All stories by JONATHAN MANDELL on BroadwayStars

Thursday, October 13, 2022

The Piano Lesson Broadway Review. August Wilson revival full of stars and ghosts. by Jonathan Mandell

The first Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” is full of stars and ghosts. The ghosts are what make it brilliant. Don’t misunderstand. It’s thrilling that: -Sam…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:39PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Outpouring for Angela. Watch her in Sweeney Todd, Beauty and the Beast, Tony Awards. by Jonathan Mandell

Angela Lansbury received her first Oscar nomination before World War II was won, and today, there are children who know who she is. It’s hard to imagine anyone matching the historical swee…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:40AM
Tuesday, October 11, 2022

RIP Angela Lansbury, 96: “Curtain opens, out you go, and New York is yours.” by Jonathan Mandell

Angela Lansbury, the English born actress, child star in Hollywood and beloved sleuth of “Murder She Wrote” who conquered Broadway relatively late in life, died today at her home in Los …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:28PM

Broadway Reviews: Death of a Salesman. 1776. Cost of Living. Broadway Goes Hybrid, Again! #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Three more shows opened last week, the latest in the revved-up Broadway season, all three with non-traditional casts, two of them familiar Broadway fare thus made unfamiliar (and, the produc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:03AM
Monday, October 10, 2022

The Tribal Nations of New York, and Native American Theater in NYC by Jonathan Mandell

In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which President Joe Biden first formally recognized as a national holiday in 2021, to be celebrated the second Monday of October (today!) – not coin…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:21PM
Sunday, October 9, 2022

Death of a Salesman Broadway Review. Black and Feeling Beat. by Jonathan Mandell

The “Death of a Salesman” that opens tonight on Broadway begins and ends with the people around Willy Loman literally singing the blues — the music that turned the bitterness and exhau…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:19PM
Saturday, October 8, 2022

Death of A Salesman versus Mad Men, 2012 by Jonathan Mandell

A day before opening night of the sixth Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s 1949 plays seems a good time to resurrect my review of the fifth production which opened on March 15th, 2012 …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:29PM
Friday, October 7, 2022

Digital Theater To Watch for Free This Holiday Weekend by Jonathan Mandell

The long weekend is a good time to catch up on theater that is available online for free. Some of it has been around for a while and may remain so; four of the shows below are planning to go…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:50PM
Thursday, October 6, 2022

1776 Broadway Review. Founding Sisters Doing It for Themselves by Jonathan Mandell

The original challenge to the creators of “1776” was how to make a commercial musical comedy out of something as somber and dry as the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Half a …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:42PM
Tuesday, October 4, 2022

The Suppliants Project Ukraine. Aeschylus and refugees on a football field by Jonathan Mandell

“We are not criminals…” Kristina was saying “We are refugees,” Bohdana added, “seeking asylum.” Kristina Obluchynska and Bohdana Yakobchuk were two of the seven women from Ukra…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:26PM
Monday, October 3, 2022

Cost of Living Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

On the same night that I saw the exquisitely acted Broadway production of “Cost of Living” — Martyna Majok’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play that tells the parallel stories of two disabl…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:23PM

Leopoldstadt on Broadway. Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella. Lea Michele Sings People. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Tom Stoppard’s nineteenth play to open on Broadway, and the Fall 2022 season’s first, launches a busy and exciting theatrical month in New York — eight shows just on Broadway, includin…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:46AM
Sunday, October 2, 2022

Leopoldstadt Review. Tom Stoppard on the Jews of Vienna by Jonathan Mandell

“Leopoldstadt,” a play by Tom Stoppard inspired by the death of his own extended family in the Holocaust, begins with a family tree projected onto the scrim of the stage at Broadway’s …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:44PM
Saturday, October 1, 2022

October 2022 New York Theater Openings: A Month of Abundance on Broadway and Beyond by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a day-by-day calendar of theater opening* in October, a thrilling selection featuring eight Broadway shows (four of them Pulitzer winners, a fifth the nineteenth Broadway play in a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:30AM
Friday, September 30, 2022

Theater Quiz for September 2022 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to New York theater in September? Answer these dozen questions to find out. Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:14PM
Thursday, September 29, 2022

Next Wave Festival Review: 300 el x 50 el x 30 el by Jonathan Mandell

Before the curtain rises at BAM’s Harvey Theater on this wordless, whimsical and haunting hour-long theater piece cryptically entitled “300 el x 50 el x 30 el,”  a huge screen proje…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:19PM
Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Refocus Project Year 2: Sarita by María Irene Fornés by Jonathan Mandell

In María Irene Fornés’ 1984 musical “Sarita” — presented in a rare staged reading free online through October 16th as part of Roundabout’s Refocus Project — we first meet the t…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:12PM
Monday, September 26, 2022

Broadway 25 in 2022-23. The Broadway Body and Why It’s Bad. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

With the announcement this week that Mike Birbiglia is returning to Broadway for his latest solo show about his life, “The Old Man and the Pool,” (opening at the Vivian Beaumont Novembe…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:47AM
Saturday, September 24, 2022

Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood by Jonathan Mandell

“Cheek to Cheek,” an intelligent, entertaining musical revue that showcases two dozen of the songs that Irving Berlin wrote for movie musicals, makes no claims that his work in Hollywood…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:56PM
Friday, September 23, 2022

ASL-Interpreted Broadway and Off-Broadway performances Fall 2022. Watch Encanto in ASL by Jonathan Mandell

In the music video below, Deaf West Theater interprets Lin-Manuel Miranda’s song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” into American Sign Language in a music video from the animated film “En…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:29PM
Thursday, September 22, 2022

Broadway Poll: The Fall 2022 Show You Most Want To See by Jonathan Mandell

Choose the show that you are most looking forward to, of the twenty that have an official opening on Broadway in October, November or December 2022. They are listed chronologically below by …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:14PM
Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Four Saints in Three Acts Review. David Greenspan Does Gertrude Stein Solo by Jonathan Mandell

The 1934 Broadway debut of “Four Saints in Three Acts,” a then-shocking and much celebrated avant-garde opera with a libretto by Gertrude Stein and a score by Virgil Thomson, featured an…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:08PM
Monday, September 19, 2022

Sesame Street The Musical Review. Aiming for Muppet loving first-time theatergoers. by Jonathan Mandell

At “Sesame Street the Musical,” an hour-long show in which nine puppeteers portray 11 familiar Sesame Street characters who each get a familiar Sesame Street song to sing, there was one …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:28PM

Phantom, Music Man Closing! #LittleAmalmania #Stageworthy News by Jonathan Mandell

Theater is evanescent; that’s part of its appeal. The one exception seemed to be “The Phantom of the Opera.” But this week the musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and directed by H…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:19AM
Sunday, September 18, 2022

Designing Broadway: How Derek McLane And Other Acclaimed Set Designers Create the Visual World of Theatre by Jonathan Mandell

Sometimes the set design is the best thing about a Broadway show. I thought that about “Moulin Rouge,” which won Derek McLane his second Tony Award for set design. Sometimes the sets are…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:27AM
Saturday, September 17, 2022

The Phantom of the Opera to Close on Broadway After 35 Years by Jonathan Mandell

It’s a shock, but it probably shouldn’t be. “The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, will close on February 18th, shortly after commemorating its 35T…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:03AM
Friday, September 16, 2022

Watch Little Amal On Broadway by Jonathan Mandell

On the third day of her three-week trip to New York City, the ten-year-old Syrian refugee, and 12-foot-tall puppet, visits Father Duffy Square in Times Square, where she looks over the TKTS …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:54PM
Thursday, September 15, 2022

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski. A Holocaust Eyewitness Who Tried to Stop It. by Jonathan Mandell

FDR knew. In 1943, Jan Karski told President Roosevelt firsthand about the Holocaust, after Karski, a Polish diplomat turned Resistance fighter had been smuggled into both the Warsaw Ghetto …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:00PM
Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Watch Little Amal Arrive in New York City by Jonathan Mandell

Little Amal, a ten-year-old Syrian refugee and a 12-foot-tall puppet, has traveled 6,000 miles since July 2021, arriving today in New York City, first at JFK Airport, for 55 events over seve…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:52PM
Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Watch Sheryl Lee Ralph Sing Her Emmy Acceptance Speech by Jonathan Mandell

Sheryl Lee Ralph gave an acceptance speech for the ages when she won the Emmy award last night for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as the veteran kindergarten …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:22AM
Monday, September 12, 2022

Broadway Begins! Lea Michele debuts then departs Funny Girl. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

The first four new Broadway shows of the Fall season begin performances this week, although they won’t officially open until next month.  Two more shows were added to the Broadway 2022-2…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:36AM

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