617 stories by "Jan Simpson"
Maybe I'm just in a cranky mood. Because I've seen nearly
two dozen show so far this calendar year and I can count the ones I've liked on
one hand, with a few fingers left over.
And as…
Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly is a small play in almost
every way. It's a two-hander and all the
action takes place on a single set, a rundown boathouse near a farm
in Lebanon, Mo., …
Well, I guess it's official:
I am truly not a John Doyle gal. The Scottish- born director has earned all kinds of kudos from critics
(most notably the New York Times' Ben Brantley) for…
Young Hollywood stars coming to New York to act in plays is
so last year. Now, they're writing the
plays. Just this past week, I saw The Revisionist, a new play
by Jesse Eisenberg, mos…
Few things are more annoying than having someone go on
and on about how some long-gone production was so much better than the one that you can see right now. So I'm going to have to
be…
It takes both talent and moxie to make it in show business.
And Paul Downs Colaizzo, the 27-year-old playwright whose first play Really
Really opened at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Tuesday…
The folks at Warner Bros. emailed to ask me if I'd be
interested in receiving and reviewing their new DVD box set of movie
musicals. I get offers like this a lot
and I tend not to respond be…
Let's face it: the
fall theater season was disappointing as hell.
Of the 20 or so shows that opened on Broadway between last year's Tony
broadcast and the dropping of the ball in Time…
Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me because it is both
Valentine's Day (for which my beloved husband K and I have special plans) and the
sixth anniversary of Broadway & Me, which I …
Audience participation is not my thing. So you might think that The Mystery of Edwin
Drood would not be my kind of show. At least, that's what I feared.
For this
musical, base…
Everything I'd read about the latest revival of Tennessee
Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof promised that it was going to be a hot
mess. The show's top-billed star Scarlett Johansson kept hint…
Sometimes you really can't go home again. Encores!, the great concert series that
celebrates the American musical, decided to celebrate its 20th season by going back to Fiorello!, the …
The Jammer, the roller derby comedy that opened at the Atlantic
Stage 2 last week, is a goofball of a show.
And I mean that as a total compliment.
Unless the action is s…
The coming out narrative, in which a young or closeted homosexual
struggles to accept his or her sexual identity, has been the dominant theme in
gay literature since at least 1862 when the p…
Directors often say that casting is the most important
decision they make since putting the right or wrong person in a role can make or break
a show. By that measure, the Roundabout
Th…
We regular Broadway theatergoers have gotten used to playing
host to movie stars over the past few years.
But most of them have been young starlets (male and female) hoping to make the…
So many shows, so little time. And since the traditional January post-holiday
reaping is now here, they're closing faster than I can write about them.
Some of those closi…
The news that she was getting $10,000 and a place at the
table alongside America's greatest playwrights must have thrilled Quiara
AlegrÃa Hudes when she got the news that her play Water b…
Today, January 9th, is my husband K's and my
anniversary and so I'm taking time out to celebrate with the man I love even
more than I love theater.
But before I sign off…
Dead Accounts is playing its final performance tomorrow, closing
three months before it had planned. I'm writing about it at this late date because I want to make the argument that the produ…
People began posting 10 best lists so early that I
don't know how they even managed to see"let alone rate"all the shows that
opened in November and December (click here for a handy rou…
It's no surprise that film critics are pooh-poohing the new
movie version of Alain
Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's pop opera Les Misérables. Just as it's no surprise that peopl…
May
your holidays sparkle with peace, love, happiness "and the thrill of great
theater.
In the meantime, have yourself the merriest little Christmas.
The small Minetta Lane Theatre was less than half full when
my theatergoing buddy Bill and I went to see the powerful new play
Falling. The poor turnout could have
been because it was the we…
Christmas is less than a week away and so you're no doubt already deep into your shopping list but there may be one person you
haven't gotten around to yet:
you.
Not to worry. I've…
