Richard Thomas

Broadway Review: “The Balusters” at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (Currently On)

April 21, 2026 | Broadway, LGBTQ+, Queer > | "The Balusters", Allen Lee Hughes (Lighting Design), Anika Noni Rose, Caparelliotis Casting & Kelly Gillespie (casting), Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Dan Moses Schreier (Original Music and Sound Design), David Lindsay-Abaire, David Roberts, Deborah Hecht (Vocal Coach), Derek McLane (Scenic Design), Emilio Sosa (costume design), Ioana Alfonso (Movement & Associate Director), J. Jared Janas (Hair & Make-up Design), Janette Braggs (Stage Manager), Jeena Yi, Jeremy Daniel, Kayli Carter, Kenny Leon, Manhattan Theatre Club, Margaret Colin, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Marylouise Burke, Michael Esper, New York Theatre Reviews, Ricardo Chavira, Richard Thomas, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Theatre Reviews, Theatre Reviews Limited, Thomas Schall (Fight Direction), Tripp Phillips (Production Stage Manager)

Balusters are the decorative posts that support a porch railing – without them, the whole structure collapses. In David Lindsay-Abaire’s wickedly sharp “The Balusters,” now at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the title works both literally and metaphorically. The Vernon Point Neighborhood Association spends considerable energy debating historically appropriate balusters for the Crawfords’ front porch, but what they…

Broadway Review: “The Great Society” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater

“The Great Society,” the second installment of playwright Robert Schenkkan’s biographical account of the years Lyndon B. Johnson spent as president in the White House, is less a drama and more a chronological list of the destructive events the plagued his second term in office. To the playwright’s credit, it is extensively detailed and factual; however, to his discredit, it…

Off-Broadway Review: “Jerry Springer – The Opera” at The Pershing Square Signature Center’s Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre

March 27, 2018 | history, Off-Broadway, pershing square > | "Jerry Springer - The Opera", John Rando, Monique Carboni, Pershing Square Signature Center, Richard Thomas, Stewart Lee, The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre

When one thinks of the Jerry Springer Show (past and present), one might not think of ‘opera.’ However, in 2000, the seeds of that exact concept were planted by Richard Thomas at London’s Battersea Arts Centre with his “Tourette’s Diva” and in 2001 with his “How to Write an Opera About Jerry Springer” at the same venue. The success of…