5,772 stories by "JONATHAN MANDELL"
As a follow-up to my post "What can I watch online that's like Broadway?" below is a list with links to newly created/promised livestreamed theater, mostly free, Â from La MaMa to the Metr…
Within just the last two weeks, after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in New York City on March 1, the number of cases in NYC alone grew to 329, all of Broadway has been shut down at…
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered the closing of the remaining small theaters, as well as schools, movie theaters, restaurants, bars and nightclubs "Our lives are all changing in ways tha…
With a virus threatening the city, it made sense to me to see Taylor Mac's "The Fre," at the Flea, although all Broadway and most Off-Broadway theaters had already shut down. The Flea was th…
The theater kids are putting on a school show, and, like the TV series Glee, the lead actor is a recently recruited football player. But unlike Glee, or Smash, or Rise, the show they're doin…
Although Gov. Cuomo shut down for a month all venues with 500 or more seats, which includes all of Broadway, that left the option of smaller venues staying open, but at 50 percent capacity. …
With Broadway shut down for at least a month, I asked on Twitter: Anything online that's like a Broadway show? Here are some of the choicest responses. (And stay tuned, because there is seri…
All Broadway theaters will close at 5 p.m. today, and all Broadway performances will be suspended at least until April 12th, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in a press conference today. Cuom…
 Biographic Audrey(Ammonie Press, 98 pages) by Sophie Collins is less a biography of the actress Audrey Hepburn than a PowerPoint presentation about her " a deeply weird book of infograp…
To the main question on New Yorkers minds " how bad will the Coronavirus epidemic get in New York? " New York theatergoers are asking several more: Will Broadway theaters be shut down becaus…
In this musical by Michael Friedman making its New York debut 30 months after his shocking death from AIDS at the age of 41, it would be impossible not to think of him from the very first…
As local news of the spread of the coronavirus grows more alarming (with Governor Cuomo having declared a state of emergency in New York over the weekend), the theater community has been …
Bob Avian's memoir begins with a list of 32 "leading ladies," including Barbra Streisand, Katharine Hepburn and Patti LuPone, which might be misleading in a couple of ways. Dancing Man: A Br…
A man in a hazmat suit came on stage, to give us the usual spiel about the location of the exits and turning off our cell phones, and I thought: Ok, yes, the governor has declared a state of…
Below is the hour-long video and audio of the TCG Webinar, in which various experts, such as a professor of epidemiology based in Seattle and the director of theater at the National Endow…
It's been a battering couple of weeks, what with abandonment, abduction, desperation, murder, genocide, and pandemic " all but the last one happening on New York stages. So although I saw it…
The odd pairing of old Bob Dylan songs with Irish playwright Conor McPherson's new script about desperate lives during the Great Depression worked well enough when I saw it Off-Broadway in 2…
"Girl from the North Country" is largely the same slow, sad, elliptical and occasionally exquisite theater piece I saw Off-Broadway. But my reaction to it has changed, for better and for wor…
The first of the many surprises in "The Headlands," the latest, cleverly crafted play in New York by trickster San Francisco playwright Christopher Chen, comes after Henry (Aaron Yoo) introd…
With the first reported case of COVID-19 in Manhattan, there is increased concern about the virus among New Yorkers, and that includes theatergoers. New York Governor Cuomo said yesterday th…
How do you put genocide on stage? Lauren Yee starts with a rock band, which is playing so loudly when we enter that the theater management offers ear plugs for any who request it. A rock con…
A rock concert may seem an odd, even inappropriate, way for a play about genocide to begin, but what comes next is even more jarring in this disorienting, genre-bending show that shifts tone…
Below is a selection of the abundant New York theater openings in March, organized chronologically by opening date*. Seven shows are opening on Broadway, a jarring mix of royalty and penury,…
How well were you paying attention to New York theater news, views and reviews in February 2020? Answer these 11 questions and find out.
Molly Brown, a socialite, social activist and survivor of the Titanic disaster in real life " turned into a Tony-winning Tammy Grimes on stage and Debbie Reynolds at her pluckiest on screen …