Philadelphia suburbs this weekend. The two-hour te…
A Small Fire by Adam Bock. Directed by Joanie Schultz. Philadelphia Theatre Company, through November 10, 2019, at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia. Â A sm…
Falsettos, music & lyrics by William Finn, presented by 11th Hour Theatre, October 2019 at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philadelphia. Â When I recall that William Finn started …