Theater Articles
South Pacific at Lincoln Center - One Enchanted Evening of Theatre
There is a sense of the extraordinary at the revival of South Pacific at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The first three notes of "Bali Ha'i" lure audiences back into what may be Rodgers and Hammerstein's greatest scores -- and then into a bittersweet story about bored American Seabees on the verge of a major World War II battle and the romance between nurse Nellie Forbush from Arkansas and a French plantation owner, Emile De Beque.
West Side Story - A Fresh Take on a Broadway Classic
Fifty-two years after opening on Broadway, West Side Story is still about gang warfare in 1950’s Manhattan and the Romeo-and-Juliet romance of Tony and Maria. Leonard Bernstein’s music and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are still magnificent, as is Jerome Robbins’s balletic choreography, lovingly reproduced by Joey McKneely. But the revival at the Palace Theatre is different.
Shrek the Musical: The Man Behind the Ogre Speaks Out
It takes a lot of courage, patience and dedication to commit oneself to a pre-show ritual of cumbersome green prosthetics, a medieval fat suit and guy tights. Even more impressive? The natural ability to elevate the physical phenomenon known as “flatulence” to an art form -- on Broadway, no less. And yet, musical theatre star Brian d’Arcy James does it all, with a wink and a belch and a swampful of gusto.
In Its 12th Year on Broadway, The Lion King Reigns Supreme!
On October 15, 1997, Disney’s The Lion King opened the doors to its first preview performance at which point the story of Simba, the cub who would be king, staked its claim as an unprecedented Broadway phenomenon: a feast of unbound imagination, stirring storytelling and pure visceral joy. By the time it officially opened on November 13th, it was already a word-of-mouth success.
Revenge Served Up 'Hot' - 9 to 5: The Musical
In 1980, Dolly Parton was a country star making her film debut as a good-hearted, sexually harassed secretary in Nine to Five. She wrote the bouncy title song and created the delightful vision of roping her lying boss, Franklin T. Hart, as if he were a rodeo steer.
The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical - Broadway’s Got HAIR
For baby boomers, last summer’s production of Hair at Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre was one of those seminal retro experiences -- a Zen-like then-and-now laced with nostalgia and the compulsion to unearth long-buried appliquéd bell-bottoms and fringed suede vests. It was also a sliver of their past to share with their kids, grandkids, or whomever was sitting next to them in the open-air venue that was, for the moment, an “Age of Aquarius” time machine.
Disney Has the Perfect Holiday Stocking Stuffer: Tickets to Three Family Musicals,as
It’s that wonderful time of year when dreams of a Disney magic kingdom dance through your heads, or at least your children’s. But New York City is the world’s greatest magic kingdom. It’s also a winter wonderland of warmth with three spectacular Disney family musicals: Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. And there’s an electrical parade every night. Just stand in Times Square where the neon is ablaze.
Stop Dreaming Of A White Christmas— See It On Broadway!
The arrival of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas at the Marquis Theatre raises a critical question: what took so long? The holiday season in Manhattan, identified with Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular and multiple productions of “The Nutcracker,” is tailor-made for Berlin’s music.
Monty Python’s Spamalot: Riding High Into The Home Stretch With Clay Aiken
You know that a musical based on a movie is special when theatergoers who know nothing about the material going in become die-hard devotees by the show’s end. Monty Python’s Spamalot, 2005’s Tony-winning musical scheduled to close on January 11, is a Broadway phenomenon whose new fans include Clay Aiken, the break-out “American Idol” finalist who’s appearing in the show as Sir Robin (and, in typical Python tradition, several other roles).
Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk Returns To New York this Holiday Season
Wintuk has arrived! Even before snow has fallen in New York City, Wintuk, from Cirque du Soleil® will delight audiences during its run at Madison Square Garden’s WaMu Theater from October 30 through January 4, 2009.
Lucky 13!
Grownups… Parents…. Adults…. Dinosaurs!... and they’ve been Broadway’s target audience, like, forever! Okay, sure, in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s the occasional show for children would pop up (Eva Le Gallienne’s Alice in Wonderland or Mary Martin in Peter Pan), but back then kids had no real impact on Broadway or its producers. (What were they thinking??)
Chicago ––Tom Wopat Returns to the Windy City Musical in Full Razzle-Dazzle Mode
"Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the Silver-Tongued Prince of the Courtroom, the one, the only: Mr. Billy Flynn.” Enter Tom Wopat as the deliciously duplicitous defender of the dames of Chicago’s Cook County Jail.
For A Tale of Two Cities, Broadway Equals 'The Best of Times'
Victorian author Charles Dickens' bitterly impoverished childhood left him with a strong aversion to injustice, which is why the themes of good vs. evil, punishment, and redemption permeate his novels. The most expansive example is the riveting romantic saga set in London and Paris during the French Revolution: A Tale of Two Cities, which is now a Broadway musical.
August: Osage County’s Newest Malignant Matriarch: Estelle Parsons
The Weston family in Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is morbidly, chronically, loudly unhappy. It is fraught with everything that makes family drama worth watching: drug addiction, alcoholism, adultery, betrayals and buried secrets. At the family's center is Violet, a scabrous mother from hell with a sixth sense for detecting the weak spots in her relatives.
Gypsy's Laura Benanti (And You Thought Only Mamma Rose Could Steal the Show!)
Unlike Patti LuPone’s stunning in-your-face arrival on the stage of the St. James Theatre, Laura Benanti’s first entrance in Gypsy is designed to be fleeting. A blackout occurs before one can get a good fix on Benanti -- dressed as a newsboy and grinning gamely.
Actress Beth Leavel: No Longer “Drowsy” but Freaking Out Horses in Young Frankenstein
How can you make Young Frankenstein, Broadway’s “monster” musical hit –– described by Clive Barnes of the New York Post as “dizzy, glitzy and funny” –– dizzier, glitzier and funnier? Creator Mel Brooks and director/choreographer Susan Stroman knew how: they brought in triple-threat performer Beth Leavel and said, “You’re our next Frau Blucher!”
Hairspray’s “Flexible Hold” on Broadway: This year it’s EDNA, BY GEORGE!
Thanks to his spending nearly a dozen years warming a barstool on the long-running sitcom “Cheers,” most of us have a singular image of George Wendt imprinted on our brains: portly, rumpled and habitually hoisting a mug of beer to his lips. But for those of us who have been to the Neil Simon Theatre over the last nine months, that vision has been challenged – big time!
SPAMALOT, Live on Stage with Killer Rabbits, Nitwit Knights, Stephen Collins & Marin Mazzie (plus a bit of ye olde Fish Slapping Dance)
In Monty Python’s Spamalot, a doltish King Arthur (Stephen Collins) leads his newly recruited Knights of the Round Table ("we dance when we're able") on a quest for the Holy Grail, which takes them to a Vegas-like Camelot, a forest with the shrieky Knights Who Say "Ni!," a castle guarded by a taunting Frenchman ("I blow my nose at you!"), and the strange land of Broadway (embodied by the Shubert Theatre, where Spamalot is in its fourth year).
SPEED-THE-POL: NOVEMBER Actors Discuss David Mamet, Nathan Lane & Broadway’s High-Octane Political Satire
Diabolically funny. Unabashedly cunning. Politically insensitive. Welcome to David Mamet’s November – a carnival of pre-election heebie-jeebies starring Nathan Lane as President Charles Smith, a bombastic, duplicitous commander in chief who, after four years in office, is drowning in bipartisan quicksand.
Here's to Chicago -- Broadway’s Longest Running City
Murder is central to Chicago, the tantalizing Tony winning musical that is 12 years into its current Broadway revival. The nefarious tale has a classic he-loved-her-then-done-her-wrong plot –– with a twist: a has-been chorine, Mrs. Amos (Roxie) Hart, offs her cheating lover, is slapped in the slammer, and winds up in a trial that is more circus than legal proceeding courtesy of a media that in 1920's Chicago moved with alacrity from one celebrity scandal to another like bees pollinating flowers.
November’s Dylan Baker Talks Turkey
As David Mamet’s hilarious political comedy November unfolds, President Charles Smith (Nathan Lane) is in the Oval Office contemplating the tatters of his failed first term. He is a loud, money-hungry, neurotic, profane commander-in-chief—a loony hack having an extremely difficult time coming to terms with his imminent loss of power and a pathetic presidential library fund of $4,000.
From Odets With Love & Redemption...The Country Girl
As Frank Elgin, the fallen Broadway star of Clifford Odets's drama The Country Girl, Morgan Freeman creates a heart-wrenching character most unlike the sage and dignified film roles that he has mastered over the past two decades.
Fearsome Family Ties... August: Osage County
Tracy Letts is a playwright who gravitates to the jugular, and not always metaphorically. He has no problem tossing his characters into a fishbowls overflowing with radioactive water. He did it with Killer Joe, he did it with Bug, and now, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County he brings it on home – literally – with enough vitriolic humor to power the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma (pop. 3,629), where the play is set.
SPEED-THE-POL: NOVEMBER Actors Discuss David Mamet, Nathan Lane & Broadway’s High-Octane Political Satire
Diabolically funny. Unabashedly cunning. Politically insensitive. Welcome to David Mamet’s November – a carnival of pre-election heebie-jeebies starring Nathan Lane as President Charles Smith, a bombastic, duplicitous commander in chief who, after four years in office, is drowning in bipartisan quicksand.
Patti LuPone in Gypsy: Fasten Your Seat Belts, Kids -- Momma Rose is Back!
The second Patti LuPone sashays down the aisle as Momma Rose, bellowing “Sing out Louise!,” you know: the woman is a standing ovation waiting to happen.
