All stories by JONATHAN MANDELL on BroadwayStars

Friday, August 1, 2025

Edinburgh Fringe Review: Smile, The Story of Charlie Chaplin by Jonathan Mandell

Australian performer Marcel Cole brings a grace and ingenuity to a story that’s been told often, although not with great success: The 2012 Broadway musical “Chaplin” starring Rob McClu…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:17PM
Thursday, July 31, 2025

August 2025 New York Theater Openings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a calendar of New York theater opening* in August, including two shows on Broadway, one of them a revival of the long-running “Mamma Mia.” But they are overshadowed by a 400-yea…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:38PM

Edinburgh Fringe: The Marriage of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein by Jonathan Mandell

Gertrude Stein is famous as an early champion of writers like Ernest Hemingway and artists like Picasso (whose  “Portrait of Gertrude Stein” is a prized possession of The Metropolitan …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:17AM
Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Edinburgh Fringe Week Zero at Underbelly by Jonathan Mandell

Soliana the contortionist performed from one of the nine shows out of 160 that will be presented this year at Underbelly, one of the Big Four venue operators at the Edinburgh Festival Fring…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:26PM
Tuesday, July 29, 2025

How to Fringe. What is Fringe? 8 Answers from FringeNYC by Jonathan Mandell

Yes, I can tell you how to Fringe, even though I’ve just arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland for my first-ever visit; it’s the beginning of “Week 0” of the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:50PM
Monday, July 28, 2025

Andrew Barth Feldman replacing Darren Criss. Theater Abroad: Immersive in Malta, Edgy in Edinburgh. New Season Announcements. Stageworthy News. by Jonathan Mandell

Summer is a time for Fall season announcements – Under the Radar, Atlantic, Bushwick Starr, below – and for travel:  I went to Malta, and wrote Toward A New Understanding of Immersive…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:39AM
Sunday, July 27, 2025

New York in Edinburgh: Lizzy Sunshine by Jonathan Mandell

Lis Coin’s approach to her first-ever Edinburgh Fringe Festival will be “half spontaneous and half supportive.” She means as a theatergoer. But that’s also not a bad description of �…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:40PM
Saturday, July 26, 2025

New York in Edinburgh: A Drag Is Born by Jonathan Mandell

It was past the start time and nothing was happening on stage, when a man in a tracksuit sitting in the front row started applauding rapidly as a show of impatience and protest, leading the …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:39PM
Friday, July 25, 2025

Bring the House Down by Jonathan Mandell

It was only after I started this novel about an acerbic and soon-to-be reviled theater critic  — which its publisher had discouraged me from reading — when I learned that the book is s…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:42PM

Watch 7 Shows at Broadway in Bryant Park by Jonathan Mandell

Four won a Tony for Best Musical. A fifth is returning to Broadway a decade after one of the longest runs in Broadway history. The sixth, with an all-female cast, began life at the Edinburgh…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:51AM
Thursday, July 24, 2025

Watch #Hamilten at Broadway in Bryant Park by Jonathan Mandell

Amid all the to-do surrounding the tenth anniversary of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” — it opened at the Richard Rodgers on August 6, 2015 — five current cast members performed two…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:47PM
Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Broadway Poll: Your Favorite Fall 2025 Show? by Jonathan Mandell

Which of the twelve shows scheduled so far to open on Broadway between now and the end of 2025 are you most looking forward to? Which do you want to know more about? Take the poll and let us…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:08PM
Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Will Masquerade revive immersive theater in New York? by Jonathan Mandell

As Andrew Lloyd Webber prepares to launch the immersive version of “The Phantom of the Opera” on the last day of this month, for a run that has been extended (for now) through October 19…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:17PM
Monday, July 21, 2025

Joy, Jinkx, and Jerks. Good news for Villain, bad for Gypsy. Stageworthy News of the Week. by Jonathan Mandell

Amid the distressing midsummer news of the defunding of public broadcasting, the suspiciously-timed axing of Stephen Colbert, and the uncertainty behind the arts desk shakeup at the New Y…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:05PM

Toward A New Understanding of Immersive Theatre After Three Days in Malta by Jonathan Mandell

By Jonathan Mandell. Teatru Malta’s 1881 infused immersive theatre with game design, all in a dark, castle-like setting.

SOURCE: HowlRound at 09:22AM
Sunday, July 20, 2025

Joy A New True Musical Review. A self-made woman and mop. by Jonathan Mandell

In one of the several moments throughout “Joy” that felt like being trapped inside an old infomercial, albeit an entertaining one, Joy Mangano (Betsy Wolfe) has just sold her first five …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:50PM
Saturday, July 19, 2025

Transgression Review. When the artist’s a creep but the art is great by Jonathan Mandell

An art photographer, who is as famous as the celebrities he shoots, starts having sex with a girl who is in ninth grade, and takes pictures of her naked while she’s sleeping in his bed, wi…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:49PM
Friday, July 18, 2025

Watch Broadway in Bryant Park: Wicked, Chicago, Death Becomes Her, Book of Mormon, Just in Time, Gypsy by Jonathan Mandell

Broadway’s new Elphaba and Glinda performed at Week 2 of this summer’s series of Broadway in Bryant Park lunchtime concerts, now celebrating its 25th anniversary season — which is olde…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:16PM

Baldwin: A Love Story by Jonathan Mandell

James Baldwin met Marlon Brando at an adjacent urinal in the men’s bathroom at the New School for Social Research when they were both 19 years old and dreaming of success as, respectively,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:16AM
Thursday, July 17, 2025

For Connie Francis (1937-2025): Watch Gracie Lawrence sing “Who’s Sorry Now” at Broadway in Bryant Park by Jonathan Mandell

“Connie Francis said to know her voice is to know her,” Gracie Lawrence told the crowd at Bryant Park this afternoon, the day after the popular singer died at the age of 87. Lawrence, wh…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:02PM
Wednesday, July 16, 2025

EdFest: Furniture Boys by Jonathan Mandell

Watching Emily Weitzman talk to a couch as if it were her ex-lover brought two names to mind: JD Vance and Andy Kaufman. “You were special…Not just any couch: a pull out couch,” she sa…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:50PM
Tuesday, July 15, 2025

EdFest (pre-Edinburgh): Tell Me Where Home Is by Jonathan Mandell

Michael DeBartolo’s path to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival began in a childhood of “profound shame” and a series of unhealthy infatuations with straight boys.  Years later, now a New …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:40PM
Monday, July 14, 2025

Broadway Goes Outdoors. Theater Shocks. Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Has a show ever shocked you? Did that make you like it, or dislike it, or was its shock value not the determining factor in your overall reaction? What if a show is deliberately trying to sh…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:29AM
Sunday, July 13, 2025

The Gospel at Colonus, on Little Island by Jonathan Mandell

It is a glorious gospel concert beneath the darkening skies along the Hudson River, and that’s all one needs to know to thrill at “Gospel at Colonus.” But the experience is deepened by…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:06PM

Watch Broadway Barks then and now by Jonathan Mandell

Cole Escola, Orville Peck, Kecia Lewis, Jak Malone and Sadie Sink were among the performers pushing their puppies at the 27th annual Broadway Barks, the odd and adorable animal adoption even…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:35PM
Saturday, July 12, 2025

Open Review. A love story held together by magic. by Jonathan Mandell

They met by Magic. Actually,  the section at the Strand bookstore where they first met is labeled Occult, but that’s where the store keeps its books on magic.  Kristen and Jenny’s sh…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:30PM
Friday, July 11, 2025

Watch &Juliet, Boop, Gatsby, Hells Kitchen, Maybe Happy Ending, MJ the Musical at Broadway in Bryant Park 2025 by Jonathan Mandell

The free lunchtime concert series Broadway in Bryant Park launched its twenty-fifth season on Thursday with performances by the casts from six Broadway shows — one of which, “Boop the Mu…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:07AM
Thursday, July 10, 2025

Heathers the Musical Review by Jonathan Mandell

So much ugliness takes place at Westerberg High — homicide and homophobia, attempted suicide and sexual assault – that there’s an extensive “content advisory” in front of Stage 1 a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:02PM
Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Theater Blog Roundup: Scott Rudin’s return. Summer Reading. An NEA Alternative? by Jonathan Mandell

Summer is normally a time for R&R – which for theater lovers can mean reading theater books and attending regional theater festivals. But the mood is more complicated these days, more …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:45AM
Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Prince Faggot Review by Jonathan Mandell

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this play, which imagines a grownup Prince George of England (currently 11 years old) as an out gay man. I was put off by the offensive title, and by what it …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:53PM
Monday, July 7, 2025

Summer Theater. Sondheim Papers. What the “Big Ugly Bill” means for the arts. Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

The season for free, outdoor theater is well underway, both throughout the country and here in New York: A new epic “Memnon” began over the weekend (see below.) This coming week,  Br…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:23AM

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