By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) Near the beginning of Indecent, the one-act ensemble piece by Paula Vogel, which netted director Rebecca Taichman her first Tony Award, the character of Lemml, the Stage Manager (Richard Topol), peers into the darkness enveloping the theater audience and announces “Every night we tell the same story.” […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) What truly establishes War Paint as one of the most unusual Broadway experiences is that rarely are two Tony Award winning actresses allowed to share the stage with one another and stand strongly pound-for-pound, song-by-song next to each other and sing and act their hearts out. It […]
Dear Evan Hansen won the Tony Award for Best Musical at the 2017 Tony Awards ceremonies at Radio City Music Hall. In addition the musical about teenage angst, social media captured Best Score awards for the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and Best Book for scriptwriter Steven Levenson. Star Ben Platt won the […]
The nominations for the 2017 American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards® presented by The Broadway League were announced on May 2, 2017: Best Play A Doll’s House, Part 2 Author: Lucas Hnath Producers: Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, Barry Diller, Universal Stage Productions, The John Gore Organization, James L. Nederlander, Ambassador Theatre Group, Peter May, Seth A. […]
By EDWARD RUBIN It is no surprise that Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, two of Broadway’s most beloved Tony-winning performers, each with their own cadre of diehard followers, are filling the seats at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre. It is equally unsurprising that the audience goes over the moon after each Scott Frankel (music) and Michael Korie […]
By ALAN SMASON Call it a sign of the times or call it the end of an era, but The Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical, has announced its closing date of June 4, 2017. The show with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics and book by Tom Jones had originally opened in Greenwich Village in […]
Brian d’Arcy James, the Tony Award-nominated actor behind the title role of Shrek and as Nick Bottom in Something’s Rotten!, is finally getting the opportunity to play the role of British King George III in Hamilton: An American Musical on Broadway, starting on April 14. It just took a few years. James originated the role […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) In 2014 when “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York, critics and pundits were applauding Jessie Mueller for what seemed an impossible role to fill. Not only did the actress have to emulate the singing style of an iconic American […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out”) By all things reasonable, Waitress, the Broadway musical currently serving its fare at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York, should have never made it to Broadway. It is a story of improbabilities. The musical was based on an independent film directed by Adrienne Shelly, a striking […]