All stories by Richard Seff on BroadwayStars

Thursday, April 28, 2022

THE MINUTES at Studio 54 by Richard Seff

In his new Broadway play, Playwright/Actor Tracy Letts has invited us  in to witness the reading of the minutes at a November weekly meeting of the City Council of the town of Big Cherry. M…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 02:50PM
Friday, April 22, 2022

HANGMEN at the John Golden Theatre by Richard Seff

It seems to me a very odd time to be bringing back Martin McDonagh’s play,  written and first produced in the mid 1960s, yet here it is at the Golden Theater on Broadway, in a smashingly …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 12:20PM
Sunday, April 17, 2022

THE LITTLE PRINCE at The Broadway Theatre by Richard Seff

If you think you have an inner child within you, one who has been yearning  to emerge, you might find something to engage, stimulate, enlighten, and entertain you in “The Little Prince,�…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 03:22PM
Friday, April 15, 2022

Birthday Candles by Richard Seff

Todd Haimes, the Artistic Director of the Roundabout Theatre Company, tells us in the Playbill for this production that the play first went into rehearsal on March 3, 2020.  Because of  th…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 10:29AM
Saturday, March 5, 2022

PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC at the Manhattan Theatre Club Stage I, CITY CENTER by Richard Seff

Once you unravel and then connect the on and offstage characters, you will find much to admire in Joshua Harmon’s new play, a major new work from this gifted playwright. It is helped enorm…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 03:05PM
Friday, February 25, 2022

THE DAUGHTER IN LAW at the The Mint Theater Company in City Center, Stage II by Richard Seff

I’ve held back my review of this revival of a play by D.H.Lawrence for a day in order to research its history, because it was written in 1913 and put away by Lawrence without a produc…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 02:47PM
Friday, February 18, 2022

INTIMATE APPAREL in The Mitzi Newhouse Theatre at Lincoln Center by Richard Seff

Andre Bishop and the Lincoln Center Theater are presenting a new opera called “Intimate Apparel.” It’s an adaptation of Lynn Nottage’s play of the same name and carries an opera sco…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:11PM

THE MUSIC MAN at the Winter Garden Theatre by Richard Seff

Meredith Willson’s “Music Man” first blew into River City, Iowa, in 1957 with Robert Preston and Barbara Cook along for the ride, and now he’s back 45 years later with Hugh Jackman …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:59PM
Sunday, February 6, 2022

The Tap Dance Kid at Encores! in City Center by Richard Seff

I could sense the air of anticipation as we waited for the matinee on February 6 to begin. Encores!, the much loved series that City Center in New York introduced in 1994, was about to re…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:46PM
Friday, February 4, 2022

MJ at the Neil Simon Theatre by Richard Seff

My professional life has been spent in live theatre, film, television–as a playwright, actor,  memoirist , librettist, reviewer, and grateful member of  the audience. My interest in musi…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 02:45PM
Saturday, December 11, 2021

Mrs. Doubtfire at the Sondheim Theater by Richard Seff

When it comes to musical theatre, I admit I am more ‘then” than “now.” It’s how I was trained, and I go back to a different time to the plays and musicals of the 1940s when there w…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 03:23PM
Monday, December 6, 2021

Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood by Richard Seff

The York Theatre Company, which is committed to giving life to new and revised musicals, has been doing so under the direction of designer James Morgan as Producing Artistic Director for the…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 03:25PM

Company at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre by Richard Seff

Saturday, December 2, will now become a red letter day for me. I arrived at the theatre at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre at 1:15 for a 2:00 matinee preview of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 03:11PM
Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Trouble in Mind by Richard Seff

Seated in the American Airlines Theatre at a recent matinee, I had the feeling that I was not watching a show but was instead privileged to be observing a cast of fine actors as they went ab…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:34PM
Monday, October 25, 2021

Fairycakes by Richard Seff

Douglas Carter Beane was Artistic Director for the Drama Department at Greenwich House Theatre for ten years and in recent times has written a number of merry plays including “The Little …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:41PM

The Lehman Trilogy by Richard Seff

This three act play runs three hours and fifteen minutes, and it is–in a word–a Blockbuster! From start to finish it is eloquent, informed, imaginatively staged, and brilliantly acted b…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:27PM
Saturday, October 16, 2021

Lackawanna Blues by Richard Seff

Ruben Santiago-Hudson is an extraordinary actor, and he is using his gifts to our advantage in this one-man play at the Samuel J Friedman Theatre on Broadway. Ably supported by music compose…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:06PM
Saturday, October 9, 2021

Six by Richard Seff

Here we have it, an early offering after the Pandemic drought, a new musical playing eight performances a week in a Broadway theatre. That in itself  is big news since the theatre district …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 01:50PM
Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Broadway Returns with “PASS OVER” by Richard Seff

A playwright with a powerful voice and a director of taste and imagination have joined forces to end the 18 month drought on Broadway of plays, musicals, revues, and other forms of live enli…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 08:35PM
Friday, March 6, 2020

“West Side Story” is reborn by Richard Seff

Full disclosure: I still vividly remember the night the original company of this masterful musical opened on Broadway. It was September 26, 1957; and I was there because I, as a young agent,…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:30PM
Monday, February 17, 2020

“The Confession of Lily Dare” at the Cherry Lane Theatre by Richard Seff

Playwright and actor Charles Busch is back among us offering a new comedy with serious undertones which takes aim at the “weepy” film genre that was popular from the days of silent films…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:50PM
Thursday, February 6, 2020

“A Soldier’s Play” at the American Airlines Theatre by Richard Seff

Dealing as it does with the incipient integration of black servicemen in the Army in 1944 (The Armed Services were formally integrated in 1948), this new production of Charles Fuller’s Pul…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 12:14PM
Monday, January 27, 2020

“Paradise Lost” at the Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row by Richard Seff

From John Milton’s 1667 epic poem in blank verse, playwright Tom Dulack has created his own 100 minute one-act play also called “Paradise Lost.” Currently playing out a limited run tha…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:24PM
Sunday, January 19, 2020

“My Name is Lucy Barton” at the Manhattan Theatre Club by Richard Seff

There is a photo of Laura Linney on the cover of this play’s Playbill—a photo that is luminous and wistful and wise. Her eyes are focused on the distance outside the frame; her lips are …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 12:53PM
Friday, January 3, 2020

From Jersey City to his start on Broadway, little known stories of Jerry Herman by Richard Seff

Broadway lights will dim on January 7, 2020 at 6:45 p.m. for Jerry Herman, who died on Thursday, December 26 at the age of  88, and at the end of a year that saw at its beginning the death …

SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:12PM
Wednesday, December 25, 2019

“London Assurance” at the Irish Repertory Theatre by Richard Seff

Dion Boucicault lived through seventy years of the 19th century and spent fifty of them writing plays. He was only twenty-one when he delivered this stylish comedy of manners;  it was  his…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 12:25PM
Tuesday, December 17, 2019

“Harry Townsend’s Last Stand” at New York City Center, Stage 2 by Richard Seff

Younger audiences may prefer their theatre either as a seven hour epic or as a neatly-tied, ninety-minute, one-act bundle; but George Eastman’s play takes the middle of the road aiming to …

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 04:09PM
Sunday, December 1, 2019

“A Bright Room Called Day” at the Public Theatre by Richard Seff

Tony Kushner wrote this play in 1985 when he was 29 years old. It deals with the early 1930s in Germany, the years in which the Weimar Republic was beginning to crumble, and Adolf Hitler was…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 06:37PM
Saturday, November 23, 2019

“The Inheritance” at The Ethel Barrymore Theatre by Richard Seff

It’s a good idea to prepare yourself if you plan to see both parts of Mr. Lopez’s play at matinee and evening in the same day. It can be done at 1:00 PM and again at 7:00 PM. Make certai…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 11:10AM
Sunday, November 17, 2019

“Tina: the Tina Turner Musical” at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre by Richard Seff

  If you happen to be passing the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on 46th Street any evening around 9:30 (some nights at 10:30), and you hear a roar emanate from the  theatre’s lobby, don’t be a…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 01:10PM
Sunday, November 3, 2019

“Little Shop of Horrors” at the Westside Theatre by Richard Seff

To get right to it—there is an anticipatory glow, even as we settle into our seats, that shouts at us from the house curtain with the musical’s title splashed across it in all its gory g…

SOURCE: onandoffbroadwaytheaterreviews.com at 05:10PM

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
TBA: Ragtime