5,771 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
 Below is the day-by-day calendar of "theater openings"* in November 2020. Despite the return of some familiar plays with the original casts, there is little that's comforting about this…
Wallace Shawn wouldn't get into the elevator with me a while back. The elevator was large and empty (except for me) " the one at Lincoln Center Theater that brings theatergoers up to the Cla…
How well were you following theater news and reviews in the month of October? Answer these ten questions to find out. Loading…
Con Melody is a drunk saddled with a run-down tavern outside Boston, who fancies himself a European war hero born in an Irish castle. He's a vain, moody character living an illusion in "A To…
Eighty-four years after theaters in 17 states across America simultaneously opened "It Can't Happen Here," a dramatization of Sinclair Lewis' cautionary tale imagining the rise of fascism in…
Reading these monologues from the early days of COVID-19, many of which I had watched online, made me think of the way Trump impersonator Adam Baldwin on Saturday Night Live recently spoofed…
Below is the video and transcript of the speech by former President Barack Obama in Orlando, Florida on October 27, 2020, in which he lets loose on President Donald Trump. "…you've got a p…
In the week until Election Day, there are overtly political plays, musicals, and operas opening every day, listed below. Also check out political shows that have already opened and are avail…
 The owners of six Off-Broadway theaters and two comedy clubs filed suit against New York on Friday demanding to be allowed to reopen. "Casinos, malls, movie theaters, restaurants, gyms,…
Week in Theater Videos: Trailers for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Prom. To Be Human from Hercules. I'm Losing You from Ain't Too Proud. There will be no Village Halloween Parade next Sat…
"Dear Evan Hansen," Â "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Death of a Salesman" were among the plays and musical familiar to American audiences whose recent British productions won 2020 Olivier Awar…
The staged reading of an 18-year-old episode of the TV series "The West Wing" might seem like a peculiar exercise in nostalgia, and maybe vanity, by its creator Aaron Sorkin, who's gone on t…
These five highly recommended plays opened earlier this week, most of them ending this weekend, all of them worth seeing. There are other, terrifically-sounding shows that are actually openi…
On a day when non-theater people are revving up talk about "political theater," theater bloggers Janice Simpson and Samuel Leiter offer a different take on the term " theater about politics.…
"I think what we do is evil but I still want to do a good job at it," says Nikolai, one of the Russian trolls trying to sway the American Presidential election in Sarah Gancher's funny and f…
Watch this starry line-up in support of Biden/Harris, by Broadway for Biden. Featured some 200 artists, including: Billy Porter, Judith Light, Derrick Baskin, Laura Benanti, Victoria Clark, …
"I think what we do is evil but I still want to do a good job at it," says Nikolai, one of the Russian trolls trying to sway the American Presidential election in Sarah Gancher's funny and f…
Shortly after the Tony Awards announced its much delayed 2020 nominations in the middle of a pandemic-induced shutdown, I brought actor and writer Kevin James Doyle back to Times Square for …
 With 15 days left to Election Day,  the theater community's focus on voting " such as the Hamilton Town Hall for Biden/Harris this weekend featuring the original cast of the musical,…
Even nurses dedicated to kindness have their breaking point. Connie Britton portrays a nurse forced to care for a COVID patient who had worked at a risky job never wearing a mask, and then p…
Viewers might be astonished that Heidi Schreck's funny, poignant and pointed play feels like a direct response to the Senate hearings on Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court "…
We got many questions that we'll be answering tonight, "most of them about Jonathan Groff's spit," Tommy Kail, Â the director of "Hamilton," announced at the outset of a 90-minute virtual …
Below are six must-see* theater "opening" this weekend, plus five more still available, Â two Meet The Tony Nominees events, and another two pro-democracy soirees. The theater " two recent…
Angela Lansbury, born 95 years ago today the daughter of an Irish actress and a British politician, came relatively late to Broadway, appearing in her first role on the Rialto at the age of …
Spike Lee filmed David Byrne's American Utopia on the stage of Broadway's Hudson Theater earlier this year; it is arriving on HBO on Saturday, October 17, Â in a completely different era. …
