8,501 stories from Backstage
Mando Alvarado's new play has a sitcom-worthy premise that's hurt more than helped by the plot's sudden dark turn.
"To stand naked on the stage is an outward manifestation of what we do in the best performances," asserts Michael Cerveris.
The last thing you would expect George and Ira Gershwin's classic score for "Girl Crazy" to be is dull. But that's exactly what it is in Encores! concert production.
From the moment the redoubtable Pamela Payton-Wright settles into her train seat and, as an enthusiastic elderly Southern Baptist, engages the young male stranger seated before her with ladylike aggression, you know you are in the best of hands. By the time director Michael Wilson's bone-deep production of the first part of Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle is over, nearly three hours have passed in the blink of an eye. I wanted the second part to begin immediately.
Farce and drama blend in Sarah Ruhl's odd but endearing new work, In the Next Room or the vibrator play. This is the type of play no commercial producer in his or her right mind would ever mount on the Main Stem, but Lincoln Center Theater is presenting it at the Lyceum because South Pacific continues to run at the Vivian Beaumont. It's challenging and strange and addresses the uncomfortable issue of women's sexuality. Conventional Broadway audiences won't know what to make of it.
Oy vey. This one-man show about converting to Judaism suffers from an orthodox sense of humor.
Back Stage recently sat down with four actors who have carved indelible characters on television: some over the course of several seasons, some in just a handful of episodes.
T.R. Knight and other well-known actors take the daring plunge into musical theater.
This delectable blend of live orchestral music and imaginative, fun-filled, contemporary choreography is propelled by narration dramatically delivered by Brian Blessed.
Schmaltz, catharsis, nu? Theodore Bikel's "Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears" is a compelling homage from a compelling performer.
While there are definitely elements to admire here, there's also a good deal of overblown mythologizing combined with a paucity of convincing character writing.
Despite courageous intentions, ponderousness and gravitas keep this production from reaching tragic dimensions.
The acting from the four-person ensemble in "Wolves at the Window (and Other Tales of Immorality)," Toby Davies' adaptation of 10 short stories by the famous British writer Saki, is so sharp…
Loaded is more treatise than play. What could have been an intriguing exploration of gay identity in the 21st century ends up as an irritating pingpong match full of unbelievable behavior, manipulated emotion, and stilted manifestoes.
In a season full of star vehicles, the revival of Ragtime rides onto Broadway with nary a box-office name and steamrollers its way to the top of the heap.
The interpretation is notably loyal to the Edmond Rostand original, but unfortunately such loyalty leads to two of the show's greatest flaws: its length and its inaccessibility for a contemp…
The glaring flaw in "Mine" is that it's almost entirely static. The three players emerge at the end just as they were in that first scene, perhaps a little worse for wear.
In its New York premiere, the pithy 60-minute work about Abraham Lincoln is splendidly rendered by the remarkably diverse and talented Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
This highly amusing production of an intelligently written 1930s comedy about greed proves disturbingly relevant to today's economic downturn.
Playwright Raymond Jones has done his homework in telling this tale of a girl from the projects who becomes a New York City policewoman. But despite some good performances, the arc of her pr…
Matt Wilkinson's new play is a complex exploration of family relationships and the imagination of the human mind, but it fails to tell a coherent, meaningful story.
Symbolism meets expressionism in this dense, alluring, early-20th-century feminist American drama.
Liz Duffy Adams' Restoration sex farce channels the 1960s and delivers insight and fun, with delicious performances and wonderful words.
Ann Marie Healy's dumbed-down yet tarted-up new play is a portentous batch of dystopian tripe that takes itself so seriously it leaches all fun from the genre of science fiction, a criminal …
