5,806 stories by "Jonathan Mandell"
My sixth annual Broadway gift guide below includes links and information on shopping for theater tickets, theater subscriptions, cast recordings, play scripts, librettos and new and cheri…
Ben Platt left “Dear Evan Hansen,” the Tony-winning musical that made him a star. That was yesterday. Tomorrow marks the publication of the  behind-the-scenes book and librett…
Readers who cherish Jane Austen's 1813 novel "Pride and Prejudice" can certainly enjoy Kate Hamill's stage adaptation, now at the Cherry Lane, as long as they accept that the tone has been r…
In his dressing room at "Dear Evan Hansen," Ben Platt has kept an anonymous letter from a fan: "You stopped me from letting go." That letter kept him going when "I don't want to cry, and sin…
Scroll below for the Broadway schedule for Thanksgiving week. On Thanksgiving Day this year, theater lovers will be able to see “SpongeBob SquarePants” twice — both as …
Paulina is the most popular, the most ambitious and by far the meanest girl in the Aburi Girls Boarding School at the outset of Jocelyn Bioh's often unsubtle but ultimately stimulating new p…
For some theatergoers wondering whether to see the hour-long romantic comedy bravely entitled "Hot Mess," it might be enough to know that Max calls his girlfriend "Poopy Pants." Or that his …
The ushers are wearing "Ghetto Scholar" sweatshirts in Studio 54, where for his sixth solo show John Leguizamo stands in front of a blackboard and lectures on the history, politics, cult…
The ushers are wearing "Ghetto Scholar" sweatshirts in Studio 54, where for his sixth solo show John Leguizamo stands in front of a blackboard and lectures on the history, politics, culture …
Millions of African-Americans moved from the rural South to industrial cities in the North in the decades after World War I, one of the largest migrations in the history of humanity, ignored…
Today is the 20th anniversary of the opening of “The Lion King.” Now the third-longest running show in the history of Broadway, the musical is worth celebrating. Based on …
Lin-Manuel Miranda's efforts to aid Puerto Rico in recovering from Hurricane Maria took the logical next step during his visit there this past week, when he announced his return to his starr…
Today is Veterans Day, a day that’s always been special to me because my father was not only a U.S. military veteran; he was born on Veterans Day, Â which was originally called Armis…
Jeopardy had the following answers in a “Broadway 2017” category during the Double Jeopardy Round of the Tournament of Champions earlier this week. Guess the questions: $400 R…
What happens when a lovely, low-key musical based on an offbeat Israeli film moves from Off-Broadway to a Broadway theater five times its size? You get the same widely acclaimed show " with …
What happens when a lovely, low-key musical based on an offbeat Israeli film moves from Off-Broadway to a Broadway theater five times its size? You get the same widely acclaimed show " with …
Dennis, the sullen and unsettling student at the center of Julia Cho's play "Office Hour" is strongly reminiscent of the real-life student Cho Seung-Hui, an English major at Virginia Polytec…
Len Cariou, one of the five performers who recently reminisced about having originated roles in musicals by Stephen Sondheim, recalls getting the script for "Sweeney Todd" and thinking "You'…
"When did money become the thing – the only thing?" a character asks at the beginning of "Junk," a play by Ayad Akhtar, who seems to answer: In the 1980s. Akhtar, the playwright of "Di…
How well were you paying attention to the New York theater news in September and October, some of which was pleasing, much of which was disheartening or worse? Answer these 11 questions and …
The bad news hits relentlessly, from the horrific — on Halloween, New York endures the worst terrorist attack since 9/11 Â — to the ugly — accusations of sexual harassmen…
That Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother is fated and " 2,500 years after Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex " familiar. But Luis Alfaro's modern adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy, set…
“M Butterfly” has returned to Broadway after 30 years, not so much revived as revised. It was risky for playwright David Henry Hwang to tweak his career-making, Tony-winning play…
In the five Broadway shows opening in November, Amy Schumer and Uma Thurman are making their Broadway debuts; playwrights Ayad Akhtar and Steve Martin are delivering new plays; and two shows…
At one moment in "Stuffed," a scattershot play about our disordered relationship with food, Lisa Lampanelli talks with disdain about a skinny friend of hers who turned down dessert, saying '…
