6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
SWEATING IT OUT Sweat, Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer winner for drama — couldn't have come at a better time. Since its arrival, the play has been hailed as a benchmark for our times. No…
MAGIC IN THE MUSIC Sometimes jukebox bio-musicals get so caught up in the fame and fortune of the journey that they miss the creative passion that is the true force driving most artists forw…
THE MOTHER OF THEM ALL "Don't call me a liar," a mother says. "But you lied," responds her daughter simply. And all holy hell breaks loose. In I Go Somewhere Else from Playwrights' Arena at …
RED SCARE IN BROOKLYN I was at a dinner party in New York once and met a 97-year-old woman who embodied a kind of Upper West Side left-wing glamour I find intoxicating. She had grown up in a…
AND NOW, WITH FURTHER ADO… Not only is it one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but Much Ado About Nothing contains a favorite character: Dogberry. This bumbling constable arrives…
ALMOST PARADISE There are many pleasures on display in the newest incarnation of the bluegrass musical Paradise, which has been in development for over five years. Now at Ruskin Group Theatr…
A WAY TO GHOUL OFF THIS SUMMER It's not easy for a frightfest to work (or play) just as well as a laff-fest, let alone to be both: A delightful exercise in creepy-crawly quirkiness, Night…
LOVE ON A LINER, OR COLE PORTER'S SHIP OF FOOLS It's still "de-lovely," but, steeped in bon-vivant euphoria and Roaring 20s' hedonism, this 1934 musical is so silly it's hard to believe it c…
A STORY OF IMPORTANCE Unlike manipulative Broadway machines such as Priscilla and Kinky Boots, which shove issues down our throats, the societal consequences for a homosexual in …
LOOKING FOR PROOF Proofreading: It may be a lost art. As an editor, I have become accustomed to scanning copy everywhere for mistakes, either in grammar or with facts. But lately, the effect…
THE LEGEND THAT GOT AWAY No, this show isn't how fans want to remember Judy Garland at the bittersweet end. End of the Rainbow, Peter Quilter's sardonic salute to a star on the skids, is a s…
EVEN WHEN YOU'RE HAIR CAN'T HOLD UP, THIS MUSICAL CAN To say you like Hairspray really doesn’t cut it. Do you mean the 1988 John Waters film starring Devine and newcomer Ricki Lake? Or…
WORD FOR WORD’S PERSONAL VICTORY LAP MAY BE THE BEST DEEP KISS YOU’VE EVER HAD San Francisco's Word for Word has been transforming classic and contemporary fiction into amazing t…
HOLDING OUR ATTENTION Playful and powerful, hilarious and anguished, Tommy Murphy's Holding the Man is a 2006 drama based on an immensely successful 1995 memoir. The author was apprent…
ABBONDONZA If ever there was a reason to say, “Absolutely, positively, do not miss this event,” this is it. For one night only on Sunday August 19 at 7pm, Musical Theatre West…
THE GLOBE MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon's second Broadway hit after Come Blow Your Horn, played a staggering 1,530 performances in its initial run, w…
DAMAGE CONTROL Sometimes everything old is just — well — old again: The fourth entry in Pride Films and Plays' five-show PAC Pride Fest, Hurricane Damage is a bittersweet w…
SWEET AS PIE, FLAKY AS CRUST, OR BOTH? If the heat in the kitchen is getting you down, you may want to head on over to Hollywood, where the Broadway hit Waitress arrived last night for a lim…
SHE'S BA-A-A-ACK For those who think the sun won’t come up until 2020, here comes another Annie, that 1977 optimistic spitfire of a musical — based on the Harold Gray comic st…
A FUNNY THING’S HAPPENING AT NORTH COAST REP Only in Ancient Rome! Pseudolus, the wise-cracking slave (Omri Schein), can earn his freedom if he can somehow get the pretty, bubble-heade…
THE PLEASURES OF WEBFOOT COCKLEWOMEN AND MINCED CAT Under Milk Wood is a vivid combination of poetry, drama, and music that was first performed as a radio play in 1954, and it is squarely ro…
CLASSICAL MARTYRS AS NEW JERSEY HOUSEWIVES Imagine Medea, Clytemnestra, Antigone and Cassandra — ancient anti-heroines with loathsome mates, a religious martyr, and a disrespected prop…
ITCHING TO BE SWITCHING ROLES Burt Grinstead and Anna Stromberg's take on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde switches between comedic farce and serious scen…
PUMP GETS YOU PUMPED This invigorating, modest little 1980 musical was nominated for both a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Musical in 1982. It may seem commonplace now thanks to John Doy…
EMOTIONAL TURMOIL AND MUSICAL BLISS One of the pleasures of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble's production of Side by Side by Sondheim is the experience of hearing voices without amplification. I…
