230 stories from Kritzerland
It was the biggest hit of the 1942-1943 season - for all of 83 days. Cole Porter's Something for the Boys opened on Jan. 7, 1943 to solid reviews and brisk business from the proverbial ti…
So what's the first musical in which the male and female leads play guitars? You're going through your list of rock musicals, aren't you? My guess is The Sound of Music, in which both Maria …
Something greatly interested me about Eric Simonson's Magic/Bird " although it wasn't the play itself.
How often do we get the chance to see not one, but two performers who were part of the original 1971 cast of Follies?
Good Friday would seem to be an apt day to discuss Jesus Christ Superstar, wouldn't you say? Only minutes into the new production at the Neil Simon, director Des McAnuff displays an idea tha…
It was the month that we had The Sixth Annual Broadway Beauty Pageant, with the immensely talented Andrew Chappelle from Mamma Mia! taking the crown. But Andrew's such a nice young man that …
"You know why Oscar shouldn't have written that? He's never been in a whorehouse in his life."
Back on May 3, 1988, Carrie had me in its corner before it played a note or said a word. I estimate that by then in my 27-year history of theatergoing, I'd attended approximately 2,500 stage…
It was the month that we had the 50th anniversary of a big event. On Feb. 2, 1962, the moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars. In short, it really was the official dawn…
Ilona in She Loves Me certainly got a great deal out of her trip to the library. But she has nothing on Ben West. The 29-year-old wunderkind who started Unsung Musicals Company can often be …
My hat is off to Marshall Brickman, Rick Elice, Andrew Lippa and Jerry Zaks. When their production of The Addams Family received mediocre reviews and failed to get a Best Musical Tony nomina…
There's incredible buzz in the packed City Center until the house lights dim. How quiet the chamber is! What anticipation there is here!
As if you haven't heard, it's a fictional account of people trying to do a musical about Marilyn Monroe. It's not to be confused with the two musicals that dealt with the screen legend in 19…
Why doesn't Spider-Man proclaim in its ads that it's in its "Second Smash Year!"? Or does management feel that it can't use that line until June, which will be the first anniversary of its o…
This week's column
To celebrate Ethel Merman's birthday on January 16 - her 105th, 104th or 103rd depending on which Merman scholar you choose to believe -- see her live.
No one can accuse Bonnie & Clyde of not having a slam-bang opening. A barrage of rifle shots rings out as the two killers sit in the front seat of their car. These criminals aren't just bein…
Mon, Dec. 5. Twenty days to Christmas, twenty days to Christmas, plenty of time to do our Christmas shopping. Thus, many of us instead went to the Roundabout's staged reading of that 1963 mu…
It was the month that John Neville died. Forty years ago, I saw him play Humbert Humbert in Lolita, My Love at the Shubert in Boston. My buddy Josh Ellis had already seen him do it at the Sh…
