All stories by Jesse Green on BroadwayStars

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The Lady in Room 309: How Elaine Stritch Understood New Yorkers Who Secretly Feel Like Frauds by Jesse Green

Elaine Stritch wasn’t the star of Company, but she sure as hell made herself the star of its making-of documentary. Dean Jones and the rest of the actors be damned; the drama of her failur…

SOURCE: Vulture at 07:32PM

Theater Review: The Cornpone Charms of Pump Boys and Dinettes Are Almost Enough by Jesse Green

Can friendliness be baked into a song, the way peaches are in a pie? On the evidence of Pump Boys and Dinettes, the final presentation of the Encores! Off-Center series this summer, the answ…

SOURCE: Vulture at 05:00PM
Sunday, July 13, 2014

James Franco's The Long Shrift Never Seems to End; Atomic Ends Just the Way You'd Think, Only Worse by Jesse Green

For all the glibness of his image-crafting, James Franco appears to be sincere in his regard for actual artistic production. And I say this not just in hopes of avoiding the title of Li…

SOURCE: Vulture at 09:11PM
Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Theater Review: A Devil You Do Know, in Randy Newman’s Faust by Jesse Green

“It’s not the length,” a friend said after seeing Randy Newman’s Faust last night, “it’s the Goethe.” Indeed, the Encores! Off-Center concert of the 1995 musical was plenty swi…

SOURCE: Vulture at 12:45PM

A Visit to the Real-Life Glee: The Jimmy Awards by Jesse Green

The Shrek with braces was adorable. Actually, so were the other two Shreks. All three had played the chartreuse ogre in high-school productions of the 2008 musical: one at Calvary Chapel Chr…

SOURCE: Vulture at 08:30AM
Thursday, June 26, 2014

Theater Review: Jonathan Larson Before He Blew Up Big, on View in tick, tick ... BOOM! by Jesse Green

The plight of promising young artists is a subject that’s infinitely fascinating to promising young artists. If they fulfill that promise, the rest of us may retrospectively find the pligh…

SOURCE: Vulture at 09:04PM
Friday, June 20, 2014

Shakespeare's Bloody Problem: Why the Tragedies Almost Never Work Anymore by Jesse Green

One character, his torso already relieved of arms and legs, is tossed onto the barbecue. Another’s hands and tongue are severed to keep her from reporting a crime. (She’s then stabbed to…

SOURCE: Vulture at 08:00AM
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Theater Review: Flashes of Brilliance, Hamstrung by Cliché, in the Tupac Musical Holler If Ya Hear Me by Jesse Green

As opening lines of musicals go, it’s a long road from “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow” to “They got a nigga / Shedding tears, reminiscing on my past fears / Cause shit…

SOURCE: Vulture at 10:35PM
Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Theater Review: The Ticks and the Tocks of The Who & the What by Jesse Green

Every playwriting student sooner or later learns Chekhov’s dictum: A gun introduced in the first half of a play must be discharged in the second. Usually the gun is literal, but Ayad Akhta…

SOURCE: Vulture at 08:15AM
Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Theater Review: Greta Gerwig Tries to Keep The Village Bike on the Road by Jesse Green

It’s no spoiler to report that the final stage direction of Penelope Skinner’s play The Village Bike, brought over from London by MCC Theater and starring Greta Gerwig, is “Mike wanks.…

SOURCE: Vulture at 10:00PM
Monday, June 9, 2014

This Year’s Tonys Were Decent Broadway, Dull TV by Jesse Green

Last night’s Tony Awards presentation capped off, or at least put to rest, the 2013-2014 Broadway season, which featured very strong if not record ticket-sales of about $1.27 billion. Yay,…

SOURCE: Vulture at 12:20PM
Friday, June 6, 2014

What Should Win at the Tonys Sunday Night, and What Will Win? by Jesse Green

By 6 p.m. tonight, the 800-some Tony voters who want to be counted must get their ballots to the accountants’ office. I’ll have just made the deadline with mine; even though most of the …

SOURCE: Vulture at 03:30PM

Theater Review: Just About Everything Works (Except the Seats) in Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth by Jesse Green

Sometimes it seems that all the nutty superstitions surrounding Macbeth — pardon me, "the Scottish Play" — come not from its association with Elizabethan witchcraft or backstage …

SOURCE: Vulture at 02:29PM
Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Theater Review: The Funny-Sad Complexity of Alan Ayckbourn's Arrivals and Departures by Jesse Green

Arrivals and Departures is Alan Ayckbourn’s 78th play, which means (if I have my math right) he’s written one each year since birth and three before it. (He’s 75.) This may explain or …

SOURCE: Vulture at 10:00PM
Sunday, June 1, 2014

Theater Review: Ionesco's The Killer Is Confusing and Unskippable by Jesse Green

Unable to get much attention amid pre-Tony hysteria and post-Tony exhaustion, some Off Broadway companies seem to take advantage of the blackout to dump inventory. Be warned: June is therefo…

SOURCE: Vulture at 11:23PM
Thursday, May 22, 2014

Theater Review: American Hero Doesn't Deliver by Jesse Green

The woe of hard work — the conflict between the dignity of labor and the indignity of actual laboring — has long been a favorite theatrical theme, with only the particulars changing to s…

SOURCE: Vulture at 10:00PM
Sunday, May 18, 2014

Theater Review: Try To Avoid Too Much Sun by Jesse Green

Euripides wasn’t much of a yock-meister, but his Medea is getting most of the laughs in Nicky Silver’s new supposed-to-be-a-comedy, Too Much Sun. Now at the Vineyard in a grim production…

SOURCE: Vulture at 10:00PM
Friday, May 9, 2014

Theater Review: Irma la Douce -- Vulture by Jesse Green

Whores are so jolly. At least in France. Take Irma la Douce, that charming poule: What won’t she get into! First, she falls in love with a law student who figures out a way to get her off …

SOURCE: Vulture at 04:53PM
Sunday, January 26, 2014

Showtime by Jesse Green

Find your theatrical match.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 07:38PM
Monday, January 13, 2014

Theater Review: A Natural Woman and Not Much Else in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical by Jesse Green

If the recently dead Funny Girl revival ever gets resurrected, producers should look no further than the stage of the Stephen Sondheim Theatre for their Fanny Brice.

SOURCE: Vulture at 04:57PM
Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Jesse Green’s Top 10 Plays of 2013 -- Vulture by Jesse Green

Fun Home, The Glass Menagerie, and more.

SOURCE: Vulture at 04:43PM
Sunday, December 8, 2013

The 10 Best Plays of the Year by Jesse Green

Jesse Green on The Flick, Fun Home, The Glass Menagerie, and more.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 07:27PM
Monday, November 4, 2013

Theater Review: After Midnight -- Vulture by Jesse Green

Opulent yet tasteful, wild but disciplined, kinetic and sexy but smart, smart, smart.

SOURCE: Vulture at 04:33PM
Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Theater Review: The Nance Makes Ideal Use of Nathan Lane by Jesse Green

Douglas Carter Beane has written Nathan Lane his best new role in years.-- Delivered by Feed43 service

SOURCE: Vulture at 04:29AM
Sunday, March 4, 2012

“When in Doubt, Seduce” by Jesse Green

Mike Nichols— director of the new revival of Death of a Salesman—has always had a knack for making people cry, or laugh until they cry, or both.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 09:52PM
Monday, December 26, 2011

A House of Mirrors Called 'Smash' by Jesse Green

The TV show about the making of a Broadway musical that could actually become a Broadway musical. Starring Debra Messing, Marilyn Monroe, Theresa Rebeck, the guys who did Hairspray, and Ste…

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 08:15AM
Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sondheim Baby by Jesse Green

Bernadette Peters goes from boop-a-doop to dark.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 10:28PM
Sunday, April 17, 2011

His Way by Jesse Green

Joel Grey has learned to be more positive about life. which is a good thing, because he’s so damn busy.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 10:32PM
Sunday, October 31, 2010

Endurance Art by Jesse Green

The persistence of long-attention-span theater.

SOURCE: New York Magazine at 09:43PM

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 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic