5,855 stories by "Jonathan Mandell"
Twenty-five women have portrayed Fanny Brice on Broadway* " a 26th, Lea Michele, takes over the role on September 6 " but, half a century before she became a character in the Jule Style musi…
Everybody seemed to have a colorful anecdote  about Tallulah Bankhead. She was said to have inspired the characters of Margo Channing in the film "All About Eve," Blanche DuBois in Ten…
Paul McCartney's planned new musical wouldn't be the first time an actual Beatle created something original for Broadway. But it would be wonderful. Three years ago, McCartney announced he w…
Two new plays and a new musical announced for Broadway this past week, and a fourth firmed up dates and theater, bringing the number of confirmed shows in the Broadway 2022-2023 season to 17…
Theater as we know it began outdoors, in amphitheaters such as the 2,500-year-old theater at Epidaurus, Greece, which was designed by the architect Polykleitos the Younger, and is still bein…
As a new season begins, the big questions posed in the best theater co-exist with a more immediate question: Are theatergoers safe? Starting last Friday, Broadway attendance requires neither…
"You don't own me," Lesley Gore sings, in one of the videos below of anthems, pop ballads and raps sung by women that have taken on a new, urgent meaning this Fourth of July, a holiday that …
How well were you paying attention to the news and its impact on theater this past month? Answer these dozen questions on abortion and masks and the Tonys, plus a bonus question on hybrid th…
Below is a selection of theater opening in New York in July, featuring two Broadway shows, a revival of Sondheim and Lapine's "Into the Woods" and a stage adaptation of "The Kite Runner,"…
Below is a list of theater books " recently published, soon-to-be published, or newly relevant " in four categories: Scripts and Play AnthologiesBiographies and MemoirsTheater History, Criti…
Below is my annual preview guide of Broadway openings in the 2022-2023 season, which features starry revivals of some of America's most acclaimed plays and musicals, new adaptations of belov…
The Broadway League will no longer require Broadway theatergoers to wear masks starting this Friday " not the most shocking decision announced last week, but like the Supreme Court rul…
Lot bristles at the label "special needs."Â Â He is a recluse and a self-trained artist who composed a song called "Weird" and collects trash to turn into sculpture. Yes, he says, he is …
The theater award season continues with nominations announced today by Broadway Black for its second Antonyo Awards, intended to honor extraordinary achievements in the Black theater communi…
Myles Frost of "MJ The Musical" AND Jared Grimes of "Funny Girl" both won the Chita Rivera Awards for outstanding male dancer in a Broadway show, one of two ties in the annual award given to…
The words "weird" or "weirdo" appear some two dozen times in "Corsicana," a play by Will Arbery which opens on Wednesday, and which co-stars Dierdre O'Connell, who last week (coincidentally …
"God's Fool," the 70-minute theater piece about St. Francis of Assisi conceived and directed by Martha Clarke that's at LaMaMa through July 2, would probably be best appreciated by those who…
"Lessons in Survival 1971,"Â running at the Vineyard Theater through June 30, is based on then-28-year-old poet Nikki Giovanni's interview-turned-conversation with the famous writer James …
On the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce's monumental modernist novel "Ulysses," Symphony Space gave over its annual Bloomsday celebration to a new theater piece, also call…
The moments in "The Orchard" that suggest the current Russian invasion of Ukraine would surely get the most attention in a more conventionally focused adaptation of "The Cherry Orchard":Â …
In the prologue of "Circle Jerk" " a funny, campy, discombobulating hybrid theater piece that's a spoof of both gay and digital culture (and also an example of each) "Â the Troll, in a bri…
There were delightful surprises and predictable disappointments during the 75th Tony Awards, honoring the first full season since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down theaters in March 2020…
Below the winners of the 75th annual Tony Awards (Here's a guide to the full 2021-2022 Broadway season, including those not nominated, and those that reopened.)(Here is the list of the nomin…
Years before the end of her long illustrious life, Lena Horne, singer, actor, dancer,  elegant beauty, fierce civil rights activist, pioneering movie star " the first Black performer t…
In this most trying of seasons, the theater community has been attempting to redefine what Broadway means, and that includes producing work that surely would not have made it to Broadway bef…
