Contributing Writer
Darien Crago (Ginger Rogers) and Jeremy Benton (Fred Astaire). Photos by John Vecchiolla by Eugene Paul If you were ungallant enough to compare the star original, Ginger Rogers, to her enactor, Darien Crago, star of the current bio-musical Backwards in High Heels, you’d end up with our silver screen favorite winning big in the…
Marc de la Cruz, Zoe Wilson photos by Carol Rosegg by Eugene Paul A potentially fascinating retelling of the life of extraordinary Helen Keller. Eighty-five years ago, Helen Keller, in her full fame, wrote an essay she entitled “Three Days to See” in which she imagined three exceptional days during which she would actually see…
Pictured Center: Josh Young @2015, Joan Marcus By Eugene Paul Every play that manages to get on its feet and actually presented before the public is the result of many acts of faith, love and magical thinking. It’s enough to keep Tinker Bell whizzing around the globe forever more. Amazing Grace is all of…
David Strathairn by Eugene Paul If you are fortunate enough to have attended The Story of Jan Karski in its too brief run as a staged reading in the marvelous Museum of Jewish Heritage premises, you are already marked as hopelessly empathic to any endeavor to tell the all but incomprehensible story of the…
by Eugene Paul Actor Clifford Odets was in his twenties when Harold Clurman asked the young member of their Group Theatre to try writing a play for the Group. The result was the ground breaking Awake and Sing! which tore through the American theatrical scene putting central on the stage a family of desperate Jewish immigrants living in…
Pictured (L-R): Jennifer Mudge, Heather Lind, Alicia Silverstone photos by © Joan Marcus 2015 by Eugene Paul Lynne Meadow has been the artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Club for forty-three years, during which time MTC has grown into one of New York City’s premier ornaments, presenting splendidly produced efforts no matter the material and…
by Eugene Paul Well, it’s like this: those qualms playwright Bruce Norris is suggesting are not just yours after seeing the Playbill cover but the quaking anxieties that palpitate through Chris (absolutely wonderful Jeremy Shamos) in an award worthy performance as he and his new bride Kristy (stunning Sarah Goldberg) begin their leery explorations with…
Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope by Eugene Paul Paris? 1945? This bare stage, a funny looking grand piano and a funnier looking piano player with a bum leg? He’s ex-G.I. Adam Hochberg (brilliant Brandon Uranowitz) confessing he’s a composer and we are off to the most enchanting musical on Broadway, delight after delight. How…
Tam Mutu & Kelli Barrett photo by Jason Bell by Eugene Paul In a huge, richly appointed – designer Paul Tazewell outdoes himself and most other shows dressing his vast company — unstinting production encompassing the breadth of the famed Boris Pasternak novel through its turbulent, painful years from 1903 to 1930, years of…
Vanessa Hudgens as Gigi photos by Margot Schulman by Eugene Paul On Broadway, it’s April, and Paris is in the air, Paris in the 1900’s – that’s Gigi – and Paris forty-some years later, in 1945, that’s An American in Paris, both musicals reborn versions of silver screen parentage, one of them sublime, the…