5,771 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
The last time "Elf: The Musical" was on Broadway, during the holiday season a dozen years ago, I saw an autism-friendly performance of it. This turned out to be a great way to view this stag…
Allee Willis, a Tony-nominated songwriter for "The Color Purple," had trouble getting the gig.  "You've never written for the theater before, and you're not Black,"  Broadway pro…
A few years in the future,  the debate will no longer be whether or not climate change is a "hoax," as the president-elect in 2024 claims, but whether there is any possibility of survi…
The Palace Theater, the venue for this disappointing British import about the rise and fall of American televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, feels like a metaphor for the musical, but in reverse…
In forty years, there will still be fireflies, and there will still be love. But fireflies will only still exist on Jeju Island near Seoul, Korea, and when Oliver and Claire (Darren Criss an…
When he's told that the State Department wants him to tour the world representing the United States of America, Louis Armstrong and his fourth wife Lucille both laugh in disbelief. "Louis cu…
The news zipper at One Times Square proclaimed "Trump's Win Brings New Era of Uncertainty,"Â Â and Saturday Night Live cast member Kate McKinnon solemnly performed the song "Hallelujah,"…
Long before he became a Tony-winning playwright, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins enrolled at NYU in hopes of becoming a downtown performance artist, and took a course taught by Carmelita Tropicana, w…
So much in "Ragtime" played out differently for me because I saw it a week into its twelve-day run at New York City Center " after, rather than before, the results of the 2024 Presidential e…
Six albums have been nominated for the best musical theater album Grammy Award, all of them of current or recent Broadway shows (the third consecutive year that only Broadway cast recordings…
"I will do my best to serve ALL citizens of Oz," His Majesty the Scarecrow tells his subjects, having been appointed by the Wizard of Oz and Glinda the Good Witch to rule over Emerald City, …
"A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. ," Kamala Harris said at Howard University this afternoon, conceding the presidential …
Today is Election Day. You can vote until 9 pm. Â (Find Your Pollsite and View Your Sample Ballot) And until 6 p.m. you can watch Lin-Manuel Miranda, Martin Short, Judy Kuhn, Rosie Perez a…
More than a million New Yorkers voted during the nine days of early voting, which ended Sunday afternoon after a campaign season filled with more drama than any in memory. How will future dr…
George and Ira Gershwin wrote the songs for a trio of political satires in the 1930s,  the last of which, "Let 'Em Eat Cake," was about a president who loses his bid for re-election an…
See the Broadway performance schedule for the week of November 4 below. All but a half dozen Broadway shows are canceling their performances on Tuesday, November 5 " Election Day " whi…
Below is a selection of theater opening* in New York in November, including six shows on Broadway, all of them musicals " two of them about the well-known real-life Americans Tammy Faye B…
How well were you paying attention to the theater news and reviews during last full month before Election 2024? Answer these ten quiz questions and find out. Loading…
"Nearly 250 years ago, America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant. Across the generations, Americans have preserved that freedom, expanded it, and in so doing, proved to th…
In Sarah Mantell's play, a group of itinerant Amazon warehouse workers spend their days moving packages from conveyor belts to utility carts, and their nights in what could be called a marri…
Every item handmade by a Haitian has to tell a story of hardship, a businessman named Thomas tells Gigi, who is hoping he will connect his international customers to the luxury goods she …
The uncertainty of the presidential election next week, far scarier than Halloween, has colored many events this week  " certainly the  "appalling" decision by two major newsp…
The Arab Spring, a wave of demonstrations by citizens demanding democracy in some dozen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, now seems like distant history. But the uprisings were …
All eyes in "Sunset Blvd" have been focused on the fierce, full-throated and humongously-photographed performance by Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond, the once-reigning silent movie queen…
  This is a Romeo and Juliet aimed unapologetically at Gen Z: Its two stars, fan-magnets Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, are both under 25. They lead a young cast, all but two of whom ar…
