BroadwayStars | Updated Broadway News, Every 5 Minutes.

All stories by Jesse Green on BroadwayStars

<< NEWER | OLDER >>

Tony Awards News Drama Desk News Outer Critics Circle News

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Cast Album Roundup: 'Sweeney Todd,' 'Parade,' 'Camelot' and More by Jesse Green

Recordings of Broadway musicals are often better than the shows they preserve. Here's a ranking of last year's crop, with samples and bonus tracks.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:54AM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

'The Ally' Review: Social Justice as a Maddening Hall of Mirrors by Jesse Green

Itamar Moses's play offers eloquent arguments on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it doesn't offer much drama.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:06PM[SHARE]

Thursday, February 22, 2024

'Jelly's Last Jam' Review: A Musical Paradise, Even in Purgatory by Jesse Green

Did Jelly Roll Morton "invent" jazz, as he claimed? A sensational Encores! revival offers a postmortem prosecution of one of the form's founding fathers.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:42PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Broadway's Crunchtime Is Also Its Best Life by Jesse Green

Eighteen openings in two months will drive everyone crazy. But maybe there should be even more.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:12AM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Review: In 'The Apiary,' the Bees Have a Troubling Tale to Tell by Jesse Green

Worldwide colony collapse is the subject of a bright, strange, upbeat thought experiment about insect hives, and our own.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:24PM[SHARE]

Thursday, February 8, 2024

'Russian Troll Farm' Review: A Stream of Memes, Eroding Trust in Democracy by Jesse Green

An unlikely dark comedy imagines the people pushing #PizzaGate, Donald Trump and who knows what next.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:06PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

'The Connector' Review: When Fake News Was All the Rage by Jesse Green

An Off Broadway musical about the sins of journalistic fabrication might benefit from more make-believe.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:18PM[SHARE]

Friday, February 2, 2024

Remembering Chita Rivera's Unique Voice by Alex Barron, Lynn Levy, Diane Wong and Jesse Green

Our theater critic on some of the Broadway legend's greatest vocal performances.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:32PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Queer Kids Are All Right. And Now They're Making Me Better. by Jesse Green

How watching gay coming-of-age stories has helped repair a heart still stuck in the past " and still scarred by a less welcoming world.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18AM[SHARE]

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Chita Rivera Found Her Emotional Voice for Shows Like 'West Side Story' by Jesse Green

Her dancing sometimes overshadowed her thrillingly dramatic way with a song: husky yet clarion, unaffected but full of comment and character.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:48PM[SHARE]

Chita Rivera, Finding Her Voice by Jesse Green

Her dancing sometimes overshadowed her thrillingly dramatic way with a song: husky yet clarion, unaffected but full of comment and character.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:18PM[SHARE]

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Leave the Poor Princess Alone by Jesse Green

Less than 30 years after her death, fictional reincarnations of Diana are everywhere. But even icons deserve more time to rest in peace.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18AM[SHARE]

Friday, January 19, 2024

'Terce' Review: How the Other Half Prays, in a Reimagined Mass by Jesse Green

Heather Christian's latest exploration of the religious sublime is a musical spectacle about the often overlooked "caregivers and makers."

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:18AM[SHARE]

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Review: For Jews, an Unanswered 'Prayer for the French Republic' by Jesse Green

In Joshua Harmon's play about the legacies of antisemitism, a Parisian family must decide when it's time to get out.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:18PM[SHARE]

Monday, January 1, 2024

2024 TV, Movies and More That New York Times Critics Look Forward To by Holland Cotter, Alissa Wilkinson, Mike Hale, Salamishah Tillet, Jesse Green, Maya Phillips, Jason Zinoman, Margaret Lyons, Zachary Woolfe and Jon Pareles

"Mad Max" gets a prequel, "The Wiz" returns to Broadway and Larry David gets another crack at a series finale.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:32AM[SHARE]

Thursday, December 28, 2023

For a Times Critic on Deadline, a Dramatic Reversal by Jesse Green

Stories evolve. But a recent review proved to a theater critic that people can change even more.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:12PM[SHARE]

Monday, December 18, 2023

Review: Sarah Paulson Makes a Horrible Discovery in "Appropriate" by Jesse Green

Making a blistering Broadway debut, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's 2014 play about the legacies of hatred feels like a new work entirely.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:24PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

'Buena Vista Social Club' Review: Bringing a Classic Record to Life by Jesse Green

A new Off Broadway musical adds the thrill of intimacy and the weight of history to the Cuban songs popularized on a 1997 album.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:54PM[SHARE]

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Review: In 'How to Dance in Ohio,' Making Autism Sing by Jesse Green

A musical about seven autistic young adults, played by seven autistic young actors, breaks new ground on Broadway.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:12PM[SHARE]

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Review: A Shady Documentary Becomes a Weapon of War in 'Spain' by Jesse Green

Jen Silverman's noir play considers the role of artists in the making of propaganda.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:32PM[SHARE]

Sunday, November 19, 2023

'Hell's Kitchen' Review: Alicia Keys's Musical Is Ambitious by Jesse Green

A promising Off Broadway jukebox musical features hits by the R&B star (including "Fallin'," "If I Ain't Got You" and "No One") and a story much like her own.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:32PM[SHARE]

Thursday, November 16, 2023

'Spamalot' Review: You'll Laugh in Its General Direction by Jesse Green

In the first Broadway revival of the Monty Python musical, the old bits are verbatim but the clowns are running the circus.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:24PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Review: In 'Scene Partners,' Dianne Wiest Delivers Another Master Class by Jesse Green

The transcendent Dianne Wiest stars in an absurd yet poignant new play about a 75-year-old woman who sets out to be a star.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:06PM[SHARE]

Monday, November 13, 2023

'Harmony' Review: Barry Manilow Writes the (Broadway) Songs by Jesse Green

The pop star of the 1970s and '80s crosses over to musical theater with a dark story about pop stars of the 1920s and '30s.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:36PM[SHARE]

Thursday, November 2, 2023

'I Need That' Review: It's Always Messy in New Jersey by Jesse Green

Danny DeVito returns to Broadway in a Theresa Rebeck comedy about a lonely old man lost in a houseful of junk.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:32PM[SHARE]

'Pal Joey' Review: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildering by Jesse Green

Joey is still a heel in this major revision of the 1940 antihero musical, but he's now a Black artist trying to find his true voice.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:48PM[SHARE]

Monday, October 30, 2023

'I Can Get It for You Wholesale' Review: Rag Trade Revival, Recut for Today by Jesse Green

A story considered too dark for Broadway in its time is too much of a patchwork in ours.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:07PM[SHARE]

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Review: In 'Stereophonic,' the Rock Revolution Will Be Recorded by Jesse Green

David Adjmi's riveting new play, with songs by Will Butler, is about a '70s band that nearly destroys itself making an epochal album.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:19PM[SHARE]

Monday, October 23, 2023

'Here We Are' Review: The Last Sondheim, Cool and Impossibly Chic by Jesse Green

This inventive, beguiling and not quite fully solved puzzle of a show is a worthy and loving farewell to the great musical dramatist.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:03AM[SHARE]

Thursday, October 12, 2023

'Gutenberg! The Musical!' Review: Revenge of the Broadway Nerds by Jesse Green

The history of movable type is a terrible idea for a show. Which is why it's so on brand for this satire of theater and its eternal hopefuls.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:19PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Review: 'Merrily We Roll Along,' Finally Found in the Dark by Jesse Green

Jonathan Groff, supported by Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, is thrillingly fierce in the first convincing revival of the cult flop Sondheim musical.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:07AM[SHARE]

<< NEWER | OLDER >>