Because opera enthusiasts would be seduced by the music of Bizet and musical theater aficionados would savor a work that contained the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein ll, it seems only logical to combine the talents of both to create a Broadway show. It was done in 1943 when Mr. Hammerstein adapted Bizet’s opera “Carmen,” moving it from a tobacco plant…
Ezra’s (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) stories about his father’s reaction to the news that Ezra was marrying Chris (Phillip James Brannon) and then, later, that they were going to have a baby serve as bookends for Jordan Harrison’s LGBTQ themed new play about “our origins” and how “denying our origins is not healthy nor is denying our children the right to…
“I went out into the world and I kept my/promise. I became somebody. I owed that to my/parents and to Sonny.” – Cologero The ingredients: a wonderful story of redemption by Chazz Palminteri; an outstanding cast; two (not one) directors with keen senses of staging (Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks); captivating music by Alan Menken; engaging lyrics by Glenn…
In Act III of Edward Albee’s classic play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (The Exorcism), George and Martha are alone following Nick and Honey’s departure. The deception that has haunted their marriage has been “exorcised” and the couple wonders what their future holds: Will things get better? Can they survive without the deception? Will they be all right? Albee’s dense…
“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…
In an October 17, 2015 “New York Post” article, Michael Goodwin raises the rich, albeit uncomfortable, proposition of James Piereson in his July 2015 book “Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of America’s Postwar Political Order;” namely, “America is due for a revolution.” In the “Post” article, Mr. Goodwin summarizes Mr. Pierson’s argument thusly: “there is an inevitable “revolution” coming…
“Call the DJ, call the station/Dancing all across the nation/Here for every generation/Now you know your queen is back.” – “The Queen Is Back” by Donna Summer The fact is that she never really left, and the proof is that her music is alive on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre in the new jukebox bio-musical “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.”…
Clare Barron’s “Dance Nation” Explores the Angst of Adolescence with Cathartic Wit. Separation-individuation is one of life’s most difficult passages: it is completed successfully by most; however, more than might be suspected remain in the mire of adolescence all their lives. Prepubescence is supposed to erupt in adulthood – adults emerging where clingy parent-dependent pre-teens once held sway. It is…
There is something magnificent happening at Lincoln Center Theater, and it has to do with a powerful and intriguing woman, who has currently walked onto the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, revealing that Eliza Doolittle has arrived in the twenty-first century, branding “My Fair Lady” as an old musical destined for a new era. The phenomenal revival directed by…
“I’m Mlima of the Great Plains. Eldest of my clan. I was tracked for many days, taken by a poison arrow. Why are there so many of you?! Mumbi? Koko? Do you hear me?” Mighty Mlima, “Kenya’s most famous elephant,” – the old, large elephant “with extraordinary tusks” – is murdered for those tusks by the Somali poachers Raman and…