All stories by Gordon Cox on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Broadway Plots a Comeback: How the Theater Business is Digging Out From COVID Disruptions by Gordon Cox

Now that omicron is in decline, Broadway optimism is on the rise. After a bumpy holiday season rife with performance disruptions, show closures and hiatuses due to the highly contagious COVI…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:25PM
Tuesday, March 8, 2022

How New Research Can Help Keep Broadway Voices Healthy by Gordon Cox

Just how vocally demanding are roles in Broadway musicals like “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen” — and how much singing is too much? If two professors at New York University had th…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:37PM
Friday, February 25, 2022

‘The Collaboration’ Review: Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope Can’t Make Drama Out of This Bio by Gordon Cox

At the start of the second half of Anthony McCarten’s art-world bio-drama “The Collaboration,” the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s agent finds himself alone on the scrappy sofa of Basq…

SOURCE: Variety at 04:04PM
Tuesday, February 22, 2022

How Being an Understudy Prepared ‘Wicked’ Star Brittney Johnson for Her History-Making Role by Gordon Cox

Brittney Johnson is currently making history as the first Black actor to play Glinda in “Wicked,” but she’s also had a lot of Broadway experience in jobs that are in many ways even mor…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:51PM
Tuesday, February 15, 2022

‘The Forest’ Review: Oscar Winner Florian Zeller’s New Play Gets Lost in Itself by Gordon Cox

The gap between what you see and what you get has long proved fertile territory for playwrights. At his considerable best, not least his Oscar-winning adapted screenplay of his play “The F…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:29PM
Friday, February 11, 2022

‘The Music Man’ Review: Hugh Jackman Shines in Smashing Broadway Revival by Gordon Cox

Hugh Jackman dazzles as Professor Harold Hill, the charismatic con man who fires up an entire Midwestern town, in this abso-tootin’-lutely smashing revival of Meredith Willson’s adorably…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:16PM
Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Lynn Nottage Talks Opera, ‘MJ’ and How Lockdown Changed Her by Gordon Cox

Lynn Nottage has had a hat-trick of shows on New York stages this season: the new opera “Intimate Apparel,” the Michael Jackson musical “MJ” and the play “Clyde’s.” How does sh…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:28PM
Tuesday, February 1, 2022

‘MJ’ Review: Flashy Michael Jackson Musical Packs in the Hits, but Struggles to Get Behind the Music by Gordon Cox

In answer to the question of whether it’s possible to separate the art from the artist, “MJ” performs a slick, crotch-grabbing sidestep. Packed with nearly 40 hits from Michael Jackson…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM
Monday, January 31, 2022

‘Intimate Apparel’ Review: Opera of Lynn Nottage’s Play Sets Free Soaring Emotions by Gordon Cox

Passions were never in short supply in Lynn Nottage’s 2003 play “Intimate Apparel,” where loneliness, longing and hope hover in every scene. In the latest, long-in-the-making collabora…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM
Wednesday, January 26, 2022

‘Skeleton Crew’ Review: Phylicia Rashad, Chanté Adams Shine in Vibrant, Profoundly Layered Play by Gordon Cox

The playwright Dominique Morisseau knows what she is doing. That’s clear not only because she says it so convincingly in her Playbill note for Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of “S…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM
Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Broadway Playwright Dominique Morisseau Reveals the Advice Chadwick Boseman Gave Her by Gordon Cox

Playwright Dominique Morisseau has a lot going on right now — but then, she’s just following the advice that the late Chadwick Boseman once gave her. Listen to this week’s “Stagecra…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:39PM
Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Inside the Brutal Economics of Broadway’s Omicron Shutdowns by Gordon Cox

“It just turned into triage.” That’s how Anne Quart describes the past few weeks on Broadway. As senior VP of production and co-producer at Disney Theatrical, Quart saw first-hand the …

SOURCE: Variety at 01:15PM
Tuesday, January 11, 2022

How ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!’ Star Robin de Jesús Played the Long Game, Even Through the Setbacks by Gordon Cox

Robin de Jesús is a three-time Tony Award nominee who’s currently co-starring in “Tick, Tick… Boom!,” one of this year’s film awards season contenders. But de Jesús will be the f…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:06PM
Friday, January 7, 2022

‘Force Majeure’ Review: Bold Adaptation Brings an Avalanche to the Stage With Humor by Gordon Cox

No one stages something set across mountainous ski slopes in a 251-seat, three-sided theater without a sense of humor. Which is why director Michael Longhurst has attached the bold and perky…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:45PM
Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Why Peter Dinklage Didn’t Want a Fake Nose for ‘Cyrano’ by Gordon Cox

Peter Dinklage was never very interested in playing the lead role in “Cyrano de Bergerac” — until a new musical adaptation of the story got rid of the fake nose that has come to define…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:26PM
Monday, December 13, 2021

‘Flying Over Sunset’ Review: A Trippy New Broadway Musical by Gordon Cox

In the midst of the deadly dull 1950s, Hollywood celebs Cary Grant, Claire Booth Luce and Aldous Huxley escape their ennui by dropping acid. No serious sex is involved and no one rushes out …

SOURCE: Variety at 11:02PM

‘Cabaret’ Review: Eddie Redmayne Dazzles in Triumphant West End Revival by Gordon Cox

Ever since Bob Fosse cast a never-better Liza Minnelli in his Oscar-winning re-imagining of the musical “Cabaret,” revivals of the original musical have leaned toward being “All About …

SOURCE: Variety at 09:44AM
Friday, December 10, 2021

‘Best of Enemies’ Review: Behind the Scenes of 1968’s Revolutionary TV Debates by Gordon Cox

Like all historical plays, James Graham’s latest, now playing at the Young Vic in London, is as much about the time in which it’s written as the time depicted. His version of the 2015 do…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:28PM
Thursday, December 9, 2021

‘Company’ Review: A Sublime Revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Beloved Musical by Gordon Cox

Half a century has passed since Stephen Sondheim and George Furth first dazzled Broadway with “Company,” their tartly astute 1970 musical about a single Manhattanite dogged by coupled fr…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:05PM
Wednesday, December 8, 2021

‘The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage’ Review: ‘His Dark Materials’ Prequel Is a Triumph of Theatrical Storytelling by Gordon Cox

At a moment of the highest possible tension, a character shoots a puppet. What makes that not just exciting, but truly extraordinary, is that you feel the entire audience shudder. “We’re…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:24PM
Tuesday, December 7, 2021

How the Cast of ‘Company’ Learned of Stephen Sondheim’s Death: ‘It Was Crushing’ by Gordon Cox

The cast of the new Broadway revival of “Company” was in the middle of a two-show Friday on Thanksgiving weekend when they heard the news that the musical’s legendary composer, Stephen…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:28PM
Sunday, December 5, 2021

‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ Review: An Unmemorable Broadway Musical Banks on Familiar Material by Gordon Cox

A face smothered in banana cream has already sprung out from behind a refrigerator door. A silicone breast plate has been scorched over a stovetop. A man dressed like Margaret Thatcher on he…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM
Thursday, December 2, 2021

‘Life of Pi’ Review: A Fantastical Story Becomes a Fantastic West End Production by Gordon Cox

Bestseller though it is – 10 million copies and counting – it’s fair to say that “Life of Pi,” the extraordinary story of a shipwrecked 17-year-old who did (or maybe didn’t) spen…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:00PM

Masks, Vax Cards and an Army of Orphans: Behind the Scenes of NBC’s ‘Annie Live!’ Dress Rehearsal by Gordon Cox

For audience members checking in at the final dress rehearsal of NBC’s “Annie Live!” on Dec. 1, there was an additional stop along the usual security gauntlet. Between the airport-styl…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:01PM
Tuesday, November 23, 2021

‘Clyde’s’ Review: Uzo Aduba Stars in Lynn Nottage’s New Broadway Comedy by Gordon Cox

A sandwich has always been a kind of vehicle, ingredients riding between sliced bread. Lynn Nottage improbably turns the lunchtime staple into the storytelling engine of “Clyde’s,” her…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM

Why Uzo Aduba’s New Broadway Role Reminds Her of ‘Jaws’ by Gordon Cox

Uzo Aduba does not play a great white shark in Lynn Nottage’s new Broadway comedy “Clyde’s” — but her role in the show does make her think, somewhat surprisingly, of “Jaws.” Li…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:00PM
Thursday, November 18, 2021

‘Trouble in Mind’ Review: A Timely Broadway Play Elevated by a Stellar Cast by Gordon Cox

Alice Childress’ timely play “Trouble in Mind” is finally getting its Broadway debut — after a 65-year wait. The late playwright’s first full-length work, about discrimination and …

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM

‘Paradise Square’ Review: Broadway-Bound Musical Premieres in Chicago by Gordon Cox

“Paradise Square,” an ambitious new musical heading to Broadway in March, is a fictionalized historical take on the Five Points area of Manhattan and the social forces leading up to the …

SOURCE: Variety at 02:55PM
Wednesday, November 17, 2021

‘Diana, The Musical’ Review: A Royal Tragedy Turned Vacuous Rom-Com by Gordon Cox

Is it possible that Lady Di might have loved “Diana, The Musical”? We’re talking about the princess who surprised Covent Garden with a duet to Billy Idol’s “Uptown Girl,” a brash…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM
Sunday, November 14, 2021

‘Assassins’ Review: A Killer Revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Macabre Masterpiece by Gordon Cox

Director John Doyle’s electrifying staging of “Assassins,” Stephen Sondheim’s macabre masterpiece about our national infatuation with fame and our appetite for violence, is a revival…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:45PM
Thursday, November 11, 2021

‘Nollywood Dreams’ Review: A Comedy With Heart About the Nigerian Film Industry by Gordon Cox

If the team of Ghanaian-American playwright Jocelyn Bioh (“School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play”) and Kenyan-born director Saheem Ali brings nothing else to the stages of New Yo…

SOURCE: Variety at 08:00PM

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
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic