5,853 stories by "Jonathan Mandell"
Sometimes it's better to live with lies; the truth can be too destructive. That's the message I came away with from "The Wild Duck," which makes it hard for me to understand how the Theater …
"Can you be Black and not perform?" Eisa Davis asks, then sings "No," while playing her keyboard. This is the central question, but not the only answer, in "The Essentialisn't." There's also…
"Wicked" endures on stage. I saw it on Broadway this week, and I enjoyed it anew .Yes, it is now inescapably viewed through the lens of the 2024 movie version. But a movie has always hovered…
 "Color Theories" is funny and weird and sometimes confusing. It reminded me at various times of Pee Wee Herman (childlike tone, cartoonish set, puppetry), George Carlin (observational an…
In the two decades since Tarell Alvin McCraney was heralded as a promising new voice for his breakout play "The Brothers Size," which was first produced in 2007 when he was still a student a…
Fashion designer Alexander McQueen seems readymade for a theatrical portrait, and "House of McQueen" is pieced together with bespoke extravagance. It is housed in a new Off-Broadway theater …
In my Broadway Poll about the Fall show theatergoers are most looking forward to, I added a second question: What's the biggest reason for your choice? Forty percent answered: "The cast" …
Jordan E. Cooper, Tony-nominated performer and playwright of "Ain't No Mo'" whose new play "Oh Happy Day!" is opening at the Public Theater on October 15,  delivered a keynote address …
Lin-Manuel Miranda is a sponge, a ham, a charmer, a dynamo, an eager collaborator, a sensitive sobber, and an extraordinarily talented, acclaimed and busy artist who is clear-eyed about his …
Writer/director Nicholas Colia's delightful first-time feature film about an obsessive (queer) theater kid, which won several big awards at the Tribeca Festival last year, has now opened …
When a stranger asks you "so, what do you do?" they're not asking for your hobbies or habits, your daily activities or nightly dreams. They're asking what your job is. Jenn Kidwell puts …
Which of the thirteen shows scheduled to open on Broadway from September to December 2025 are you most looking forward to? What's the biggest reason for your choice? Answer these two poll qu…
Over the Labor Day weekend, "Purpose" ended its run, and so did Tshidi Manye, who is retiring as Rashiki. But the Fall season has already begun; today is the last day to see "Pericles" and t…
Below is a calendar of New York theater opening* in September, including three plays on Broadway, two of them starry revivals: Keanu Reeves making his Broadway debut in "Waiting for Godot" �…
Every Labor Day for years, I asked: Where are the American plays about workers, workplaces and unions?  What began as a rhetorical question became an annual update. Last year, in…
Instead of just beginning by acknowledging Manhattan as the homeland of the Lenape, the way most theater companies do these days, the Eagle Project made their whole show about it. A member o…
Pericles' daughter has been kidnapped by pirates and sold into a brothel, where she convinces the customers to honor her virginity. This may not normally be one of Shakespeare's most memorab…
How well were you paying attention to New York theater this summer? Take this quiz to find out. Loading…
In the year 2051, a bilingual robot named Bob has disguised himself as a human being (a species not yet extinct) and descended twenty levels underground to the Gold Vault of the Federal Bank…
The end of summer finds some theater bloggers (Ken Davenport , Broadway & Me's Jan Simpson and the staff of Theatrely) coming up with lists, while others (Broadway Journal's Philip Borof…
What at first seems to be a novel about a 1960s experimental theater troupe turns out to be genre fiction that uses theater as a backdrop for a plot involving murder and menace. Â This is …
The last week of summer is a time to relax " or to get busy figuring out your Fall New York theater season before tickets run out, and how to avoid paying too much for them. (And the lott…
Keanu Reeves (his Broadway debut!) in a Waiting for Godot revival, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobby Cannavale, James Corden in an Art revival, Lea Michele and Aaron Tveit in a CH…
A dystopian legal drama starring Elizabeth Marvel; avant-garde takes on Dostoevsky, Dante and the Biggest Loser TV show, a puppet ballet, Palestinian folk dancing, a Russia-to-Oklahoma Jewis…
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland have spent the month of August as a pair of aspiring rodeo cowboys faced with a bull suffering an existential crisis; as rapidly-deranging 1950s suburban housew…
