broadway grapples
“Tootsie” has arrived and the lights on Broadway, especially those the Marquis theater where the musical is in residence, are shining much brighter because of the energy generated by the incredible cast that delights the audience and sparks uproarious laughter and spontaneous applause at every turn. This new production based on the 1982 movie starring Dustin Hoffman has transferred to…
One father longing to be wealthy enough to adequately care for his family – and letting the Creator know he feels overlooked – and three “adult” daughters dodging the craft of the local matchmaker are the grist for an epic challenge to the traditions held dear by the members of Tevye’s Shtetlekh and its “on-the-fence” Der Rov (a confident yet…
Today, producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender announced the new Broadway cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, currently in rehearsals to begin performances on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at the Lyric Theatre (214 West 43rd Street, NYC) following the final performance of the current cast on Sunday, March 17, 2019. James Snyder will play Harry Potter with Diane…
It is difficult to parse David Byrne’s “Secret Life of Humans,” currently running at 59E59 Theaters, without issuing spoiler alerts. As the eighty-five-minute play unfolds, three “stories” – one lasting a single night, one across a lifetime, and one that spans humanity’s sixty-million-year history, collide in a cathartic resolution that jangles the senses. Inspired by Yuval Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief…
“No sir: we are afraid of you; but she puts courage into us. She really doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. Perhaps you could frighten her, sir.” – Robert de Baudricourt’s Steward, Scene 1, “Saint Joan” George Bernard Shaw has had a successful run on Broadway in the 2017-2018 season. Shaw’s “Pygmalion” lies at the heart of Lerner and…
“Three Tall Women” by Edward Albee Grapples with the Dignity and Valiancy of Death. What if the seven “characters” in Jacques the melancholy’s monologue in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” could “meet” and share with one another the experiences they had in their particular “stage of life?” What if “the lean and slipper’d pantaloon” could let the “soldier” know how…
The Authors’ Note in the program for “Georama: An American Panorama on 3 Miles of Canvas,” currently running at the New York Musical Festival at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, claims that John Banvard the subject of their musical “[has] been entirely obliterated by history.” Although that premise is not entirely accurate – articles about Banvard exist in numerous scholarly…
Playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s “Sojourners” and “Her Portmanteau,” currently running in repertory at New York Theatre Workshop, are exquisitely crafted and skillfully performed explorations into the life of determined matriarch Abasiama Ekpeyoung-Ufot (the younger played by Chinasa Ogbuagu and the older by Jenny Jules), her two husbands Ukpong Ekpeyoung (played with a willful distraction by Hubert Point-Du-Jour) and Disciple Ufot (played…
The brutality of war – any war – leaves its mark on the communities war leaves behind: on the land and on the people who inhabit the land. The soldiers in the fictional South American country featured in Martin Zimmerman’s “Seven Spots on the Sun,” currently playing at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, leave a palm-print on a wooden plank before they…
Tony-nominated Patricia (Louise Lasser) is not buried up to her waist in sand like Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s 1961 “Happy Days. But the character does prattle on – as Winnie did to her husband Willie – about happier days with her dearest friend and hairdresser (Stephen Schnetzer) on the Sunday before her most recent visit to the Tony Awards ceremony….