All stories by Chris Willman on BroadwayStars

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Sara Bareilles, Jackson Browne and Kristin Chenoweth Set as Honorees Alongside Wyclef Jean at Music Will Benefit Concert in New York (EXCLUSIVE) by Chris Willman

Sara Bareilles, Jackson Browne and Kristin Chenoweth have been added as honorees and performers, alongside the previously announced Wyclef Jean, for a concert gala in New York benefiting Mus…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:16PM
Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Adam Lambert on Playing the Emcee in Broadway’s ‘Cabaret,’ and Why Its Anti-Fascist Themes Hit Even Harder Now Than When He Began the Run: ‘It by Chris Willman

Adam Lambert is currently living out a dream, playing the role of the Emcee in the current Broadway run of “Cabaret,” or, as it’s officially known in this production, “Cabaret at the…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:42PM
Sunday, February 23, 2025

‘Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends’ L.A. Review: Songwriting Depth and Skilled Diva Turns Make the Broadway-Bound Revue a Retrospective Joy by Chris Willman

There are the ladies who lunch. And then there are the ladies of musical theater who eat everyone else’s lunch. “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends” has plenty of the latter, and as a re…

SOURCE: Variety at 08:25PM
Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Hollywood Bowl 2025 Season to Include Hugh Jackman, Juanes, Cyndi Lauper and Diana Ross as Well as Cynthia Erivo-Led ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ by Chris Willman

The LA Phil announced the full lineup for its 2025 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday morning, with big names like Hugh Jackman, Juanes, Cyndi Lauper and Diana Ross included in the …

SOURCE: Variety at 04:45PM
Saturday, February 15, 2025

Allison Russell on What She’s Learned Playing Persephone in Broadway’s ‘Hadestown,’ How a Hozier Connection Helped Land the Role, and Why the by Chris Willman

Allison Russell, the Grammy-winning Americana artist, is coming back up from the underground. On Sunday night, she finishes up a 15-week run in Broadway’s “Hadestown,” which has left h…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:17PM

‘SNL50: Homecoming Concert’ Most Memorable Moments: Lady Gaga, ‘Post Nirvana,’ Jack White, Cher, Will Ferrell, Robyn and More by Chris Willman

John Mulaney may have spoken best to the mostly wonderful randomness of the lineup for Friday night’s live “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” special when, late in the show, he invoked th…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:48AM
Friday, February 14, 2025

Fountains of Wayne’s First Live Shows in 12 Years Have Blessing of the Late Adam Schlesinger’s Family by Chris Willman

Fountains of Wayne will be performing concert dates this year for the first time since 2013, and the shows are proceeding with the blessings of the family of the band’s co-founder, the lat…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:16PM
Thursday, February 13, 2025

Putting It Together, Again: Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Old Friends’ Bernadette Peters and Cameron Mackintosh on Joining Matthew Bourne for a New L.A./B by Chris Willman

Everything’s coming up you-know-what if you’re a Sondheim fan on either coast this season. “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” the third revue to be built around the great composer�…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:53PM
Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Billie Eilish Interviews Ariana Grande at ‘Wicked’ Screening, Goes Full Fangirl: ‘My Brother Used to Be Like: Don’t Call Her ‘Ari,’ You Do by Chris Willman

No one lauds the “Wicked” quite like Billie Eilish, at least when she is in full Ariana Grande fangirl mode, as she was in interviewing her longtime singing heroine after a screening of …

SOURCE: Variety at 08:26PM
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Dolly Parton Announces ‘Dolly: An Original Musical’ Will Premiere in Nashville This Summer, Prior to Planned 2026 Broadway Run by Chris Willman

Dolly Parton announced Tuesday that her autobiographical stage musical “Dolly: An Original Musical” will have its world premiere in Nashville this July, the first public stop on the way …

SOURCE: Variety at 11:42AM
Sunday, January 12, 2025

‘Wicked’ Music Producer Greg Wells on Losing a World-Class Studio as Well as Family Home in the Fires — and the Sorrow of Saying Goodbye to the by Chris Willman

For most of the film and TV industry, the devastating L.A.-area fires of the last week have at least avoided scorching the studios where the work largely occurs. But there’s no such consol…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:20PM
Sunday, January 5, 2025

‘Wicked’ Music Producer Greg Wells on Going Big With the Soundtrack — and Hearing Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s Voices Merge Into One in R by Chris Willman

Although most of Greg Wells’ professional life has involved producing or writing for big pop artists (including Adele, Katy Perry, OneRepublic & Timbaland, Twenty One Pilots and John L…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:52PM
Saturday, January 4, 2025

Making the Public Domain Even More Horrifying: Modest Proposals for Turning 1920s Classics Into Slasher Fare, From Mickey to Hemingway (Column) by Chris Willman

It’s become an annual ritual: Every Jan. 1, more classic works of art or characters enter the public domain, and exploitation filmmakers with a tiny budget and a big taste for grisliness a…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:57AM
Tuesday, December 31, 2024

The Music of ‘Wicked’: Stephen Schwartz and Arranger Stephen Oremus on What It Took to Make a Classic Broadway Song Score Even More Popular by Chris Willman

Stephen Schwartz will see you now. The worthier wizard of “Wicked” is the one who wrote one of Broadway’s all-time top song scores and now, a little over two decades later, has oversee…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:20PM
Tuesday, December 3, 2024

‘Shucked’ Actor Kevin Cahoon on Starring in Pasadena’s ‘La Cage aux Folles’ Revival: ‘It’s 2024, and We’re Still Talking About People by Chris Willman

When Kevin Cahoon got his Tony and Drama Desk nominations in 2023 as a featured actor in Broadway’s “Shucked,” he played a hayseed character whose sexuality might or might not have bee…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:37PM
Saturday, November 23, 2024

‘Wicked: The Soundtrack’ Album Review: Stephen Schwartz’s World-Beating Song Score Gets Its Due, and So Do the Divas Who Deliver It by Chris Willman

When the sing-along screenings of “Wicked” go down beginning Christmas Day, I’ll be there — but not because I have any intention of personally raising my voice in song. (Or maybe I�…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:50PM
Friday, November 15, 2024

Ojai Playhouse Reopens as State-of-the-Art Coastal Showcase for Oscar Contenders, Revival Films and Live Shows, After 10-Year Closure by Chris Willman

The city of Ojai has a long-established reputation as one of California’s most quintessentially laid-back small towns. But residents and frequent visitors who have a love for movies may ac…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PM
Friday, October 11, 2024

Yola on the ‘Gig Energy’ of Playing Persephone in Broadway’s ‘Hadestown,’ and Why She’s Taking a Turn in Her Music Career to Do Things Her by Chris Willman

The name Yola is not to be confused with YOLO, but if her moniker were to be an acronym, it might stand for You Only Live Awe-Inspiringly. The British-born singer has been expanding her hori…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:33PM
Friday, September 27, 2024

‘Randy Newman’s Faust,’ the Songwriter’s Brilliant but Rarely Produced Stage Musical, Rises Again for a Weekend in L.A. at the Soraya by Chris Willman

The devil is making them do it… or maybe it’s actually an exercise in divine justice. “Randy Newman’s Faust,” the only musical comedy ever written for the stage by the dean of barb…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:43PM
Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Grammy Winner Allison Russell to Step Into Broadway’s ‘Hadestown’ as Persephone by Chris Willman

Singer-songwriter Allison Russell had a song called “Persephone” on her debut solo album, so there may be some destiny in the fact that she will soon step into a role with that name in t…

SOURCE: Variety at 11:29AM
Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Sara Bareilles’ First Orchestral Concert at Hollywood Bowl Features Ravishing Treatments of Broadway Hits, Feminist Anthems and New Material: Concer by Chris Willman

Whatever counts as Sara Bareilles’ day job right now, it’s not regualrly releasing albums and touring. Her last studio album (2019’s “Amidst the Chaos”) and tour are both five year…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:49PM
Tuesday, August 6, 2024

At a ‘Reefer Madness’ Reunion Concert, Kristen Bell, Christian Campbell and Other Cast Veterans Retell the Satirical Show’s History Via Signatur by Chris Willman

If you were cataloging the signs of a stage musical that has had a robust life over a period of not just years but decades, here are two things that might be included on that list: A) The sh…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:23PM
Friday, June 28, 2024

’A Strange Loop’ Review: One Man’s Mind Games Get Funny, Then Wrenching, in Superlative L.A. Take on the Bold Broadway Hit by Chris Willman

At some point, if you are enthusiastically trying to get everyone you know in Los Angeles out to see “A Strange Loop” — and anyone who hasn’t should try to, as the production come…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:01PM
Friday, June 21, 2024

‘Jelly’s Last Jam’ Review: Pasadena Playhouse Production Brings a Too-Rarely Revived Classic Jazz Musical Back to Rousing Life by Chris Willman

It’s been just over one year since the Tonys gave the Pasadena Playhouse an award for regional theater, and that honor looks more justified than ever now that the venue is presenting a muc…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:13PM
Sunday, June 16, 2024

‘Reefer Madness: The Musical’ Review: Campy or Not, an L.A. Revival of the Weed-Themed Spoof Doesn’t Bogart the Show-Biz Razzle-Dazzle by Chris Willman

A lot of bong water has passed under the bridge since “Reefer Madness: The Musical” first premiered at the Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. in 1998. Like, legalization of the demon w…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:50PM
Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Ben Platt and Brandy Clark on Their Haunting Duet, ‘Treehouse,’ a Joint Summer Tour, and How Platt’s ‘Honeymind’ Album Expands the Queer Ame by Chris Willman

For his new “Honeymind” album, singer and actor Ben Platt brought in an especially honeyed voice as a counterpart on one song, Brandy Clark. He had written “Treehouse” in a writing s…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:45PM
Thursday, June 6, 2024

Dolly Parton Announces Plans for Broadway Musical Based on Her Life, ‘Hello, I’m Dolly’ by Chris Willman

Not to be confused with “Hello Dolly,” there’s a musical earmarked for Broadway by the name of “Hello, I’m Dolly,” with country-pop superstar Dolly Parton spearheading the effort…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:00PM
Monday, April 15, 2024

‘Lion King’ Live-to-Film Hollywood Bowl Concert to Feature Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane, Jennifer Hudson, Billy Eichner and More (EXCLUSIVE) by Chris Willman

The 30th anniversary of the original animated film version of “The Lion King” will be celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl next month with a live-to-film concert/screening that will include …

SOURCE: Variety at 09:29AM
Sunday, March 24, 2024

‘One of the Good Ones’ Review: Pasadena Playhouse’s Cross-Cultural Comedy Brings a Norman Lear Sensibility to the Stage by Chris Willman

Does “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” count as a genre unto itself, given how many plotlines in the last half-century have relied on the suitor-out-of-water supper guest as a linchpin? T…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:03PM
Thursday, March 7, 2024

Steve Lawrence, Singer and Actor Who Found His Greatest Fame as Half of Steve and Eydie, Dies at 88 by Chris Willman

Steve Lawrence, a king among easy-listening crooners who rocketed to fame in the ’50s and ’60s as half of the duo Steve and Eydie, died Thursday at age 88. Lawrence died at home in Los A…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:33PM
Thursday, January 25, 2024

‘Kate’ Review: Kate Berlant Navel-Gazes, Hilariously, in an Unpredictable One-Woman Show at Pasadena Playhouse by Chris Willman

It’s not exactly breaking news in the world of show-biz satire that actors can be vain, or insecure; it’s been mined. But for as long as time and human consciousness still exist, there w…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:17PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Nov 17, 2024: Elf - Marquis Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre