Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera in “The Rink” (1984). Photo by Martha Swope.November 20, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler. In 1984, Liza Minnelli co-starred with Chita …
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 12:15PMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . The delightful Elf is a 2010 Broadway musical based faithfully on the 2003 film comedy of the same name. A perfect Will Farrell vehicle, Elf tells the…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:38AMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . If you haven’t heard by now, Maybe Happy Ending, a new meet-cute musical with two robots as its leading characters has just opened to excellent reviews…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 11:37AMCarol Channing and Sid Caesar in 1971’s “Four on a Garden” (Photo by Martha Swope).November 18, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, By Ron Fassler There used to be a certain subset of…
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 01:41PMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . The name Jack Viertel is a somewhat legendary one in Broadway circles as both a former theatre critic, Tony Award-winning producer, and non-fiction author…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 01:43PMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . Of all the brassy Broadway musicals that blew through town in the 1960s, Skyscraper is one of the few to receive an original cast recording and then s…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 09:49AMEstelle Parsons as Violet Weston in “August: Osage Country” (2008).November 8, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler In New York City this week, an unseasonably warm Novemb…
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 10:06AMThe company of “Ragtime” at City Center (photo by Joan Marcus).November 4, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler Last June, as I exited the City Center Encores! production …
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 05:15PMReview by Ron Fassler I’m a longtime fan of MasterVoices, a performing arts organization which continues to thrive after undergoing many changes in its long history. Founded in 1941, it ha…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 06:23PMReview by Ron Fassler . . . Oscar Hammerstein II was a man of many accomplishments, though he will be best remembered for three indisputably monumental things: 1) He wrote Show Boat with J…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 02:41PMAdvertising used throughout “Man of La Mancha’s” six-year run (1965–1971).October 29, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler As a teenager and developing theatre nerd of …
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 08:52AMTheater Review by Ron Fassler . . . Well, knock me over with a feather. I really liked Jamie Lloyd’s sexually charged, visually exhilarating, and highly conceptualized Sunset Boulevard, n…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 02:21PMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . Sponsored by the Mabel Mercer Foundation, the 35th annual New York Cabaret Convention was presented over a three-night period this past week at Rose Hall …
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:57AMThe incredibly photogenic Lee Remick (1935–91).October 24, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today by Ron Fassler In 1982, when John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God was trying out in Boston, the top…
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 11:16AMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . Actor and Playwright James Hindman’s What Doesn’t Kill You, which recently opened at the 59E59 Theaters complex in midtown, has just been extended th…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:51AMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . The lyric writers of popular song have never attracted nearly the spotlight the way composers do in receiving the lion’s share of attention. As Ira Gers…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:14AMTheater Review by Ron Fassler . . . It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly twenty years since The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee opened on Broadway. It arrived during one of th…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:00PMRichard Mulligan with his two leading ladies: Valerie Harper and Marlo Thomas in “Thieves” (1974).October 16, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler. For those with a sense o…
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 11:45AMMusic Review By Ron Fassler . . . It’s hard to believe that Kelli O’Hara, an ingenue’s ingenue if there ever was one, first made her Broadway debut close to twenty-five years ago. Sinc…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 12:50PMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . All is right with the world when Marilyn Maye is in town and performing in a small room packed with her fans. And at ninety-six, she still has the charm…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:54AMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . Picture the surprise gasp from the audience as the curtain rose on Our Town at its premiere in 1938. The sight of there being no scenery must have shock…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:50PMTheater Review by Ron Fassler . . . David Cromer is one of the most in-demand directors in the theatre. With his choice of projects his for the asking, when a play arrives with his name atta…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:05PMHunter Foster and Kerry Butler in “Little Shop of Horrors” (2003).October 9, 2024: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler Amongst the legendary stories of Broadway shows that have…
SOURCE: ronfassler.medium.com at 12:17PMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . When I was a boy interested in musicals, the scores Anthony Newley wrote (with Leslie Bricusse) for Stop the World I Want to Get Off and The Roar of th…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 09:00AMOctober 6, 2024 Theater Review by Ron Fassler . . . It’s big (well, not that big). It’s gay (it’s very gay). And if a log line like “Stacey woke up in some b*tch ass Music Man …
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:53PMOctober 5, 2024 Theatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . If you like a play that starts slowly and takes its time setting up characters and the world in which they live, then builds inexorably to…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 06:04PMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . This past spring, song stylist Ann Kittredge released an album titled “Romantic Notions,” her musings on the theme of love covering more than a do…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 10:04AMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . Conceived and directed by Stephen Sachs, Fatherland is a powerful verbatim play that is currently at New York City Center Stage II through November 2…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 09:23AMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . Cabaret regular Renee Katz is back with a new show at Don’t Tell Mama titled “Lost in His Arms.” It doesn’t take much of a sleuth to figure…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 11:19AMCabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . I’ve never had the pleasure until the other night at 54 Below of seeing Cheyenne Jackson onstage. Well aware of his talents, and having seen him in such…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 08:10PMTheatre Review by Ron Fassler . . . Political satire isn’t an easy thing to pull off. Ask the folks at Saturday Night Live who’ve been doing it for fifty years (and those are just sk…
SOURCE: theaterpizzazz.com at 08:44AM