5,772 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
Six shows are opening on Broadway this month, including the much anticipated  “Frozen,” and starry revivals of both “Angels in America” and “Three Tall Women…
"The Zoo Story" was Edward Albee's first play, and in a way mine too. He wrote it when he was 29, and the short one-act play launched his much-honored career as the American playwright most …
The Black Plague has just claimed another victim among the 14th century acting troupe rehearsing "Noah's Flood," when the playwright comes on stage to explain what he's trying to do with "Th…
Azeem is angry. The title character of "An Ordinary Muslim,"a British-born son of Pakistani immigrants, is angry at his wife Saima for her wanting to wear a hajib at her office, fearing that…
It's hard to know what to call "Black Light." It’s an entertainment for certain. It’s also an act of healing and an act of warning in these turbulent times. It begins: What if I …
It might sound unenlightened to call Relevance a catfight between two feminists. Jayne Houdyshell and Pascale Armand, after all, are portraying characters explicitly identified as "public in…
It might sound unenlightened to call Relevance a catfight between two feminists. Jayne Houdyshell and Pascale Armand, after all, are portraying characters explicitly identified as "public in…
In "Is God Is," when twin sisters Racine and Anaia hear from their mother for the first time in 18 years, it is to urge them to find and kill their father " as revenge for the fire he set th…
David Mamet has revealed in an interview in the Chicago Tribune that he has written a play about Harvey Weinstein. "I was talking with my Broadway producer and he said, 'Why don't you write …
Jerry Springer the Opera is profane, vulgar, obvious, offensive and irresistibly entertaining " at least in the first act, when it offers a high art version of the TV talk show that has aime…
Jerry Springer the Opera is profane, vulgar, obvious, offensive and irresistibly entertaining " at least in the first act, when it offers a high art version of the TV talk show that has aime…
The announcement of forthcoming Broadway productions of Torch Song, a pioneering play about a gay character, and a stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a drama about a ca…
Eller (Deirdre O’Connell) is losing her mind, and thus lives in two worlds on stage in "Terminus," a lyrical, Southern Gothic stew of a play by Gabriel Jason Dean running through March…
"There is one thing about which we all agree, left, right, center: Money has corrupted our politics," says Rep. Sydney Millsap (Eisa Davis), summing up the point and the plot of "Kings," a n…
Below is my annual Presidents Day photo essay of a century’s worth of stage depictions of American presidents. Nearly every president has been depicted on the stage at one time or a…
The mass shooting on Valentine's Day at a Florida high school is the latest in a long line of school shootings, some of which are instantly identifiable: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook…
"Nice to meet you, Kevin. Do you want me to actually kiss Kevin, or Kevin, do you mind if we kiss? You look young, I don't want to traumatize you." That's what the actress says to her direct…
President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget proposes ELIMINATING the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (T…
Remarkable changes are underway to make Broadway more accessible " hastened by technology, hindered by public attitudes as I explain in an article in HowlRound based on the Broadway Acces…
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Encores! concert series at City Center is doing something in "Hey Look Me Over" that it's never done before " and, judging from the results, probably s…
I went to The Tank for a show that wasn't playing until the next night; I'd gotten the dates mixed up. So, since I'd made the trip, I asked if there was anything else playing in the theater.…
Perhaps you'd think it chutzpah that in "In The Body of the World," the latest solo show by Eve Ensler, best known for "The Vagina Monologues," she merges her story of her fight against uter…
It’s always sad to have to say goodbye to an artist whom we’ve loved, so how thrilling to welcome one into the world. Int. Hospital Room. Night. [The screams reach a delirious cr…
Hands down the most watchable commercial during the Super Bowl 2018 game was the “Dirty Dancing" sequence starring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr. of the New York Giants, in what mu…
