Andrianna Hicks, (center, l) J. Harrison Ghee (center, right) (Photo: Matthew Murphy) Some Like It Hot By Fern Siegel The Billy Wilder’s 1959 movie classic “Some Like It Hot” remains the top comedy on the American Film Institute’s list. And for some cinema purists, turning it into a musical comedy on Broadway…
The Piano Lesson by Cammy Paglia Tony Award nominee Latanya Richardson Jackson makes her directorial debut in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Piano Lesson, a masterpiece that not only tugs on your soul, it forces the mind to venture into the ugly truth which underlies the story of America’s shameful…
Victoria Clark plays the lead in the off-beat musical. (Joan Marcus) Kimberly Akimbo By Fern Siegel Sometimes the youngest person in the room is the wisest even if she is 16 and looks like a 72-year-old. That s the premise behind the Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, starring Victoria Clark as the smart, dry-humored New…
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins in Topdog/Underdog. Photo: Marc J. Franklin Topdog/Underdog Review by Julia Polinsky Topdog/Underdog tells the story of two brothers — Black men — endlessly vacillating between contempt and admiration for each other; affection and anger; conflict and cooperation; who’s winning, who’s losing. Named for an American president and his assassin,…
Review by Julia Polinsky Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt weaves a tale of family, place, time, and identity. The family is Jewish, the place Vienna, the time surrounds the Holocaust, and the question of identity is answered with a very hard kick. Leopoldstadt’s five acts, which occur in 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938 and 1955, take place in…
Review by Julia Polinsky Cost of Living switches back and forth in time and place, interleaving the stories of two couples, with a prologue out of chronological order (Jo Bonney’s seamless direction helps hugely). Both couples consist of a caregiver and “differently-abled” partner in a wheelchair; blue-collar Eddie (David Zayas) and his estranged wife Ani,…
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s 1776 cast. (Photo: Joan Marcus) 1776 By Fern Siegel The Broadway musical 1776, which chronicles the founding of the United States, opens with 10 pairs of shoes on an empty stage. And as the cast enters – female, nonbinary and trans – they step into history. When it first debuted in…
The ensemble cast confronts danger in Into the Woods. (Matthew Murphy) Into the Woods By Fern Siegel “Are you certain what you wish is what you want?” asks the Baker in Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Into the Woods. The interlocking stories of fairy-tale characters offering a treasure trove of psychological insights has its latest Broadway revival…
(l-r) Beanie Feldstein, Ramin Karimloo Funny Girl By Fern Siegel Fanny Brice was a funny girl — a funny Jewish girl who worked in burlesque and was a headliner for the great Florenz Ziegfeld. A hit on radio, the multi-talented Brice was beloved by many at a time when ethnic humor was in…
Reza Salazar, Kara Young, Ron Cephas Jones, Edmund Donovan (Joan Marcus) Clyde’s By Lynn Nottage Directed by Kate Whoriskey Reviewed by Julia Polinsky It’s such a relief to laugh in the theater again that it might escape you that, really, Clyde’s is a morality play: a demon and a boddhisattva wrestle for the…