1,324 stories by "Charles McNulty"
The Tony Awards sort out a Broadway year divided between the impulse to innovate and the desire to maintain the status quo.
Handicapping Sunday's Tony Awards: Can "Hadestown" beat "Tootsie"? Will Sorkin's "Mockingbird" be redeemed? And will the Tonys justly reward a female director?
The playwright gets personal in this documentary tale about his mother, a psych ward chaplain held captive by a suicidal convict. It's a sly, slippery tale.
Anaïs Mitchell's concept album-turned-folk opera is an exquisite marriage of story and song that advances the art of theater.
Heidi Schreck's "What the Constitution Means to Me" is more than a performance piece: It's the most moving play of the year.
Time passes, and even a contemporary classic can use a nip and tuck. David Henry Hwang, most famous for his Tony-winning 1988 play "M. Butterfly," performed some not insignificant cosmetic s…
The modern classic on gender roles and Orientalism gets an uneven revival at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa directed by Desdemona Chiang.
Helder Guimarães is either a magician posing as a philosopher or a philosopher posing as a magician. But however you classify him, he's excellent company in his new show, "Invisible Tango…
Directed by Frank Marshall and featuring music by Moby, "Invisible Tango" has tricks that astonish and a storytelling charm that's more than mere magic show.
Playwright Lucas Hnath is back on Broadway with "Hillary and Clinton," a zesty drama on America's most picked-apart political couple that finds Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow in top form. I…
With an assist from actors Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow, the new work is yet another way to hear the singular voice of this leading American playwright.
"I just want to do Beckett's 'Happy Days' over and over again," Dianne Wiest declared between nibbles of a poached egg. "I don't want to do anything else, because nothing else comes near it.…
Wiest, in L.A. for Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days." talks theater, "Law & Order" and why she would work with Woody Allen again "in a second."
"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd." These lyrics, sung throughout Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's imperishable 1979 musical, are heeded assiduously by director Kent Nicholson in a solid S…
How old is Dolly Gallagher Levi? The question arises whenever "Hello, Dolly!" is performed. The character is described in Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker," the basis of the musical's book,…
"Daniel's Husband," an absorbing drama by Michael McKeever that was a hit off-Broadway, explores the debate on same-sex marriage from a less obvious angle. Set in the "perfectly appointed" h…
Michael McKeever's poignant drama opens at Fountain Theatre with Bill Brochtrup, Tim Cummings and Jenny O'Hara in a moving, crowd-pleasing production.
Long story short: It was a strange Broadway season " one in which old formulas proved unreliable and a few long-shot experiments yielded unexpected rewards. Rendering an up or down verdict o…
Interior. Restaurant at a Beverly Hills hotel, early March. Music spritzing luxuriously in the background. A publicist finishes her breakfast. In walks a frazzled middle-aged theater critic.…
The Tony nominations send a message of support to artists with fresh sensibilities, but occasionally at the expense of worthier work.
The writer gets snubbed Tuesday by the Tony Awards, but his "How to Kill a Mockingbird" does pick up nine nominations " tying "The Ferryman" for the most nods for any play.
"A Doll's House, Part 2," which is receiving its world premiere at South Coast Repertory, had its official opening on Thursday at Broadway's Golden Theatre in a separate production confirmin…
After a disastrous tea last year, critic and actress meet again, this time to spar about "Lear." Jackson delves into disagreements with director Sam Gold, a powerful female cast including Ru…
"Gulp!" That was my initial reaction when a publicist asked if I'd like to interview Glenda Jackson to discuss her performance in the new Broadway production of "King Lear." Our previous enc…
Bertie Carvel is a chilling media mogul and Johnny Lee Miller is the editor who may lose his soul in James Graham's "Ink," a London import about Murdoch's transformation of British journalis…
