All stories by Howard Miller on BroadwayStars

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Cult of Love" 12/12/24 by Howard Miller

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/CultofLove.html

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:06PM
Thursday, November 21, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Blood Quilt" - 11/21/24 by Howard Miller

Sometimes family ties are held together by a thread. In the case of playwright Katori Hall's The Blood Quilt, opening tonight at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, the thread i…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:18PM

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Death Becomes Her" 11/21/24 by Howard Miller

Death Becomes Her, the musical adaptation of Robert Zemeckis's 1992 offbeat comic movie of the same title, opening tonight at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is a super-fun grudge match between t…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:29PM
Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Swept Away" 11/19/24 by Howard Miller

"The great tragedy of the sea." That's what a grizzled old sea captain calls it when describing life aboard a whaler like the one he's commanding in the closing years of the 19th century in …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 02:09AM
Sunday, November 17, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Elf" 11/17/24 by Howard Miller

Do you believe in Santa Claus? Even a little bit? No? All right, then. Let me sweeten the pot. What do you think about the idea of Samwise Gamgee of The Lord of the Rings fame appearing as S…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:07PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Light and the Dark: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi" - 11/17/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Kate Hamill is best known as an adaptor of classic novels like Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, asking us to recon…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:43PM
Thursday, November 14, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Tammy Faye" 11/14/24 by Howard Miller

Sometimes it's difficult to understand the underlying intent of a theatrical production, which, perhaps, is the underlying problem with Tammy Faye, the intermittently rewarding musical that …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:18PM
Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Maybe Happy Ending" 11/12/24 by Howard Miller

Thanks to some very cleverly arranged design elements, Maybe Happy Ending, the quirky/charming futuristic musical opening today at the Belasco Theatre, is the theatrical equivalent of what c…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 02:13PM
Monday, November 11, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical" 11/11/24 by Howard Miller

"When You're Smiling," a song written just ahead of the Great Depression, was not conceived by its composers with Louis Armstrong in mind. Yet while it is just one song among 30 that are per…

SOURCE: talkinbroadway.com at 09:02PM
Monday, November 4, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Devil's Disciple" - 11/3/24 by Howard Miller

George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple is a melodrama. Or, wait, it's a comedy. No, it's an antiwar satire with political overtones. Anyway, you get my drift. It is difficult to pin down…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:04AM
Friday, November 1, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Ragtime" - 11/1/24 by Howard Miller

To misquote Norma Desmond, "Broadway is big. It's the musicals that got small." Though not in 1997-1998. That was a banner time for big musicals with big companies. The Lion King, Titanic, a…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:49PM
Monday, October 28, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Bad Krey�l " - 10/28/24 by Howard Miller

There is an expression among Caribbean islanders that goes something like this: "Come see me is not the same as come live with me." That is a pretty good description of the situation that se…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:30PM
Thursday, October 24, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Romeo + Juliet" 10/24/24 by Howard Miller

Director Sam Gold and William Shakespeare. Always expect the unexpected when these two pair up. For instance, when Gold, in his most avant-garde mode, tackled Hamlet in 2017 and, five years …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:26PM

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Left on Tenth" 10/23/24 by Howard Miller

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it does not necessarily make for a compelling theatrical experience. And when the truth that is being depicted is based on autobiography, the biggest …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:32AM
Monday, October 21, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Sunset Boulevard" 10/20/24 by Howard Miller

Ach du lieber!!! Holy Moly!!! Or even WTF!!! Feel free to quote me once you exit (or stagger out of) the St. James Theatre, where director/mad scientist Jamie Lloyd has unleashed his latest …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:40AM
Thursday, October 17, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Hold On to Me Darling" - 10/16/24 by Howard Miller

A psychoanalyst would surely have a field day with Clarence McCrane, known to all the world as megastar country and western singer and movie actor Strings McCrane, the irresistibly appealing…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:20AM
Saturday, October 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sump'n Like Wings" - 10/12/24 by Howard Miller

Sump'n Like Wings, now on stage at Theatre Row, is the latest entry from the always intriguing Mint Theater Company, whose aim it is to uncover, dust off, and produce lost or forgotten plays…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:17AM
Thursday, October 10, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Our Town" 10/10/24 by Howard Miller

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is one American play that feels as though it belongs to everyone. It is regularly read and performed in high schools and mounted by amateur theatre groups across t…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:05PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Deep History" - 10/10/24 by Howard Miller

"It's the end of the world as we know it." You may recall these lyrics to a jaunty song by the rock band R.E.M. from back in 1987. And while Deep History, opening tonight at the Public Theat…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:36PM
Thursday, October 3, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Distant Thunder" - 10/3/24 by Howard Miller

"We are falling off the shoulders of our ancestors." These demoralizing words declaimed by an elder of the Blackfeet tribe comes late in the new musical Distant Thunder, opening tonight for …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:06PM
Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Yellow Face" 10/91/24 by Howard Miller

One of the many pleasures to be experienced in David Henry Hwang's highly pleasurable Yellow Face, opening tonight at the Todd Haimes Theatre, lies in the splendid way he has of twisting fac…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:41PM
Monday, September 30, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "McNeal" 9/30/24 by Howard Miller

To be sure, there are many individual moments in which Robert Downey Jr. (making his Broadway debut) and the rest of the game and talented cast manage to grab our attention for entire disjoi…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:06PM

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "The Hills of California" 9/29/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Jez Butterworth has set a high bar for himself as a writer, with vastly varied works that include the bombastic Jerusalem, the fanciful The River, and the great crowd-pleaser The …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:38AM
Monday, September 23, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Blood of the Lamb" - 9/23/24 by Howard Miller

The political and the personal merge most keenly in Arlene Hutton's one-act Blood of the Lamb, opening today at 59E59 Theaters. It is a humdinger of a play, effectively and scathingly satiri…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:23PM
Monday, August 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Once Upon a Mattress" 8/12/24 by Howard Miller

I'm in love with a girl named Fred! And I venture to say you will be, too, at least as she is being portrayed in all her unabashed glory by Sutton Foster in the thoroughly irresistible Broad…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:00PM
Sunday, August 4, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Meeting: The Interpreter" - 8/4/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Catherine Gropper is here to offer us a break from any anxiety we might be feeling about the impending 2024 presidential election by taking us back in time to recall the anxiety w…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:05PM
Thursday, July 11, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Oh, Mary!" 7/11/24 by Howard Miller

Say you had managed to pull off a consummate fusion of talent and good fortune to become the darling of the 2023-24 Off-Broadway season with a queer-centric, campy, and raucous comedy that w…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:41PM
Friday, June 28, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "N/A" - 6/27/24 by Howard Miller

Tonight, even as the theatrical face-off between presidential candidates Joseph Biden and Donald Trump is unfolding on television, another political theatrical event is opening at an actual …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:02AM
Thursday, June 20, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Appraisal" - 6/20/24 by Howard Miller

They say that wonderful things sometimes come in small packages. Case in point: Appraisal, a thrilling and splendidly performed cat-and-mouse play opening tonight as part of the Brits Off Br…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:06PM
Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Blizzard" - 6/19/24 by Howard Miller

Dottie and Dottie could not be less alike. He (let's call him Dottie 1) is a tight-assed neuroscientist whose life is pretty much wrapped up in his research. Not what you'd call a social but…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:16PM
Thursday, June 13, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Titanic" - 6/13/24 by Howard Miller

Titanic, the 1997 musical by Peter Stone (story and book) and Maury Yeston (music and lyrics), is about as massive a theatrical endeavor as you are likely to encounter. The cast alone number…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:07PM

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 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime