Two elements overpower the current production of Redwood now playing at the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway. One is the extraordinary voice of Idina Menzel, and the other is the equally extraordinary projection design by Hana S. Kim. In Tina Landau’s hyper-emotional new play, the protagonist Jesse (played by Menzel) is an art gallerist, living in New York…
Gypsy – that revered American musical – is back on Broadway! Led by six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, and directed by the legendary George C. Wolfe, this much-anticipated revival features three Black women in principal roles, bringing a whole new vibe to the classic. Suggested by the memoirs of burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee,…
Swept Away is a standout entry in the grim-but-entertaining Fall 2024 Broadway season. It’s a solid tell-don’t-show work, in which a narrator talks to the audience to tell a story, at least partly in flashback (book by John Logan). Michael Mayer’s direction makes the most of this storytelling technique, a solid cast, and some lovely…
For anyone familiar with the evangelical scandals of the 1980s, Tammy and Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart are familiar names. The latter two preached fire and brimstone — and their demonizing of liberals and feminists was their calling card. Hell hath no fury like a preacher scorned. Into this world of sin and…
Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) Death Becomes Her By Marc Miller “Musical Comedy Revitalized,” goes the subtitle for Death Becomes Her, and by thunder, that’s what it delivers. The new musical at the Lunt-Fontanne, adapted from Robert Zemeckis’ dark 1992 film satire on the pursuit of youth and beauty, is…
Maybe Happy Ending, now on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, looks great, sounds great, has splendid performances and touches the heart as it explores what it means to be human. Or to love. Or both. It has real songs, that advance the show and reveal the characters’ thoughts. It has fireflies. It has robots in…
When you drop a coin into a jukebox, you pays your money and you hardly ever takes your chances. With A Wonderful World, The Louis Armstrong Musical, your chances are really good to hear some great music (arrangements by Branford Marsalis and Daryl Waters), enjoy some splendid choreography (Rickey Tripp) danced by splendid dancers, and…
For fans of Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Sunset Boulevard, the Broadway incarnation may be jolting. It’s not Wilder’s vision, but director Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Blvd., reimagined for the stage. While the piece is based on the 1950 movie — and retains some of its powerful lines — this version is oddly devoid of place. Now at…
The new Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress, starring Sutton Foster, stacks up to two hours of pure theatrical fun. Deftly directed by Lear deBessonet, this production arrives on the heels of its popular run at New York City Center’s Encores!, retaining some of its original cast members and adding a few fresh faces….
Directed by Marc Bruni, a musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s landmark novel The Great Gatsby comes to Broadway this season with all the glitz and glamor of the Roaring Twenties. Following its sold-out world premiere at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J. last fall, this musical extravaganza winged into the Big Apple in…