By Myra Chanin . . . In 2009, when Disenchanted was getting ready to hold its first workshop (at Pearl Studios in New York City), over 700 women auditioned for the 11 roles for a one-nig…
By Myra Chanin . . . Zap! Pow! Wowie! I don't believe I have ever watched a more fulsome, luxuriant, talent-flooded extravaganza than Lynn University's 2023 Celebration of the Arts. The …
National Asian Artists Project (Baayork Lee, Executive Artistic Director), whose mission of "showcasing the work of Asian-American theatre artists through performance, outreach and education…
By Ron Fassler . . . In Richard Ploetz's The Country Play, now at the Theater for the New City, the author wants desperately for us to make a connection with what he has written"the way Anto…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . In his Foreword to the 1965 publication of Lorraine Hansberry's 1964 play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, John Braine takes issue with the critics who, more …
By Brian Scott Lipton . . . It may not literally be true that Barry Manilow has written the songs the whole world sings. Still, I would bet my bank account that most of the more than 2,000 p…
By Carol Rocamora . . . In a boisterous Broadway season bursting with blockbusters, big casts, and flashy dance ensembles, a small, gentle play can still make a sound of its own. A deep,…
By Matt Smith . . . Living legend, multi-award winner and newly-minted memoirist Chita Rivera popped into the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center on Monday night, her first of many sto…
By JK Clarke . . . Great Expectations is one of those great novels most of us encountered in a sturdy high school English curriculum. Riveting and multi-layered with a multitude of confl…
By Walter Murphy . . . Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuted in 1878 during England's Victorian era. One could choose to study the decline of the empire since that d…
By Walter Murphy . . . Imagine a teenage playwright beginning his career by addressing the sacrifices an accomplished woman must make when she weds a less-talented partner. Add societal …
By Carole Di Tosti . . . Life is about second chances. So believes Juliet Capulet, the once tragic female protagonist of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, who steps out of 14th cen…
By Marilyn Lester . . . Every so often all the parts of a show might just come together in a beautifully optimal way. Such was the case with Judi Mark's Merely Marvelous"The Songs Of Gwe…
By Ron Fassler . . . The first rule of musical theater is that in creating a show one must have a story that keeps an audience's attention. With that said, it's sad to report that even w…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . The quirkily charming new Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, at the Booth Theatre, brings to mind a small number of similarly inclined, small-bore, bighearted sh…
By Ron Fassler . . . If the title of Will Arbery's new comedy-drama from the New Group sounds confusing, just put the emphasis on "climbing" and say it aloud as if it were a newspaper he…
By Carol Rocamora . . . The story of summer love holds sweet promise in the theater, don't you agree? But not in the case of a certain summer, in a certain time and place . . . Playw…
By Carole Di Tosti . . . How far back can you trace your lineage? For Madeline Sayet, Native American theater-maker and lover of Shakespeare, the challenge of understanding her identity …
by Cooper Lawrence . . . If you were wondering where your favorite Broadway stars are hiding out on Monday nights when their shows are dark, well last night November 14, they were at the mos…
By Ron Fassler . . . The husband and wife team of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey have returned to the Café Carlyle for a two week engagement that is as warm and inviting as sitting by…
By Ron Fassler . . . Peter Fogel is a throwback to a time when you could watch a comedian like him on The Ed Sullivan Show, the CBS Sunday night variety series that ran from 1948 to 1971. Fa…
By JK Clarke . . . Ask any working comic and they'll tell you that the standup comedy business is more difficult now than it has been in over fifty years. Not since organized crime figur…
By Ron Fassler . . . No, the headline is not hyperbole. There were approximately 150 witnesses to the opening night performance of Leslie Uggams' weekend run of shows at 54 Below on Thur…
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Once again this season, a writer with a gift for language has crafted a play that is essentially a work of literature, gussied up for the stage with creative de…
A mélange of melody and tour de force performances featuring lyrics by Michael Colby, will be presented as part of Urban Stages 2022 "Winter Rhythms" series, produced by Tom Toce and Sue Ma…