1,783 stories by "ELISABETH VINCENTELLI"
The Encores! production of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is like a dessert stuffed with juicy morsels. Why quibble because the cake doesn't always hold the fruity bits together?
The lushest ni…
If the New Group company's new drama, "An Early History of Fire," were by a rookie, you could blame its mediocrity on inexperience. But the author is David Rabe, the Tony-winning writer of "…
This production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" looks real good. And not just because the cast includes Christina Ricci, Bebe Neuwirth and at least two guys who can't act but ha…
Even if you haven't caught the movie it's based on, you can see everything coming a mile away in "Leap of Faith." The only surprise in this predictable, mushy new Broadway musical is how rid…
It's pointless to even try to summarize "Don't Dress for Dinner," a sex farce more tangled than a plate of spaghetti. Actually, there isn't so much a story as a pileup of contrived lies, mis…
Few people today remember journalist Joseph Alsop, but once upon a time he was a big deal.
Or so everybody in "The Columnist," a new Broadway show about him, repeats over and over. That "eve…
There's a lot of fun stuff in "Nice Work If You Can Get It," a new musical made of old parts. For starters, this Gershwin jukebox is loaded with unimpeachable classics and a few brilliant ob…
Ben may be in the throes of terminal cancer, but his wife, Rita, is determined to know what he thinks about redoing their living room.
"I'm dying," he groans.
"Yes, I know," she replies. "Tr…
Something peculiar is happening in "Ghost the Musical." It's nothing to do with the plot, which involves a dead man looking after his (living) girlfriend, and a sham psychic with a 4G connec…
If pumping up improved acting, Sylvester Stallone would have as many Oscars as Meryl Streep, and Channing Tatum would be playing Hamlet.
But sadly, bulging biceps and taut pecs aren't enough…
The new Broadway show "Clybourne Park" is about cultural stereotypes and race relations.
Wait, don't run away!
Bruce Norris' play is also razor-sharp and funny as hell.
When some characters…
Chekhov's "Three Sisters" are unhappy all the time. The two who work are miserable. The married one doesn't love her husband. All of them are sick and tired of their dreary country life, and…
The humor in the new Broadway farce "One Man, Two Guvnors" is so broad, you could drive an 18-wheeler through it " which the actors gleefully do, at 100 mph and without seat belts.
Pratfalls…
Too many shows these days are workshopped or focus-grouped to death. As a result, they're nicely crafted but comfortably safe. "In Masks Outrageous and Austere" is the exact opposite.
This T…
You can do a play about Peter Pan and his gang with top hats, wire-assisted flying and sets that dutifully evoke a 19th-century British home or a tropical island.
Or you can do it with jokes…
There's something primal about one-on-one confrontations, and David Harrower knows it. The Scottish playwright's acclaimed drama "Blackbird" pitted a middle-aged man against a woman with who…
The opening of "Massacre (Sing to Your Children)" is the single scariest minute of the year.
It would spoil the surprise to describe the scene in detail, so let's just say it involves loud m…
What makes "Magic/Bird" work isn't the mystique still attached to its subjects, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, legends though they are.
Rather, the joint tale that opened on Broadway last nig…
Unlike Broadway's "Magic/Bird," which really is about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, "Federer Versus Murray" doesn't focus on those two tennis champions.
That's a bummer, because Gerda Steven…
Last night, "Evita" returned after a 30-year absence from Broadway. The wait was worth it: This is a big, fat, juicy blockbuster of a show.
Naturally, everybody's flipping out over the hot n…
How refreshing that the mismatched leads of "4000 Miles" don't look or act like one of the odd couples we've seen a million times.
Vera " the extraordinary Mary Louise Wilson, who was Big Ed…
Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" has such a bad rep that this new production's program is full of scholarly quotes that basically say, hey, it's really not as chauvinistic as everybod…
Big Broadway performances are polished, sometimes to a fault: They're perfectly enjoyable, but they often lack a certain unpredictable battiness.
Not so with Tracie Bennett's tour de force …
The most memorable part of "The Best Man" is the women.
Gore Vidal's 1960 chestnut may center on three powerful male politicians, but it's the ladies hovering on the periphery who steal this…
It's tough enough to fill an arena when you have a superstar. What do you do without one?
If somebody could come up with a solution, it's Cirque du Soleil, whose latest spectacle, "Michael J…
