1,091 stories from Show Showdown
The Patrick Lee Internet Theater Bloggers Association award nominations have been announced. Here they are:OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL Bloody Bloody Andrew JacksonCatch Me…
What haunts most about any production of Follies is not the chorus of ghosts that infiltrate the stage, the unfulfilled dreams or festered regrets infecting the wings, or even the bookends o…
Jill Eikenberry, Wrenn Schmidt (photo: Ben Arons)There are no new stories. This fact challenges every playwright (and novelist and screenwriter). Take, for example, the following three scena…
There are wonderful moments in theatre when you suddenly realize that you are in the presence of someone special. The first time I heard Lisa Howard sing was one of those moments. It was an …
Before I get to her voice, and what she sang, and all those necessary details about someone performing a solo cabaret show, I need to get one thing out of the way: Laura Benanti is a hoot. N…
Mamie Gummer and Jenn Gambatese. Photo credit: Joan Marcus.I have to begin this review with a caveat: At the performance of The School for Lies I attended, an electrical outage down the bloc…
According to the invaluable StageGrade, the Broadway musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown received an average grade of C- from a total of 31 critics. While it's clear that Women…
How refreshing would it be to see a movie, a good movie at that, translated for the stage and not simply transferred to the stage? I might just drop to my knees and yell, "Whoopi!" Instead, …
Photo credit: Peter James ZielinskiYou know you're in trouble when the most endearing, magical moments of a musical occur before the curtain ever rises. Much like the looped entertainment ne…
Hello. I'm Sandra Mardenfeld and I'm excited to be writing for Show Showdown! I'm currently working on my PhD in Communication and Information at Rutgers University, specializing in media st…
In writing Seance on a Wet Afternoon, was Stephen Schwartz hoping to create his Sweeney Todd?
A Little Dessert in the DesertI love the movie, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The performances are nearly flawless, the costumes spectacularly original, and the script and direction fresh …
A Cole Day in Hell Photo Credit: Joan MarcusI work in the theater. No, I no longer perform; but I am an enthusiastic audience member who believes that once the curtain goes up, I have a…
Playwright debbie tucker green's elegant, pared-down Olivier Award-winning play Born Bad is a formidable achievement.
Marie and Bruce is a crass and juvenile--and unsuccessful--attempt at being shockingly funny.
In the past few years, the Roundabout Theatre Company has had a lot of trouble delivering the goods when it comes to musical revivals. Their productions, last year, of Pal Joey and Bye Bye B…
All I can say to David Leveaux, director of the current Broadway production of Arcadia, is shame on you.
Victoria Clark Master Class. This is the second master class I've seen given by Victoria Clark. I've also seen Barbara Cook give one. All three were wonderful and occasionally awe-inspiring …
If Michael Fray had written nothing but the delightfully hysterical Noises Off, he would still rate a place in the heart of all theatre lovers. However, Frayn has written a great deal more t…
Star power comes in two varieties. In the first, a person is born with enough charisma to mesmerize everyone in the vicinity.
Playwright Read presents compelling, fully realized characters, and their secrets are both surprising and believable.
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival's revival of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, which has been running at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway since mid-December, adds we…
Hello Again, Michael John LaChuisa's musicalization of Arthur Schnitzle's 1900 play La Ronde, is often glorious.
Room presents an emotional portrait of a writer in desperate need of "the room to move, the room to breathe, the room to imagine; emotional room, creative room."
