5,851 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
On the week that thousands protested in the theater district as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, two shows opened on Broadway: "The Mountaintop," about Martin Luther King Jr. and "Ma…
How is it that "The Lyons" is the most enjoyable play I have seen so far this season? The characters are unhappy and unpleasant, and not only that, they are the kind of people we've seen on …
Occupy Wall Street has spread around the world. Thousands of protesters demonstrated in Times Square this weekend, passing by the American Airlines Theater, home to "Man and Boy," a play sta…
There is a shocking moment halfway through "The Mountaintop," the play starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett that imagines the last night that Martin Luther King Jr. is alive. It is …
Jerry Herman's first Broadway musical, with a surprisingly varied score and a dated story about Americans finding love in Israel, is given a competent barebones revival by Musicals T…
This week in New York theater began with the promise of Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. coming to Broadway, and ended with the possibility of two of each. Another possibility: Michael C. H…
Everybody from Louis Armstrong to Bobby Darin to Sting has recorded its music; Bob Dylan has said he was "aroused straightaway by the raw intensity of the songs." It's been on Broadway seven…
Only one show opened on Broadway in September. In October, there will be four: Man and Boy with Frank Langella, October 9; The Mountaintop, with Samuel Jackson and Angela Bassett, October 13…
A terrific cast and a respect for Jane Austen's language help make this latest staging of the beloved novel a worthy entertainment, even while the score is not ideal.
Featuring actual teenagers playing fake ones, "Kissless" seems clueless, but thanks to some strong-voiced songs and choreography it's not worthless.
With a cast that includes Jonathan Groff ("Spring Awakening," "Glee") and Rutina Wesley, who as Tara was just killed (perhaps permanently?) in the "True Blood" season finale, "The Submission…
The action this week in New York Theater has been largely off Broadway and even Off-Off Broadway. Off-Broadway Week begins today, two-for-one tickets until October 9th. The winners of the Ne…
“These awards celebrate our incredulity that things ever go right,” said playwright John Patrick Shanley Robert, one of the presenters for the seventh annual New York Innovative …
The marquees are going up, the new Broadway season has begun — with the opening of the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies”. (Technically, the new season began in …
A theater full of girls ages 13 to 15 are enthralled by the speaker on the stage, Gloria Steinem, who is speaking at the Talkback after "Facebook Me," a fascinating theater piece written and…
The announcement that "Freud's Last Session" was leaving the Upper West Side for Midtown gave me a guilty conscience. I thought I should see the show before it departs its natural habitat; t…
In 1997, a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima was arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub, taken to the 70th police precinct, and sodomized with a wooden handle, which was then used to bash …
When the sequined ghosts of showgirls past appear at the beginning of "Follies," a revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical opening tonight whose delights edge out its disappointments, the pe…
When the Elevator Repair Service theater company staged "Gatz" last year, one critic gushed that it represented a new genre in theater, a hybrid of book (Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby") and…
Sept. 11 affects a New Jersey Muslim family in this play by Rehana Lew Mirza, which, originally mounted on the first anniversary of that event, doesn't compel in revival.
From the moment the six members of the Fiasco Theater tell us to turn off our cell phones by singing a polished melody, it is clear these entertainers could spin magic from a bologna sandwic…
The Fringe Festival ended two days earlier than planned because of Hurricane Irene, which knocked out the closing night party, and the last-second chance to see shows with big buzz. Eighteen…
Lea Michele Sarfati was born a quarter-century ago today, August 29, 1986. As Lea Michele, she debuted on Broadway at age eight as Young Cosette in Les Miserables, and subsequently had roles…
Writer and performer Ali Kennedy Scott portrays five survivors of a natural catastrophe in Australia, but her delineation of character needs to be deeper and more distinct.
OK, yes, we first see the creator of the Spider-Man musical Julie Taymor " renamed Julie Paymore (get it?) " in a straitjacket and mask a la Hannibal the Cannibal in "Silence of the Lambs." …
