All stories by Richard Seff on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Inventing Mary Martin by Richard Seff

This “revue of a lifetime” is a good idea, well intentioned, occasionally very well executed, but unfortunately off its mark as often as it is on. Conceived and written by Stephe…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:25AM
Monday, May 5, 2014

The Velocity of Autumn by Richard Seff

It’s alarming to have to report that Eric Coble’s two hander which starred Estelle Parsons and Stephen Spinella closed Sunday night after 16 performances on Broadway. A battery o…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:48PM

Annapurna by Richard Seff

Annapurna  is a mountain that rises some 26,000 feet in the northern part of Nepal. It was once climbed by two men who just made it to the peak, only to make one fatal mistake on their way …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:06AM
Friday, May 2, 2014

Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina by Richard Seff

Harvey Fierstein has recently joined Thomas Meehan and James Lapine on the A list of writers whom the establishment calls upon to crank out a book for a new musical, replacing Terrence McNal…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:38AM
Thursday, May 1, 2014

Andy Karl comes up a winner in Rocky by Richard Seff

For those of you who remember, and cherish, the original Rocky film that made an instant star of Sylvester “Sly” Stallone, here’s what you have to know.  Thomas Meehan, St…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:54PM
Monday, April 28, 2014

Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Neil Patrick Harris gives performance of the season by Richard Seff

At the Belasco Theatre on Broadway, Neil Patrick Harris is giving the performance of the season in a role that stretches into someone not even remotely related to “Doogie Howser, MD…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:59AM
Friday, April 25, 2014

Daniel Radcliffe is perfection in moody Cripple of Inishmaan by Richard Seff

The current revival of Martin McDonagh’s play, its first shot at Broadway after two off/Broadway incarnations in the late 1990s, makes clear one fact. That is that Daniel Radcliffe, th…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:41AM
Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Heir Apparent by Richard Seff

Jean-François Regnard is not a name that has been on everyone’s lips in recent years. But leave it to comic playwright David Ives to resurrect him and use one of Regnard’s plays…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:00PM
Monday, April 21, 2014

“Unforgettable” – Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by Richard Seff

As you enter New York’s Circle in the Square, you are faced with the stage floor transformed into a small cabaret in which a jazz trio is entertaining some 30 or 40 people seated at ta…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:57AM

Bullets Over Broadway by Richard Seff

I had  the feeling, while watching the new Susan Stroman-Woody Allen musical, that it might have been conceived during something like the following conversation: SS:  “Woody, I’…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:00AM
Friday, April 18, 2014

Moss Hart tribute, Act One by Richard Seff

Moss Hart’s autobiographical “Act One”  was an instant best seller when it was published by Random House in 1959, and it has remained in print ever since. The book was cri…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:37AM
Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Les Miserables, re-invented, returns to Broadway by Richard Seff

It is so extraordinary to see the name of one man above the title of a show, listed as Producer. Unless that man is Cameron Mackintosh, the Florenz Ziegfeld, Harold Prince, David Merrick of …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:16AM
Friday, April 11, 2014

The Realistic Joneses by Richard Seff

Will Eno’s oddball play is a surprising last minute addition to the very rich ’13-’14 Broadway season, as it arrives starring four excellent actors who will help it find an…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:21AM
Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The Most Happy Fella at Encores! by Richard Seff

I’m doing this article on Frank Loesser’s master work even though it was performed as part of the NY Encores! season for only seven performances, and if you didn’t see  it…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:00PM
Monday, April 7, 2014

Denzel Williams and company shine in A Raisin in the Sun by Richard Seff

When this Lorraine Hansberry drama first appeared on Broadway in 1959 it created a stir, for it was the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on the main stem. Later that se…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:28AM
Friday, April 4, 2014

All the Way by Richard Seff

Broadway is moving closer to returning to the days of 25 actors filling a stage, of Street Scene and The Green Pastures and You Can’t Take It With You, and this one plays out in sugges…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:19AM
Monday, March 31, 2014

Tales from Red Vienna by Richard Seff

David Grimm, the author of this new three act play,  has had other works  produced at the Rattlestick, the Public, at Hartford Stage and in La Jolla among the Regionals. He is a seasoned p…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:09AM
Monday, March 10, 2014

Charles Busch’s The Tribute Artist by Richard Seff

Charles Busch is a gifted writer of comedies that have light hearts and he writes them with nimble fingers. By that I mean they are gossamer — lighter than air, they invite you to join…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:51AM

Emma Thompson in Sweeney Todd – a night to remember by Richard Seff

Stephen Sondheim’s master work has been seen on Broadway in revival several times, and in a movie starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Onstage it has attracted  the likes of…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:48AM
Friday, March 7, 2014

The Bridges of Madison County by Richard Seff

There is an old French proverb that translates into “the more things change the more they stay the same.” The Bridges of Madison County, the romantic musical drama at the Schoenf…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:31AM
Monday, March 3, 2014

London Wall by Richard Seff

The Mint Theatre is minting some gold this month, as it brings us the American premiere of a little known John Van Druten play from the early 1930s. LONDON WALL is its name, which is the add…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:47AM
Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Sheldon Harnick’s Malpractice Makes Perfect by Richard Seff

Molière (real name: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) was the mid-seventeenth century French fellow who liked to poke fun at virtually everyone who lived  in his time. He ridiculed hypochondriacs, m…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:21AM
Monday, February 10, 2014

Here’s to them! – Little Me at Encores by Richard Seff

I’ve not written of the Encores! series before, though it’s been entertaining New Yorkers for twenty consecutive years since 1994. It was intended to be a series of  staged read…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:37PM
Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Sheldon Harnick in mufti at The York by Richard Seff

The York Theatre Company, an attractive beehive producing unit, is buried two levels below the ground in the Citicorp Building on East 54th Street just off Lexington Avenue. In addition to m…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:11AM
Saturday, February 1, 2014

Outside Mullingar by Richard Seff

Anthony Reilly and Rosemary Muldoon live on neighboring farms in the Midlands of Ireland. Their story is set in time by author John Patrick Shanley, as “recently”.  As played by…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:22AM
Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The Consultant by Richard Seff

The Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven has long been the home of world and regional premieres of new plays by interesting authors, carefully screened and considered to be on the brink of major …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:58AM
Friday, January 17, 2014

Machinal by Richard Seff

Be warned. The Roundabout Theatre Company has mounted such an effective production of Sophie Treadwell’s expressionistic drama Machinal (originally a Broadway entry in the 1928-29 seas…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:25AM
Monday, January 13, 2014

Beautiful, The Carole King Musical opens on Broadway by Richard Seff

This musical bio of song writer Carole King might have been called BEAUTIFUL – On Broadway, for though it purports to show us Carole King and her music, the musical includes half a doz…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:05PM

Beautiful: The Carol King Musical by Richard Seff

This musical bio of song writer Carole King might have been called BEAUTIFUL – On Broadway, for though it purports to show us Carole King and her music, the musical includes half a doz…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:02AM
Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Night Alive by Richard Seff

The Irish playwright Conor McPherson has written several excellent plays, and at least four of them have made the journey to New York, establishing him as a major contributor to our scene. T…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:27AM
Friday, December 20, 2013

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder by Richard Seff

Pastiche is back in town, settled in for a run on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Some brave and disparate talents got together with a 1907 novel by Roy Horniman, already used as the so…

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:27AM

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