By Andrew Poretz (Photos: Melissa Griegel Photography) Theater Pizzazz was on hand for this week's press event at the historic Players Club for That's Love!, the Dorothy Dandridge musical th…
By Alix Cohen January 2017: Fifty-something Carey (Janet Zaresh) has always had unerring instinct for what someone should read. There's a kind of justice to her owning a bookstore after a ca…
By Alix Cohen Oklahoma! redefined the American musical by fully integrating songs, dances, and story into a unified dramatic whole. Richard Rodgers first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein…
By Alix Cohen Composer Burt Bacharach's harmonically adventurous pop songs reshaped popular music from the late 1950s onward. Working most famously with lyricist Hal David, he wrote dozens o…
By Alix Cohen Genre-defying Happenstance Theater offers an arsenal influences, inventiveness, and subtlety. Collectively devised, the company landscapes a stage with fine-spun virtuosity. Ju…
By Samuel L. Leiter... This unusual reimagining deftly expresses the play's inherent drama even as its historic visual and aural attractions have been replaced or pared away.
By Melissa Griegel… Photos by Melissa Griegel Photography Matthew Morrison (Hairspray, The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific), made his debut on Broadway in Footloose and then went on to …
By Alix Cohen 40ish Agnes White (Carrie Coon) lives in a low end motel room on an interstate highway in Oklahoma. A bar waitress, she seems to spend the rest of her time high. Today, ex-husb…
By Ron Fassler . . . A cabaret show that's the perfect way to start the New Year off with optimism and heart.
By Alix Cohen When Jordan Harrison wrote Marjorie Prime, (a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize), the play emerged among a succession of dramatic pieces concerning analog vs. digital. A.I.,…
Review by Carol Rocamora... This raucous revival reaffirms Moliere's immortality as a satirist of society and human foibles.
By Alix Cohen On winter vacation from Harvard, Charles Kirsch returns to 54Below with 15 Broadway notables, most interviewed on his inimitable podcast. Once again, selections are wide, many …
A New Play with Old Music- Returning to Urban Stages January 25- February 22, 2026 By Alix Cohen Mira (Tora Nogami Alexander), a biracial, Korean American, classical violinist, and her boyfr…
"Nonsense wakes up the brain cells…If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack." Dr. Seuss By Alix Cohen Tom Lehrer (1928"2025) was a New York"born song…
Book review by Samuel L. Leiter... Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers, and hot off the presses.
By Andrew Poretz . . . The New York Pops, under the direction of Maestro Steven Reineke, presented its annual holiday concert on December 19 and 20 at Carnegie Hall. Performed before a full …
Review by Ron Fassler . . . It's that time of year and Broadway stalwart Norm Lewis is back at 54 Below with "Christmas Lives Here."
A Vaudeville By Alix Cohen Imagination, theatrical skill and physical puppet craft has had a home at HERE Arts Center's Dream Music Puppetry program since 1999. Endowed by his grandmother an…
"If music be the food of love play on." Orsino, Twelfth Night By Alix Cohen In August 1956, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn were performing in Canada when they crossed paths with the Stra…
By Alix Cohen Moses Pendleton's 2022 Alice, aka this Alice in Wonderland-ish dance/theater piece, is a visual feast: wildly imaginative, impressionistic and allusive, rather than depicting A…
Review by Ron Fassler . . . As musicals go, Guys and Dolls is a show I've seen productions of in more venues than any other. Over the years, I've sat through versions by elementary, mi…
By Andrew Poretz . . . Mia Vassilev, who goes by her first name, made her 54 Below debut with her retro, high-energy Keys on Fire! on December 9. The pianist extraordinaire has performed thr…
By Stewart Miller... Rachel Vail's adaptation of her YA novel brings a deft comic touch to high school relationships.
A pick me up for the weary soul. By Alix Cohen For those of you sadly unfamiliar, throwback Bryce Edwards plays and sings 1920s/30s songs as they would've been performed at the time, often o…
Review by Ron Fassler . . . Here in New York City, the non-profit Urban Stages has been championing the work of playwrights, composers, and lyricists for decades. Its modest home on West 30t…