2,689 stories by "Gordon Cox"
For most of us, “Grease” stands in our memory as an iconic movie musical, one that’s launched a million karaoke singalongs of “Summer Lovin’.” You might t…
In 1989, Greenwich Village was still the kind of place where a nice old lady like Gladys Green could own and operate an art gallery for unknown artists who never sold a painting to impoveris…
Hans Christian Andersen had his secrets. By day, a revered children's writer — the Greatest of Danes; by night, a repressed brothel habitué. Whitewashed as his legacy has been, it's u…
A novel based on a Broadway show is a rare thing — but there’s one on the shelves now, thanks to the recently released young-adult adaptation of “Dear Evan Hansen.” A…
"What a joy it is to dance and sing!" The words run throughout Angela Carter's last novel "Wise Children," a headlong tumble through the world of London theater, and their spirit is embodied…
Harry Potter had no sense of humor whatsoever, but Daniel Radcliffe proves to be a master of comedy in “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the brainy Broadway play that Jeremy Kareken, Dav…
After a disastrous foray into the world of Joan of Arc with the musical "Joan of Arc: Into the Fire," the Public Theater makes an ill-advised return to the subject with its new production of…
Here comes "Company," remade for today. With Stephen Sondheim's blessing, director Marianne Elliott has given the marital musical an incisive gender-flip. Bobby has become Bobbie; bachelor b…
Aasif Mandvi thinks Hollywood and the entertainment industry are making some positive strides toward inclusion and diversity — but there’s still a lot of work to be done. “…
The digital revolution may be making things tough for the recording industry, and the film and TV business — but it’s a big reason Broadway is as popular as it is today, accordin…
When Bob Dylan’s management team first approached playwright Conor McPherson to create a theater piece using Dylan’s songs, the Irish playwright didn’t exactly leap at the …
"Tootsie," a jaunty new stage musical adaptation of the 1982 movie comedy that starred Dustin Hoffman, has a real degree of currency to it, and it's not because book writer Robert Horn ("13:…
Trailing clouds of glory from runs at London's Old Vic and on the West End, Conor McPherson's Depression-era treatment of classic Bob Dylan material vividly transforms individual songs into …
"I am a fish and snooker is my sea," says Dylan Spokes, an aspiring marlin of a player in "The Nap," the delightfully loopy comedy by the "One Man, Two Guvnors" playwright Richard Bean. Even…
The personal is political. Politics is personal. Few plays understand either statement as fully as "Antony and Cleopatra." In showing us the private lives of politicians — the great lo…
Love the boots! The sexy black ones that Tony winner Janet McTeer (“Sorry For Your Loss,” “Ozark”) dons to play the actress Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Hamlet are …
With the midterm elections looming, Sharr White's bruising political drama about real-life machine politics in 1977 Albany lands at an opportune moment to educate us on how the real pros use…
Edouard Louis' childhood memoir "The End of Eddy" — "an autobiographical novel" — has become an international bestseller, his recollections of growing up gay in a gray, post-indu…
The late actress Sarah Bernhardt shocked theatergoers when she decided to play the title character in “Hamlet” more than a century ago. Janet McTeer, the actress who currently pl…
What's the collective noun for a group of Betties? Based on Jen Silverman's play, "Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties," perhaps "a rage of Betties" would suit. When these five Betties g…
Andy Karl knows a thing or two about Broadway musicals based on movies after playing the UPS guy in “Legally Blonde,” the Italian Stallion himself in “Rocky,” and the…
It’s one thing to be told that the Off Broadway musical “Be More Chill” is a viral hit on the internet. It’s quite another to experience the hype live and in the room…
Every night, just as Summer: The Donna Summer Musical is ending, the party's just beginning. That's how it feels, anyway, when the rousing curtain call " a buoyant, full-cast rendition of Do…
It was Monday morning in a Manhattan recording studio, and the cast of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical knew they'd made magic. The performers and musicians had all gathered on their first d…
When the 1990 movie comedy "Pretty Woman" catapulted Julia Roberts to stardom, it was widely reported that Disney and late director Garry Marshall had tweaked J.F. Lawton's downbeat prostitu…
