8,501 stories from Backstage
That Fiona Shaw is a force of nature is indisputable. As a very human Virgin Mary in playwright Colm Tóibín’s 90-minute monologue “The Testament of Mary,” Sha…
The reviews and audiences may have yawned when “Chaplin” debuted on Broadway last summer, but the bio musical received some love this morning when Robert Cuccioli and Laila Robbi…
There’s plenty of sound and fury in Alan Cumming’s near-solo adaptation of “Macbeth,” but it signifies a great deal more than nothing. This startlingly fresh approach…
When I saw the original Off-Broadway production of Lyle Kessler’s “Orphans” back in 1985, I found the play to be a tiresome mix of pilfered Pinter and stolen Shepard, notab…
The bill for stage smoke must be a big one over at the Marquis Theatre. The stuff billows forth in unrelenting profusion during director-choreographer Jeff Calhoun’s expressionistic, w…
Richard Greenberg’s touching comedy-drama “The Assembled Parties” isn’t saying much of anything new: change is constant, the universe is random, time takes its toll o…
Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” has finally disentangled itself from the 17-month legal dispute between former director Julie Taymor and the show’s current…
Roundabout Theatre Company adds to Broadway’s Clifford Odets renaissance with the first Main Stem revival of his 1949 drama about Hollywood, “The Big Knife.” If the show do…
Douglas Carter Beane’s “The Nance” is a bold, brave play, in which this eminent theatrical boulevardier reaches for something deeper and darker. Chronicling Mayor Fiorello …
According to the Playbill for “Motown: The Musical,” the show stuffs 67 songs into its two-hour-and-45-minute running time. Such abundance suggests that impresario Berry Gordy&md…
Forget paying for lattes—Los Angeles actors will soon have their own “theater community Starbucks.”
The LA Stage Alliance, a non-profit arts group, is readying a new commun…
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” rushes at you from the stage of the Shubert Theatre—often literally—with the …
This season the Windy City has a full slate of Pulitzer Prize winners, world premieres, and revised classics. Here’s what we’re looking forward to on Chicago stages this spring.
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The first time Martha Lavey performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, she was naked in body paint playing a South American Indian. Her then acting teacher John Malkovich cast her in wh…
What is a storefront theater? Ask three artistic directors this question, and you’ll get three different answers. “Small, non-Equity house.” “Itinerant company.&rdquo…
Role-playing games teach players to be true to themselves, whether they are “chaotic good,” “chaotic neutral,” or “chaotic evil.” These “alignments&…
A play about the comic and tragic life of actor Buster Keaton, "Stoneface" was the big winner at the 34th Annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards on Monday night. The show, honoring the best …
Shia LaBeouf’s bizarre feuding with his erstwhile collaborators on Broadway’s "Orphans" has likely only increased interest in the show. For those with deep pockets, charitable he…
Witness Relocation’s collage dance-theater has been compared to Richard Foreman, the Wooster Group, and John Cage: a list that follows the evolution of the experimental avant garde acr…
Playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry launched his career with the kind of show that “Futurology the Musical” aspires to be: a pop tuner with flash, sass, and a moral tacked on at…
Last month I asked the great John Lithgow to write an introduction to my new book “How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare.” He agreed (wonderful man that he is), and the result a…
There’s no use putting up a fight with “Kinky Boots.” The Broadway adaptation of the hit 2005 Miramax film about a struggling shoe factory in the north of England and the d…
Before we get to the monkey, let’s talk about Kathryn Hunter. Rarely has an actor’s transformation so shocked my senses as this short 55-year-old woman’s impersonation of a…
The Broadway Dreams Foundation is holding summer workshops across the country that will give students a chance to hone their musical theater skills in front of casting directors.
Craig Burns…
Usually, acting and performing are escapes for Betsy Wolfe, but with "The Last Five Years" she is experiencing something new.
