392 stories from The Wicked Stage
Not that these are presidentially themed...Bad reviews as a potty-training tool? That's one way to put them behind you.Smash superfan sez: Don't watch it tonight.Looking for some good news a…
I don't agree with every particular in Charles McNulty's big, bold, fed-up editorial on the artistic leadership void at SoCal's major resident theaters, centrally the Old Globe and Center Th…
Harrily We Roll Along.Against the paranoid style in criticism.So Godspell is doing Santorum jokes now?1-800-Flowers epic fail (I post because it happened to me, dear readers).Spacey: Ham wha…
Last June, I found myself running the Power Point for a session at the TCG Conference in L.A. titled "What If…We Could Bridge the Divides? The Role of Theatre in Iraqi-US Reconciliation", …
If I've got one pet peeve in criticism, both in print and in water-cooler form, it's the "not likeable" canard. I don't mean to dismiss what people experience as sincere aversion to fictiona…
44th Street, Feb. 8, 7 p.m. In case the photo doesn't speak for itself.
An utterly charming, disarming crossroads moment.
"If Shakespeare saw most of the productions of his work today, he'd probably say: 'Roland Emmerich was right. Edward de Vere actually wrote this.' "-Michael Musto (h/t Charles McNulty)
This kind of thing makes me batty: Producer Ken Davenport tells theater folks it's our duty to watch Smash tonight:It's about Broadway, it's shot on Broadway, it's written by a Broadway writ…
Teachout reaffirms Guirgis' Motherfucker in its Miami production; hard not to notice the surnames of the cast, as opposed to these.Sarah "Maths Geek" Benson on Soho Rep's guiding principle: …
The February issue of American Theatre is out, and it includes the complete text of Stephen Karam's lovely, insinuating comedy/drama, Sons of the Prophet, which was perhaps slightly over-pra…
Fred Armisen's recent dump on the one-man show is easy pickin's, no doubt, but it's smile-worthy nonetheless (h/t Playgoer). (For a look at a long sketch toward the above, see Armisen and Br…
When faced with the choice to save her lover by submitting sexually to his torturer, Tosca sings "Vissi d'arte." When Billy Bigelow is faced with the daunting prospect of being a father, he …
I know he's been busy putting together TEDxBroadway, but how did the industrious blogger at Producer's Pespective miss Jonah Lehrer's interesting piece about collaboration, in last week's Ne…
The post-Tina Brown New Yorker has not been known for its squeamishness (am I the only one who vividly remembers the awkward shock of that hilariously severe Tilda Swinton nude photo spread …
A start to a busy week, post-Queens move, means some quick hits to start:Mike Daisey breaks through the Ira Glass ceiling and apparently gets through to Apple brass.Terry Teachout's lovely t…
My friend and colleague Molly Smith Metzler had a really shitty Christmas: She got a bad case of mono just as her long-anticipated and star-studded New York debut, Close Up Space, got a bad …
After from a six-month sublet in Cobble Hill, Greenpoint, Brooklyn has been my New York home since early 2006. I moved here with my then-girlfriend when our relationship was shaky, and we we…
"The experience of watching Jerusalem confirmed something in me I've suspected for some time. In life, I may be a progressive Christian, but when it comes to the theater, I'm a complete paga…
photo by Walter McBrideOne of the first reviews I wrote for Back Stage West back in 1993 was a slam of Control Freaks, a lurid and seriously flawed attempt by the playwright Beth Henley to r…
It just so happens that this month I've got two reviews of Sondheim that are only accessible in print form. First, a belated consideration of the current Follies in the latest Sondheim Revie…
Forget tweeting in the theater; that's positively genteel next to the stories I got in response to this morning's question on American Theatre's Facebook page. I asked, "Have you ever talked…
Jill Dolan wins one for the blogosphere.Won't this project simply reinforce the New York Times' disproportionate influence?The overheated discussion about Tom Loughlin's slightly ridiculous …
"Video projection is to the experimental auteur as the second-act opening monologue, 'I had this dream last night' and late-night drunken truth-telling are to American playwrights."-David Co…
