“Bullying is an unfortunate part of our society,” writes Ahmed Shayef,  seventh-grader at M.S. 577 in Brooklyn, who won a walk-on role in A Christmas Story as a result o…
"What to do on New Year's Eve is always the puzzlement," Harvey Fierstein wrote this week. "But I think pot luck here at the barn with friends sound sanest. Music. Giggles." But what about N…
How much you were paying attention to New York theater this month… and this year? Answer these 10 questions and find out.
In 1885, at the age of 20, Wilson Alwyn Bentley hooked up a large camera with a microscope and photographed his first snowflake.
People the world over know tomorrow as Christmas. But Les Miz fans know it as the U.S. release of the movie Les Miserables. My review of the movie. It is never too late to give a gift for th…
Playwright Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) wrote the screenplay of Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg. He talks about it with Bill Moyers, in-between clips from the movie.
This Oscar-winning 2002 documentary about America’s romance with gun violence is centered on the mass shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. The film is funny, sad, insig…
The video was created by Raymond J. Lee. The song “Always” is by Scott Alan. The song is performed by Eden Espinosa, Jane Monheit, and Christiane Noll Participating in the vidoe:…
 After I compiled the top ten lists of top ten theater of 2012, a reader asked me to point out which of these shows you can still see. It occurred to me that the answer was — almost…
Near the end of "Les Miserables,"Â Eddie Redmayne, his face filling up the screen, sheds a tear as he sings: Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me What your sacrifice was for Empt…
One day remains to enter my contest for free tickets and merchandise to Les Miserables, the movie opening on December 25. A week left to shop for holiday gifts for theater lovers I've got tw…
26 Names by Jason Robert Brown When I first heard of the shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, I was reading the chapters on the debate over slavery in…
There are several great pleasures in "Golden Boy," the play by Clifford Odets about gifted Italian-American violinist Joe Bonaparte who gives up his art for the life and quick fortune of a b…
When did it become unfashionable for Americans to call ourselves "workers"? Certainly, it goes back way before 1978. That was when "Working" opened on Broadway, a musical co-conceived by the…
Right up there with being told there is no Santa Claus is the news, suddenly prevalent, that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is not just a sweet duet for the holidays. First some…
GIVEAWAY TO Les Miserables Enter to win the following: $25 Fandango Gift Card to see Les Miserables in any U.S. movie theater available for ticketing on Fandango.com or your mobile device…
The last of the 19 shows that made up Broadway Fall 2012  opened this past week, and the assessments of the season have begun. So far: meh. Critical consensus: We are not living in Br…
I once asked Luciano Pavarotti what opera meant; the great tenor gave me a baffled look, but he answered that opera was not difficult to comprehend. Farmers played opera in barns to increase…
It is easy to see 45th Street this week as the Tale of Two Mamets. David Mamet's new play, "The Anarchist" is a verified flop, set to close two weeks after it opened. Meanwhile, "Glengarry G…
Here are the ten best plays or musicals that opened (mostly in New York) in 2012, according to 10 critics, including me. That is what this post will wind up being, anyway. I don't have 10 ye…
Clifford Odets' Golden Boy, first presented on Broadway at the Belasco Theater 75 years ago, is back at the Belasco, for the second-ever Broadway revival about a man who defies his family an…
Can theater teach us anything about love? Three very different shows I reviewed this week all believe so " the Flux Theatre Ensemble’s production of "Hearts Like Fist,” "The Drun…
When I first heard about "The Anarchist," David Mamet's play pitting Patti LuPone as an incarcerated violent radical against Debra Winger as her jailer, I immediately pictured the townhouse …
T'was not a great week to be jolly for many in New York theater, with stars leaving shows, closing announcements, and Broadway openings marred by pans. On the other hand, there was some good…