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Julia Polinsky wrote, directed, produced, and starred in her first play when she was 7 years old. She’s been paying a lot of attention to theater ever since.
by Julia Polinsky Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope would be a pleasure even if all you got was a terrific retro revue of marvelous songs and electrifying singing and dancing. But you get more; you get vignettes of African-American people’s lives, stories told without a word spoken. Evenly matched with their own…
Allen Lewis Rickman Tevye Served Raw, Garnished with Jews From the writings of Sholem Aleichem by Julia Polinsky Shane Baker, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Yelena Shmulenson have lovingly crafted Tevye Served Raw, Garnished with Jews, an homage to Sholem Aleichem+. He wrote the stories that were the basis for Fiddler on the Roof,…
Solea Pfeiffer, Mykal Kilgore, Shoshana Bean, Colin Donnell by Julia Polinsky Jason Robert Brown made a name for himself with Songs for a New World, back in the day. It was an off-Broadway moment as they were crafted in the 90s: a collection of Rent-like music, put together by a talented, energetic…
Ji by Julia Polinsky Where does passion live, in the head, the heart, or the art? In Tchaikovsky: None But The Lonely Heart, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century takes a beautiful look at Tchaikovsky’s music and his deepest relationships, his passion and, yes, his loneliness. The Ensemble for the Romantic Century…
Eboni Booth, Dina Shihabi, Purva Bedi, Lucy Taylor (kneeling), Ikechukwu Ufomadu, Ellen Maddow and Camila Canó-Flaviá by Julia Polinsky Everything you need to know about Dance Nation can be found out by reading the Author’s Note in the playbill, in which Barron claims to be writing about women, ambition, and desire, then goes…
Christian Borle photos by Joan Marcus Me and My Girl by Julia Polinsky New York City is thick with exceptionally talented actors, the kind who can buff up a topnotch performance with only 10 days of rehearsal – the norm for Encores!. What a luxury, for director/choreographer Warren Carlyle — Encores! demands…
Jamie Parker and Sam Clemmett photo credit Manuel Harlen by Julia Polinsky Harry Potter. Hardly are those words out before people react. For years, J. K. Rowling’s creation has inspired adoration and fandom on the Olympic scale. But without the depth of a book’s narration, or the tricks and trappings…
Tom Hollander photo credit Joan Marcus by Julia Polinsky “Early Stoppard.” If those words thrill you, fill you with fantastic longing for great theater, you’re in for a treat. You’ll revel in every moment of the Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Travesties, Stoppard’s giddy, delightful, 1974 word-nerd talkfest. Be grateful to the Roundabout…
Courtesy of Joan Marcus by Julia Polinsky Des McAnuff, who ably demonstrated with Jersey Boys that he knows how to do a really good jukebox musical, directs Summer: The Donna Summer Musical at breakneck speed and with all the depth of a Wikipedia entry. The show can’t make up its mind…
Caissie Levy, Patti Muran by Julia Polinsky Speaking as the one and only American who never saw Frozen: The Movie, it was good to come on Frozen: The Broadway Musical from cold, so to speak. Surprise! No surprises! Basic, fantastically successful Disney format. Simple-ish story (absent parents, child who masters obstacles, grows up,…