1,091 stories from Show Showdown
A good cabaret act often includes a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Ballads. Anthems. Standards. Novelties. Anecdotes. Audience participation. Shtick. Piano player-perfo…
Okay, I am late to the rodeo. Nevertheless. . .Imagine how much more brilliant Lion King could have been if Julie Taymor had spent even a fraction of her time during the development period f…
Claybourne Elder, Todd Lawson (photo: Monique Carboni)The New Group & Tectonic Theater Project's ponderous production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm, adapted from his unproduced screenpl…
As a playwright, Jez Butterworth seems to be keenly interested in the implied. The words that he puts in his characters' mouths are often meant to signify something that's three steps remove…
Photo: Mike MartinBarbara Cook. What do you think of when you hear that name? A pure soprano? Glitter and Be Gay? The queen of cabaret singers? The Music Man? Sondheim? An unparalleled inter…
Okay the critics were right, The Addams Family is a total mess. Its creators were clearly so caught up in devising their own unique blend of extra-schticky vaudeville, self-referential pomo…
Ricky Ian Gordon's gorgeous chamber piece, Orpheus & Euridice, is being given an excellent production by The Orpheus Project and Collaborative Stages through June 12th. If luscious song …
I'm very pleased to announce that June 9th I will be part of a panel on theatre blogging. I hope you can come! (It's free. More info below.)The panel is part of the Planet Connections Theatr…
I saw Lynn Nottage's new play this afternoon--ironically, two years to the day after I first saw her Pulitzer-Prize winning Ruined. In those two years, rarely a day has passed when I haven't…
If you wanted to explain the concept of "range," you could do worse than to compare Lynn Nottage's current comedy, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, to her recent devastating drama, Ruined. Few p…
Michael Cristofer and Linda Emond (photo: Joan Marcus)To those who point to previous generations of theatre as being better than this one, I have two words for you: Tony Kushner. (I have two…
If you ever have to choose between catching an STD or Catch Me If You Can, you should know that in either case, you're screwed"and in only one is there a chance of having a good time. And on…
In 2003, in the Signature (Arlington, VA) production, Eric Schaeffer demonstrated that he is capable of directing a sensitive, textured, multidimensional, heart-breaking Follies. Has he forg…
If you are going to create a play about Shakespeare, it better be about the writing. The Resonance Ensemble's production of Shakespeare's Slave is all about the writing; and in this producti…
Photo: Carol RoseggNo one is happy in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, regardless of whether they are Iraqi or American, soldier or civilian, human or animal, alive or dead. The living are t…
I love Marilyn Maye.Really, what's not to love? Maye is an American Classic, a jazz-cabaret singer who started singing professionally in the Great Depression, an 83-year-old who swings with …
In his director's note for The Best Is Yet to Come: The Music of Cy Coleman, David Zippel aptly refers to "the dazzling depth and breadth" of Coleman's work. Dazzling depth and breadth indee…
The most poignant character of Larry Kramer's incendiary The Normal Heart appears silently throughout the action: the growing count of AIDS victims. Character, perhaps, provides an insuffici…
With friends in town wanting to see the two best musicals of the season, I got a chance to revisit Book of Mormon and Sister Act. I also got a chance to see both from a different vantage poi…
OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY MUSICALBloody Bloody Andrew Jackson OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAYJerusalem OUTSTANDING BROADWAY MUSICAL REVIVALAnything Goes OUTSTANDING BROADWAY PLAY…
Lucky Guy isn't everyone's cup of tea. As a matter of fact, only those with a real taste for tea will leave quenched. If the idea of an overgrown drag queen, a funny-looking little troll, an…
Joy Yandell, Karson St. John (photo: Daren Scott)Spoilers Throughout. San Diego's excellent Cygnet theatre is presenting a problematic production of Kander and Ebb's classic musical Cab…
Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, currently playing at the Music Box Theater, takes its name from a hymn that, according to director Ian Rickson, is held dear by the English people. "Its words," …
Photo: Joan Marcus
Larry Kramer's 1985 play The Normal Heart, currently in revival at the Golden Theater, is about as subtle and gentle as an angry camel. The characters are all spitting m…
Photo: Joan MarcusLarry Kramer's 1985 play The Normal Heart, currently in revival at the Golden Theater, is about as subtle and gentle as an angry camel. The characters are all spitting mad …
