610 stories by "Richard Seff"
Edward Albee’s master work has always been treated with great reverence, and is always talked about in hushed tones, indicating it is profound and probing in ways that few other domest…
The Heiress is one of those well made plays from the 1940s that takes its time to tell its absorbing story of Catherine Sloper, a lady living a very dull life in her father’s house on …
Daniel Swee is casting director for Lincoln Center Theatre and for the revival of Golden Boy at the Belasco on Broadway, he has helped the management and director Bartlett Sher assemble a st…
It’s taken seven years to bring John LaChiusa and Sibylle Pearson’s musical, based on Edna Ferber’s novel, to fruition. The Dallas Theatre Center has presented it, …
Here we have another dysfunctional family just in time for the holiday season. This one, in the play with the title I have trouble remembering, is by a gifted writer named Nick Payne. Hi…
Kathie Lee Gifford as book writer, lyricist and part time composer, has spent twelve years creating material, polishing it, pruning it, having a look at it in two regional productions, […
You don’t have to be a Chekhovophile to enjoy Christopher Durang’s riff on everything Anton Chekhov ever wrote, but it helps. This master parodist and satirist has been away from…
Amanda Green and Lin-Manuel Miranda ought to sue. I have no idea whether or not their  lyrics are first rate because I still haven’t heard them, even though I was there at a rec…
This musical, based on Charles’ Dickens final, unfinished novel, enjoyed a run of over 600 performances in 1986-7 but has only popped up here and there intermittently these past 25 yea…
The new play, Grace, at the Cort on Broadway, is a revelation. For starters, it makes it clear that Paul Rudd is far more than a dimple and a charming smile. The lad can act, and though he&#…
The Roundabout is offering us some very large scale productions this season, and Cyrano de Bergerac at the American Airlines Theatre is certainly one of them. Edmond Rostand wrote it in 1897…
There were two Sandys in town last week — there was the mongrel who attaches himself to Annie Warbucks in Annie  at the Palace and of course there was the hurricane that attacked Br…
TACT (The Actors’ Company Theatre) has put together a fine cast to breathe life into Brian Friel’s Lovers which had a decent 150 performance run at the Music Box and the Beau…
Eighteen months ago, The Book of Mormon opened on Broadway, thus knocking out the rumor that the Broadway musical was a dead form, and that we were all doomed to have nothing but revivals, p…
I’ve been trying to figure out why Lisa D’Amour decided to call her new play Detroit, as the Playbill clearly tells us the play is set in “a first ring suburb of a mid-size…
Jonathan Bank at the Mint Theatre continues to unbury bits and pieces of our theatrical heritage as he continues his successful leadership off this unique off Broadway company. Some of his r…
The new musical Chaplin just opened on Broadway without much fanfare, and there was not much buzz in the air about it. Its original writer, Christopher Curtis – book (later joined by T…
The Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, under the artistic direction of Mark Lamos, has been trying to clarify its mission since Mr. Lamos replaced Joanne Woodward as guide at thi…
Laughter is back on the great white way, a little west of Broadway in a bandbox of a theatre called the 47th Street, just west of 8th Avenue. The master satirist Gerard Alessandrini …
59 E 59th Street Theatre is home to an organization called Throughline Artists whose mission it is to preserve the traditions of the theatre for the next generation by providing opportunitie…
It’s always nice to have Horton Foote’s people around, particularly in Manhattan, to which they bring color, wisdom and wit of a different sort than that usually doled out in our…
Marvin Hamlisch died on August 7th, and left the world of music diminished by much. He was only 68 years old, and was, as always, neck high in the preparation of new works. I met him in the …
Just when I thought they’d revived about all the decent musicals from the golden age, along comes Charlotte Moore’s Irish Repertory Company to deliver this smartly pruned and art…
Mary Chase was an accredited playwright when her Harvey opened at the 48th Street Playhouse in late 1944. The second world war was still raging, light hearted musicals like Follow the Girls …
Jim Morgan, the Producing Artistic Director of the literally underground York Theatre Company at St. Peter’s Church on Lexington Avenue, has the look of a truly contented man. His open…
