Tuesday, May 13, 2025
I don’t like the way the new Broadway production of “The Last Five Years” was directed. But that unique Jason Robert Brown musical—long a favorite of mine--still offers rewards aplen…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:44PMTuesday, March 18, 2025
Once or twice a year, I like to recognize exceptional work at the high-school or college level. The students of New York’s Frank Sinatra School of the Arts have outdone themselves with a …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:03PMWednesday, February 5, 2025
It’s always fascinated me, seeing how different actors can interpret the same material. In “Sunset Boulevard,” Nicole Scherzinger delivers a bold, bravura star turn I’d never have e…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:33PMSaturday, January 11, 2025
Audra McDonald is an American treasure—an artist with complete command of the stage. And if you’re thinking of going, remember that January and February are often the best time of the…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:30PMMonday, December 2, 2024
The York Theater Company--which has had only two Producing Artistic Directors in its 55-year history--has chosen Joseph Hayward and Debra Walton to head the company for now, following the r…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:24AMSunday, December 1, 2024
Two-time Tony Award-winner Helen Gallagher, who just died at the age of 98, was a terrific musical-theater performer. Oh, she did work in television and film, too--winning three Emmy awards …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:30AMSaturday, November 30, 2024
His breakout role--the one that made him a "name" in the theater world--was playing "Jimmy Smith," the boyfriend, co-starring opposite Sutton Foster in the Broadway musical "Thoroughly Moder…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:28AMA Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical” gives Broadway a much-needed shot in the arm. From the clarion call of the first notes we hear to the final strains of the title song, ther…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:06AMSaturday, November 9, 2024
Whether performers liked him or disliked him, they agreed that Gil Wiest—the last of the great nightclub impresarios—kept them working. He routinely booked artists for long runs—a mon…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:49AMTuesday, November 5, 2024
Seeing this presentation of “Ragtime” was the most satisfying theatrical experience I’ve had in years. I hope a way can be found to bring “Ragtime” back to Broadway—ideally with…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:20AMMonday, November 4, 2024
“Drag: The Musical” has the look and feel of a winner. Production values are first-rate. And the sweet, tender, innocent contributions of a young cast member, Yair Keydar—who sings be…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:17AMSaturday, October 19, 2024
The show may have been overly long, but I’m very glad I caught it. Because I saw two up-and-coming “unknown” singers—Robert Levey II and Johnny Sullivan—with as much promise and p…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:28AMSaturday, October 12, 2024
For decades under James Morgan’s leadership, the York Theatre Company has occupied a unique spot in New York’s theater world—celebrating musical-theater, past, present, and future. Th…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:37PMSaturday, July 27, 2024
I just got back from the Bucks County Playhouse, which I always enjoy visiting, to catch the world-premiere production of “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” a new musical about Sophie Tucker. …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:16AMWednesday, July 3, 2024
Berlin, incidentally, could not write music. He could play piano—not too well, and in only one key. He would play, sing, and hum songs that he created, which a musical secretary would …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:56PMTuesday, June 11, 2024
They’ve created a theater that actors love to work in. And that was reflected by the terrific array of actors (including assorted Tony and Drama Desk Award winners and nominees), who gath…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:47PMWednesday, April 3, 2024
This is, essentially, Woody Allen’s band, without Woody. It’s the only seven-piece New Orleans-style jazz band with a steady gig in New York. And if you like traditional jazz, this ban…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:50PMTuesday, March 26, 2024
I’ve never seen any student production—at the high school or college level—achieve a more glorious ensemble sound than the ensemble sound produced by the students of the Sinatra School…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:01PMWednesday, March 20, 2024
I’ve always loved their work, from the very start of their careers. Jimmy (on guitar) and Jerry (on tenor sax) have worked with some of the biggest names in the business--Tony Bennett, Bru…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:11PMThursday, March 14, 2024
I think the city’s top performing-arts schools—Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music & Arts, and the Performing Arts; PPAS; and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts—are among the…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:47PMWhat a terrific, beautifully layered performance Ben Levi Ross gives in “The Connector”—a moving, original new musical from Jason Robert Brown, Jonathan Marc Sherman, and Daisy Prin…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:13PMThursday, March 7, 2024
On March 4th, 2024, I witnessed the best major-club debut I’ve seen in years. And I kept thinking, as I watched David Marino sing, “The good old days are now…”
The post appeared f…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:22PMFriday, February 23, 2024
I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed by a Paper Mill Playhouse presentation as I have been by their production of After Midnight. This adaptation of the original Broadway produc…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:32PMThursday, November 9, 2023
This fall, I saw two of the most rewarding tribute-type concerts I’ve seen in recent years—one a glittering (if overlong), star-filled salute to “the Voice of Broadway,” Betty Buckl…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:47PMSunday, August 20, 2023
Brice—as a pioneering Jewish female Broadway star who took charge of her own fabulous career in an era when few women did—became a source of inspiration for many aspiring young Jewish pe…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:01PMTuesday, July 25, 2023
He sang all his life. When New York's Triborough Bridge (known today as the RFK Bridge) opened in May of 1936, Tony Bennett--then a boy singer from Astoria who loved the work of Al Jolson a…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:03PMWednesday, June 28, 2023
As a lover of the performing arts, I’ll remember this month as when I witnesseed Matthew Broderick give one of the finest, subtlest performances of his career. I’ll remember, too, the u…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:54AMWednesday, May 24, 2023
Oliver! is darker than most so-called family musicals—mixing elation and heartbreak as casually as life itself does—but it touches us more than most family musicals. And Encores’ prod…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:53PMSunday, May 14, 2023
In the last few weeks I feel like I’ve been stepping back in time—in a nice way. I’ve enjoyed seeing the new Broadway musicals "New York, New York" (set in 1946-47) and (with some …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:41PMTuesday, May 9, 2023
Each was an individual; I liked hearing all of the different voices and accents and inflections. Each one brought his or her own personality to the work. But—and this is a compliment--…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:43PMMonday, April 24, 2023
He was perhaps best-known for his play "Kennedy's Children"--produced successfully on Broadway and on the West End, and in many cities, internationally. He also gave us some 60 other pu…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:18AM 
