All stories by JONATHAN MANDELL on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Outer Critics Circle Award 2023 Nominations: “New York, New York” Leads. by Jonathan Mandell

“New York, New York” followed by “Some Like It Hot” received the most nominations for the 72nd annual Outer Critics Circle Awards, announced this morning. The winners will be announc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:06AM
Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Drama League Award 2023 Nominations by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the nominations for the 89th annual Drama League Awards, announced this morning (video below) by Justin Guarini and Rogert Bart.. The awards ceremony, open to the public, will be…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:36AM

6 Longest Running Broadway Shows by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the six longest-running shows currently on Broadway, with descriptions and links. This feels the right time for an update given that “The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest sho…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:16AM
Monday, April 24, 2023

Good Night, Oscar Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

When Sean Hayes as the concert pianist and celebrated wit Oscar Levant sits down at the piano to play “Rhapsody in Blue,” I thought at first that it was a recording and he was simulating…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:08PM

Prima Facie, Peter Pan, Thanksgiving Play open on Broadway. The Home Stretch! #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Three shows opened on Broadway within the last four days, four more will officially open within the next four days, and then the Broadway 2022-2023 season will officially end, and the theate…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:22AM
Sunday, April 23, 2023

Prima Facie Broadway Review. Jodie Comer as a Rape Victim by Jonathan Mandell

Almost immediately after she is raped, Tessa Ensler starts imagining the questions a defense attorney would ask her, and the witnesses he would call, to get the rapist off. “Legal instinct…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:56PM
Saturday, April 22, 2023

Earth Day on Broadway 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

In celebration of the 53rd annual Earth Day today, thirty blocks of Broadway between Union Square and Times Square will be closed to vehicular traffic, and alive with pop-up performances al…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:32AM
Friday, April 21, 2023

Peter Pan Goes Wrong Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Sure I laughed. I laughed when Tinker Bell is electrocuted, and when Neil Patrick Harris’s Masterpiece Theater-like chair somehow attacks him. But, after two hours watching an implausible …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:37PM
Thursday, April 20, 2023

The Thanksgiving Play Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Larissa FastHorse, whose often hilarious play is reportedly the first on Broadway by a Native American woman, sends up well-meaning white liberals, mocks the vanities and pretensions of thes…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:20PM
Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Plays for the Plague Year Review by Jonathan Mandell

It’s a “banquet of the unbearable,” one character calls the show he’s in — a chronological account of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as captured in the short plays and so…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:53PM
Monday, April 17, 2023

Phantom Farewell. Camelot, Fat Ham, White Girl in Danger open. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

The Phantom of the Opera took a final Majestic bow last night after a record-breaking thirty-five years on Broadway. Its 13,981th performance played out before a red-carpeted crowd in white …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:38AM
Sunday, April 16, 2023

Camelot Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

There are bright shining moments aplenty in the latest Broadway revival of “Camelot,” the 1960 Lerner and Loewe musical about the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:30PM
Thursday, April 13, 2023

Understanding Public Obscenities. 5 Lessons for New York Theater by Jonathan Mandell

“Don’t worry; I hear it’s easy to understand,” a Bengali-American in my row at Soho Rep reassured me, before “Public Obscenities” began.  For him, I thought. As it turns out, …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:51PM
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Fat Ham Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Sure, his uncle killed his father and is about to marry his mother, but Juicy, the big Black queer Southerner at the center of “Fat Ham,”  would prefer to forget about the revenge his…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:58PM
Monday, April 10, 2023

White Girl in Danger Review by Jonathan Mandell

If “White Girl in Danger” were an actual soap opera, it would unfold over several years, which would give us time to savor Michael R. Jackson’s febrile intelligence and his subversive …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:45PM

April is Be Kind to Your Usher Month. Legislating Against The Broadway Body. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

April is the kindest month; at least that’s what Playbill president Philip S. Birsh is requesting in a full-page letter in the April edition of Playbill, in which he gently reminds audienc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:36AM
Saturday, April 8, 2023

Tao of Glass Review. Boring Philip Glass, Living Theater. by Jonathan Mandell

Philip Glass fell asleep in the middle of the pitch that actor and director Phelim McDermott was making for a theater piece the two could create together. “I’ve bored Philip Glass McDer…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:52PM
Friday, April 7, 2023

New York Theater Awards 2023: Guide and Calendar by Jonathan Mandell

Below is an explanation of the major annual New York theater awards, plus a 2023 calendar of nomination announcements and award ceremonies Why was Sarah Bernhardt — one of the world’s gr…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:09AM
Thursday, April 6, 2023

Sweeney Todd Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Theatergoers wearing “I ❤️ My Josh” t-shirts filled a row of the Lunt-Fontanne the night I attended the fourth Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s darkly c…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:44PM
Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Lucille Lortel Award Nominations 2023. Off Broadway’s Best by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the nominations for the 38th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway.  Winners will be presented at the annual ceremony on Sunday, May 7, 2023, a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:39PM

Oscar Isaac, Alex Edelman to make Broadway debuts. Shucked. Life of Pi. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Oscar Isaac is making his Broadway debut in a last-minute addition to the Broadway season: Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” also starring Rachel Brosnahan…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:26AM
Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Shucked Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

“Shucked” is corny. Corn is what the corn-growing townsfolk of Cob County sing about from the opening number of this new country-flavored Broadway musical; it’s the subject of the “f…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:40PM
Sunday, April 2, 2023

Theater Quiz for March 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to the theater in March? Take this quiz to find out. Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:29PM
Saturday, April 1, 2023

April 2023 New York Theater Openings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a calendar of theater opening* in April 2023 in New York, including nine shows on Broadway featuring (sometimes radically) reworked versions of a Golden Age musical, a 1970s romanti…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:22PM
Thursday, March 30, 2023

Life of Pi Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Whether or not his fantastical tale of sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days on the open seas will “make you believe in God,” as the 17-year-old shipwreck survivor named P…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:49PM
Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Puppetry’s Moment! An Oscar, Broadway Debut, Museum Blockbuster, String of Festivals by Jonathan Mandell

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”  won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature this month, not the first movie with puppets to win an Oscar – “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfathe…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:16PM
Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity by Jonathan Mandell

“This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever been told they were too fat,too short, too gay, too disabled, and otherwise too much or not enough to be in a musical,” Ryan Donovan writes…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:56PM
Monday, March 27, 2023

Happy World Theater Day. DeVito, Smash on Broadway. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

In honor of World Theater Day, celebrated internationally every March 27th since 1962, here are some beautiful theaters from around the world: Theater isn’t just the buildings in which it …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:08AM
Sunday, March 26, 2023

Bad Cinderella Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

What’s so bad about “Bad Cinderella”? Sure, it takes great liberties with the fairy tale, sexing it up, setting it to loud pop music, replacing the familiar story with a berserk comic …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:51PM
Thursday, March 23, 2023

Parade Review. Ben Platt as Jewish Martyr in Unsettling Revival by Jonathan Mandell

Two years after a jury convicted Leo Frank of murdering a 13-year-old girl and condemned him to death, a prison guard enters his jail cell with a message from his wife Lucille:  Georgia Go…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:36PM
Monday, March 20, 2023

Sondheim. Fosse. Jerry Herman. We ❤️ NYC. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

This week felt like a reunion of some of the greatest figures in American musical theater — the Broadway opening of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’,” the concert version of Jerry Herman’s �…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:04AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes 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