All stories by James Wilson on BroadwayStars

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Duality" - 12/12/24 by James Wilson

The past and present collide in Anthony M. Laura's Duality, currently running at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres. Primarily, the play explores the lasting…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:11AM
Monday, November 25, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "300 Paintings" - 11/25/24 by James Wilson

Former stand-up comic Sam Kissajukian states matter-of-factly at the beginning of his one-person show, "I'm not from the theatre. I'm from Australia." In 300 Paintings, currently playing at …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:01AM
Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Babe" - 11/20/24 by James Wilson

Stereophonic, this year's Tony Award winner for Best Play, is set in the 1970s and depicts rampant toxic masculinity in the recording industry. The New Group's current production, Babe by Je…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:25PM
Monday, November 11, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Strategic Love Play" - 11/10/24 by James Wilson

First dates are generally awkward, sometimes cringeworthy, and occasionally hopeful. In Miriam Battye's Strategic Love Play, Audible Theater's current production, these familiar qualities ar…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:00AM
Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Another Shot" - 10/29/24 by James Wilson

Spike Manton and Harry Teinowitz's Another Shot, now running at New York's Signature Center (but is not a Signature production), is set in an addiction rehab facility. The title slyly hints …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:20PM
Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "someone spectacular" - 7/31/24 by James Wilson

How long is it appropriate to grieve one's personal loss? Are some losses worthier of sympathy than others? Is there a proper way to grieve? These are just some of the questions pondered, de…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:19PM
Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Six Characters" - 7/29/24 by James Wilson

Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author caused a cultural firestorm when it opened in Rome in 1921. Reportedly, after the show's premiere the playwright had to leave through…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:49AM
Monday, July 15, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Ain't Done Bad" - 7/15/24 by James Wilson

Following in the nimble footsteps of Twyla Tharp and most recently Justin Peck, choreographer and dancer Jakob Karr has turned to the music of a contemporary singer/songwriter to create a na…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:20PM
Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "From Here" - 7/1/24 by James Wilson

On June 12, 2016, the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was (at the time) the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. It remains the most violent assault on LGBTQ+ people. Set…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:41AM
Thursday, June 20, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Isabel" - 6/20/24 by James Wilson

Mark Twain's preface to "Huckleberry Finn" famously states, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banish…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:16PM
Sunday, June 9, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "David" - 6/9/24 by James Wilson

A program note states that New York's AMT Theater in Hell's Kitchen was established for several different purposes, including serving "as a launching pad to Broadway" and presenting "childre…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:58PM
Thursday, May 16, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Invasive Species" - 5/15/24 by James Wilson

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, an "invasive species" is one that "has been intentionally or inadvertently brought into a region or area. Also called an exotic or non-nativ…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:46AM
Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "All of Me" - 5/14/24 by James Wilson

In the last few decades, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) has made huge technological advances in speech-generated tools, but it is hard to imagine a dramatic love scene prod…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:57PM
Saturday, May 4, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Fingers and Spoons" - 5/4/24 by James Wilson

Eating disorders, adolescent trauma, motherhood, and managing an acting career are just some of the topics explored in Fingers and Spoons, the one-person show written and performed by Pascal…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:33PM
Sunday, April 21, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Orlando" - 4/21/24 by James Wilson

Midway through Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel, "Orlando: A Biography," the protagonist awakes after a long sleep as a different gender. "It is enough for us to state the simple fact," the narra…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:53PM

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Hell's Kitchen" 4/20/24 by James Wilson

It is very common for audiences at Broadway musicals to clap and hoot at the entrance of a star or in appreciation of impressive scenic design. In Hell's Kitchen, which concluded an Off-Broa…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:56AM
Thursday, April 18, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "The Wiz" 4/17/24 by James Wilson

Although it won a slew of Tony Awards in 1975, The Wiz has never really been considered a great musical. In the right hands, however, it is a thoroughly enjoyable one, and its buoyant pleasu…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:10AM
Friday, April 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "The Outsiders" 4/11/24 by James Wilson

In his scathing review of The Outsiders, Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of S.E. Hinton's best-selling novel, New York Times critic Vincent Canby described the movie as "a melodramatic kid…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:05AM
Sunday, March 10, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Dead Outlaw" - 3/10/24 by James Wilson

If you appreciate macabre stories, here's one you might enjoy: In 1976, a teamster working on an episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" made a gruesome discovery. One of the dummies hanging…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:01PM
Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Pericles" - 2/26/24 by James Wilson

For Shakespearian scholars, Pericles, Prince of Tyre remains a profoundly enigmatic work. While some historians have attributed sole authorship to Shakespeare, most now agree that he wrote a…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 12:15AM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Seven Year Disappear" - 2/26/24 by James Wilson

With its use of deliberately over-amplified and disembodied voices, video close-ups, and shiny, modernist design, The New Group's production of the The Seven Year Disappear would seem to be …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 12:15AM
Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sunset Baby" - 2/20/24 by James Wilson

Singer and songwriter Nina Simone was a clarion voice of the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In songs like "Mississippi Goddam" and "Old Jim Crow," Simone's words and music prov…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:26AM
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Warrior Sisters of Wu" - 2/14/24 by James Wilson

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms," the classic 14th century Chinese novel attributed to author Luo Guanzhong, is a sprawling epic that merges history, fiction and mythology. The book comprises…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:21PM
Friday, February 9, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy" - 2/8/24 by James Wilson

The subtitle of Sarah Gancher's Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, currently running at the Vineyard Theatre (and in association with Geva Theatre Center), calls to mind a host of sitco…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:57AM
Friday, December 1, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Spain" - 11/30/23 by James Wilson

The classic 1937 film, The Spanish Earth, is a fascinating marriage of art and propaganda. Filmed during the Spanish Civil War, the documentary captures scenes from actual battles and shows …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:16AM
Thursday, November 16, 2023

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "New York, New York" 4/26/23 by James Wilson

Last fall, the Museum of Broadway opened in Midtown Manhattan. For a hefty admission fee, individuals can meander through a series of interactive exhibits that creatively and wistfully evoke…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 12:48PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Scene Partners" - 11/15/23 by James Wilson

The set-up is almost as old as Hollywood itself: A woman announces to her family that she is abandoning her stultifying home life and is heading to California to be a glamorous and world-fam…

SOURCE: www.temptalkinbroadway.com at 12:48PM
Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "War Words" - 11/14/23 by James Wilson

According to recent statistics, less than one percent of all Americans actively serve in the military. This means that most people living in the United States do not have any personal contac…

SOURCE: www.temptalkinbroadway.com at 09:16PM
Friday, November 3, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sabbath's Theater" - 11/2/23 by James Wilson

Philip Roth's 1995 novel "Sabbath's Theater" is a sprawling, ambitious work that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Award. Arguably, it is also one of Roth's most…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 02:45AM
Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "I Can Get It for You Wholesale" - 10/30/23 by James Wilson

The American musical theatre pantheon is teeming with cads, grifters and swindlers. Pal Joey's Joey Evans, Music Man's's Harold Hill, How to Succeed's J. Pierrepont Finch, and The Producers'…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:25AM
Thursday, October 26, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Emergence" - 10/25/23 by James Wilson

"Things are not as they seem." This is both the subtitle and guiding mantra of Emergence, Patrick Olson's strangely captivating new show currently playing at Manhattan's Signature Center. (E…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:35AM

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