5,869 stories by "Jonathan Mandell"
Did Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” feature a real bear? We know that “Gypsy” had a little lamb, “Legally Blonde” both a chihuahua and a bul…
The League of Independent Theater held its first political candidate forums last month, and is planning to make endorsements in New York City political races. With some 50,000 independent th…
Nobody is sure how applause began, or when — babies applaud; applause is mentioned in the Bible — but we all know where it wound up: In the theater. In The Atlantic, Megan Garber…
Is it a shock to say that "Kinky Boots" just isn't kinky enough? It could have been. Harvey Fierstein wrote the book, he who began his career as a 300-pound teenage drag queen on the Lower E…
The 2013 theater award season began with the announcement on April 3 of the nominees for the 2013 Lucille Lortel Awards, honoring Off-Broadway. Both Jake Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Redgrave rece…
Halfway through "Detroit," Lisa D'Amour's funny, dark and timely new play with a pitch-perfect cast that includes David Schwimmer and Amy Ryan, a character named Sharon explains that she has…
The main character of "The Whale" is 600 pounds, but one of the many pleasures of this funny and affecting new play by Samuel D. Hunter, being given a splendid production with a universally …
One reason to regret what seems at the moment to be the inevitable — that the second season of Smash, the backstage theater TV series, will be its last. In this duet, Bernadette Peters…
Playwright Richard Greenberg, whom I profile in Playbill this month, has three plays opening nearly simultaneously in New York: Breakfast At Tiffany’s opened March 20 at the Cort Theat…
How well were you paying attention to what was happening in New York theater in March? Find out with these ten questions The questions are all based on posts from this blog in March, 2013. T…
“Journalists aren't nearly as interesting as they think they are," David Eisenhower once said, a quote that Nora Ephron cited favorably in her final media column for Esquire in 1977. T…
As March madness turns into April avalanche, the marathon begins. In the next 25 days, 15 shows will open on Broadway, much of the Spring 2013 Broadway season. This coming week, Tom Hanks de…
The Signature and Sondheim and Shakespeare in the Park; new theaters like Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow and old ones like the Belasco on Broadway; playwriting legends like Edward Albee a…
World Theatre Day has been celebrated every March 27th since 1961. How? Playwright Dario Fo has created a World Theatre Day message, the English version of which is below. New York City will…
Ticket Giveaway: Win two tickets to see "Orphans," the play by Lyle Kessler that stars Alec Baldwin, Ben Foster and Tom Sturridge that tells the story of two orphaned brothers living a rough…
Broadway's been so weird lately that you don't even have to mention Rebecca, or a cat getting fired, or Alec Baldwin to come up with ten questions in a Weird Theater Quiz Spring 2013. The ca…
To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the Brick Theater Company in Brooklyn is mounting some 20 world premieres of plays by 13 major playwrights, including Neil LaBute, Greg Kotis, Mike Daisey…
In response to reaction to Annie Baker’s The Flick, Playwrights Horizons artistic director Tim Sanford sent the following e-mail to the theater’s subscribers: Dear Friend, The…
This has been a very weird theater season. See how weird by answering the following ten questions. (Notice there’s not even a question about a cat being fired from a show — there…
Yesterday, Buzzfeed posted The 33 Hottest Hunks of Broadway, but whether or not they are “of” Broadway, more than half of them aren’t  on Broadway anymore. They’ve…
"Hands on a Hardbody," an odd but tuneful new musical based on a 1997 documentary film about a sadistic endurance contest to win a pickup truck in Texas, might as well be called "American Id…
When Holly Golightly sits on the fire escape strumming a guitar and singing, those watching  "Breakfast at Tiffany's" at the Cort Theater may temporarily feel in familiar territory, even …
Defying the long-held superstition about the dangers of saying the name “Macbeth” inside a theater, Alan Cumming replied to my inquiry: “I am going to say Macbeth everywher…
The community of ex-cons, junkies and crackheads crowding into the Bank Street Theater are surrounded by love, laughter and wild applause. They are the characters peopling  Stephen Adly G…
“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” has opened on Broadway, a move nearly universally applauded. See my review below. Other shows opened this week that I reviewed: Lanford Wils…
