Writer
Marc Miller has been going to the theater since seeing I Married an Angel with Don Ameche and Margaret Whiting at Shady Grove Music Fair in 1964. When not theatergoing, he bikes, works out, writes songs, and binges on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Political theater doesn’t get much more political than Building the Wall, Robert Schenkkan’s 2017 two-hander now in timely revival at Urban Stages. Schenkkan, author of the Pulitzer-winning The Kentucky Cycle and other notable plays, many of them political, proffers a hot topic, the warehousing and mistreatment of immigrants, and sets up a tense encounter between…
I saw the title The Balusters and thought OK, this will be about Mr. and Mrs. Baluster. Wrong! Turns out a baluster is “any of the small posts that support the upper rail of a railing, as on a staircase,” as Webster has it. They’re of concern to architectural preservationists and hardly anybody else, and…
The tradition dates back at least to Oh, Boy! in 1917, and though it’s since fallen out of favor, it held sway for decades: the notion that an unlikely character getting inebriated was automatically hilarious. Comic drunk scenes were a staple of pre-Code movie comedies, and they populated plenty of plays, too. Fallen Angels, Noel…
The woman behind me kept murmuring, “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” She was responding to the parade of indignities and setbacks being visited upon our protagonist in The Fear of 13, Lindsey Ferrentino’s docudrama at the James Earl Jones. She was also perhaps more involved than she’d otherwise have been because that protagonist was…
The ladies’ dresses are long and flouncy, the men’s vests bright and ornate, the cello and viola are sawing away in the pit, the lyricist is rhyming “reign” with “a-gain,” and the chorus is singing about injustice, class distinction, and, oh yes, love. Hooray, operetta’s back in town! The form’s been considered obsolete for nearly…
An unambitious, ordinary, middle-class young man has been hassled by those around him into considering himself a nonentity. Along comes a spirited, forward-thinking young woman who sees qualities in him that others don’t, and together they forge a romantic relationship that convinces him of his worth and thrusts them into a brighter future. That’s Hobson’s…
From the looks of it, much of the audience at Classic Stage Company probably remembers Marcel Marceau. He was a mime, widely considered the greatest in the world, and widely derided by the many folks who hate mimes. He bestrode the mid-20th century world stage, performing everywhere from Broadway to Australia to Taiwan, mime fortunately…
The pretty young woman is erotically drawn to the sexy young stud, but for plot reasons she’s committed to the much less attractive older man, and after a tryst with the young hottie, remains so. Surprise, it’s three musicals! Fanny (1954), in which Harold Rome, whose usual demographic was working-class New York Jews, proved he…
You may have your quibbles about The Queen of Versailles—I know I do—but there’s no denying, in terms of professionalism, this show is off the charts. The new musical at the St. James boasts a big cast, a huge production, a Stephen Schwartz score, and a narrative that veers off in a couple of directions…
The 2024 Sony Pictures release Saturday Night dramatizes, and I use the term loosely, the chaos and anarchy that preceded the launch of NBC’s Saturday Night (the Live didn’t happen till the second season) on October 11, 1975. While it illustrates the frantic tugs-of-war among cast members, producer Lorne Michaels, and the NBC brass, it…