5,808 stories by "Jonathan Mandell"
Another publication for which I write has decided after several years to switch from spelling theater the standard American way — “theater” — to the British “th…
Win a script signed by the playwright or a Playbill signed by the entire cast of Disgraced, the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Ayad Akhtar that just announced it will close on Broadway on Ma…
This week, six shows closed on Broadway and three more announced they would be closing, in the theater's brutal version of ringing out the old. But it was also a week to ring in the new. I p…
If January is traditionally considered a kind of theatrical time out after the theatergoing intensity of the holidays — a time to take stock of the year ahead (here’s my Broadway…
Live theater is supposed to exist only for the moment, but some of the biggest hits Off-Broadway are returning for the Spring 2015 season. Two of them, “Fun Home” and “Hand…
January is the month for theater festivals in New York – more than at any time other than the summer - The reason these festivals have blossomed over the past decade is the pr…
Choose the show that you are most looking forward to. The list below is for shows that have opening dates on Broadway in Spring 2015 as of this writing, and they are listed chronologically b…
Below are the shows scheduled to open in Broadway theaters between January and April, 2015, listed chronologically by opening date. This is a work in progress. I don’t mean I have stuf…
Tony Danza, Richard Pryor Jr., Christine Pedi and cabaret legend Marilyn Maye are among the at least TWO HUNDRED SIXTY FIVE people planning to perform at The Metropolitan Room starting this …
Many of the most magical moments on stage are purely visual, such as the breathtaking sunsets in “The Oldest Boy” this year at Lincoln Center, or the astonishing effects that the…
How well were you paying attention to the theater news in the month, and the year? Answer these 13 questions and find out.
Continuing a tradition I started when I began this blog " here are the most-read stories of 2013Â and of 2012Â –Â here are the most-read reviews and essays that I wrote in 2014. …
The Broadway show schedule for New Year’s week, and a list of other shows, parties, concerts, intimate dinners, cruises and outdoor events you can still do on New Year's Eve 2015 (when…
What if Into The Woods had been directed by Vincente Minnelli for MGM around, say, 1949. “The theater is one of the few places left in the bright and noisy world where we sit in the qu…
Sarah Ruhl is the only playwright who’s an author of one of the 100 Notable Books of 2014 selected by the New York Times – and the book they selected is not a play. Â It is …
The year 2014 in theater was one of protest, and of cult obsessions " theater people trying to engage in the wider world, and retreating from it. It was the year of critic bashing, and the y…
The long-awaited, visually sumptuous film version of "Into The Woods" is likely to please theatergoers who are already fans of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's clever 1987 musical mashup …
The shows this season that have touched on religion offer different approaches, as I point out in an article in Howlround entitled "Does God Exist on Stage? Theater and Religion"Â Some ri…
The following is the text of letter protesting the dismissal of Ari Roth as the artistic director of Theater J in Washington D.C. "We, the undersigned Artistic Directors, are outraged by the…
New Broadway shows announced this week include: School of Rock, Something Rotten, Bombshell (about Marilyn Monroe) and Sherlock Holmes " the last two have a catch to them (scroll to 18) Much…
They begin with a blanket " manipulated like a puppet by the actor it cloaks, it comes alive, undulating in a fierce wind. They end with blankets, formed to ask the question: Is this land mi…
"As an actor, you're often the most visible part of a project while having the least amount of say over its final form,” James Franco said recently. Â Although at the time he was mak…
Last year, there were so many more bad shows on Broadway from which to choose. This year, I couldn’t bring myself to add some clear-cut flops that I considered well-intentioned efforts…
In looking over my top 10 New York theater list for 2014, and top 10 lists by other critics, I realized that most of the shows we favored have ended their runs. So here is another top 10 lis…
"There are plenty of unhappy people in the world, why should we be the ones who get to be happy?" says one of the ten characters in "Pocatello," the new play at Playwrights Horizons b…
