By LOU HARRY Based on a documentary, The Queen of Versailles, the new Stephen Schwartz and Lindsey Ferrentino musical on Broadway at the St. James Theatre concerns an amoral, in-it-for-herself character with no regard for the impact on others who allows her own ambitions to blind her to the needs of her children. None of…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) At the beginning of Bess Wohi’s play Liberation, the character of Lizzie breaks the fourth wall to greet the expectant audience. She makes some quick, almost anxious banter to calm everyone down. That’s because just before they had taken their seats, they had turned their cell phones…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Jamie Wax’s play Call Me Izzy is set in Mansfield, Louisiana, some three to four hours away from where he grew up in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and worlds away from the New York City he now calls home. But for someone who has lived in…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Rupert Holmes proves he knows how to take a popular hit, re-set it in an improbable location and adapt and reshape it for modern audiences. Based on the time-honored operetta The Pirates of Penzance or A Slave To Duty by William S….
The 2025 Tony Award winners were announced in ceremonies at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 8, hosted by Tony Award winner Cynthia Errivo. Maybe Happy Ending, a musical set in the future about two outdated robots falling love, took home six Tony Awards out of a possible 10 nominations, the most for the…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Thirty-seven years after the scandal-ridden story of televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker and their popular PTL Club made headlines, an unlikely musical on Broadway tells the tale in song. An improbable venture to say the least, the music is being furnished by none other than Sir…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The dark days of the COVID shutdown brought the theatre community to its knees. Unable to perform in front of live audiences or to connect to one another due to health restrictions, some performers kept themselves occupied by baking, writing or, in James Monroe Iglehart’s case, watching…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Jamie Lloyd has made a reputation for himself as a visionary minimalist director, winning a remarkable collection of Olivier Awards on the West End. His inspirational production last year of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Blvd. garnered major buzz for its sleek and slimmed staging and his improbable casting…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The Public Theater has enjoyed a well deserved reputation as a proving grounds for works that have later found great fame on Broadway. Some of these groundbreaking shows include Hair, A Chorus Line, Fun Home and Hamilton. Add to that list Suffs, which premiered at The Public…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One of the marketing ploys for The Notebook: The Musical can be found at the merchandising kiosk downstairs at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Aside from magnets and some specialty clothing items they sell, they also offer a very small, branded The Notebook souvenir box of Kleenex to…
The 77th Annual Tony Awards were held in New York City on Sunday, June 16, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. Despite snagging 13 Tony nominations – the most for any play in history – Stereophonic won a total of five Tony Awards including Best Play. The Outsiders, based on the…
The American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League, sponsors of the Tony Awards for excellence on the Broadway stage, were announced on Tuesday, April 30. The awards will be presented on Sunday night, June 16, and broadcast over the CBS network and livestreamed over Paramount+. BEST PLAY Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Jocelyn Bioh, playwright Mary…
