8,501 stories from Backstage
Playwrights Michael Levinton and Laura von Holt of the theater company known as Little Lord have perhaps taken the old cliché about throwing ideas against a wall and seeing what stick…
Three finalists have been chosen to represent Southern California in the final rounds of the August Wilson Monologue Competition in New York in May.
Pablo Lopez of Los Angeles, Rhyver White …
Staging the seldom-seen plays originally presented by the legendary Group Theatre is a fine idea in theory. But in practice ReGroup Theatre’s revival of John Howard Lawson’s &ldq…
Achievement: It’s a loaded term, no? But what exactly does it mean? The word appears in all caps on a poster in the office of Dr. Danielson, the vice principal of Sheffield High, accom…
The brilliant Danny Burstein and Sarah Paulson dance a delicate, enthralling waltz in “Talley’s Folly,” Lanford Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 1979 play about …
Keen Company has picked an ideal moment for its revival of A.R. Gurney’s 1991 drama “The Old Boy.” As American society finally reaches a tipping point in its acceptance of …
It’s a bit late in history for a cultural reckoning with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Since she and the era she represented were shattered by a Texas bullet, her careful and cold public…
Some plays are explosive, sending avalanches of emotion crashing down on their audiences. Others, such as “The Drawer Boy,” currently running at the June Havoc Theatre in a fine …
In 1967 a Jesuit priest led a team of three men to break into a Baltimore draft office, pouring blood (including some of their own) on draft files to protest the escalation of the Vietnam Wa…
Adam Blanshay, the newly installed head of the Just for Laughs theatrical division, plans to expand the comedy festival’s brand with dramatic and musical productions.
“It’s…
Many a Disney film has been turned into a successful onstage musical, from “The Lion King” to “Beauty and the Beast.” Now Mary Zimmerman’s musical adaptation of…
An uproarious comic revue, “Old Hats” stars the superheroes of clowning, Bill Irwin and David Shiner, supported by musical interludes and interactive accompaniment from enchantin…
How many plays is “Lucy Loves Me”? A magical-realism reverie, with each of its three protagonists lapsing in and out of reality and introspective monologue? A nostalgic rom-com, …
The arts aren’t merely for entertainment; they can also be a powerful healing tool. Just ask the organization Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY), which for 30 years has been help…
There are moments of theatrical magic strewn throughout Douglas Carter Beane’s new adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1957 TV musical “Cinderella.&rdq…
The prolific Amy Herzog hits a snag with “Belleville,” a portrait of the seriously dysfunctional marital relationship of a couple of Americans in their late 20s living in the tit…
This 1596 Shakespeare history play is seminal as the first English drama to give equal prominence to the ruling class and the disreputable denizens of a dangerous neighborhood. The action mo…
What, exactly, is playwright Lindsay Joy Murphy trying to accomplish with “Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyberqueen”? The title implies a titillating, campy, and possibly sordid soa…
Metropolitan Playhouse, which is in the inestimable business of excavating America’s theatrical past, is devoting its 21st season to that evergreen theme, the American Dream. Owen Davi…
Shakespeare saved some of his most outsized characters for “As You Like It,” and not just in that its plucky heroine is “more than common tall.” Rosalind has become o…
New York’s cabaret venue Don’t Tell Mama has opened up its first new location in 30 years in Los Angeles and is holding auditions for singing waiters and bartenders.
The famed &l…
The opportunity to see Vanessa Redgrave act onstage in the intimate confines of Off-Broadway’s historic Cherry Lane Theatre is a theatrical event in and of itself. The fact that Jesse …
James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Passion” has been sharply dividing audiences since its first Broadway preview in 1994. I was there that tempestuous night and f…
Perhaps it’s foolish to hope for strong acting in a concert presentation of a musical, especially one being produced by a classical orchestra. Nevertheless, director Lonny Price proved…
Starting this fall, a re-imagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s megahit “Phantom of the Opera” could be rolling into your city.
The newest version of the musical first debuted …
