By Eugene Paul Audra McDonald Photos by Evgenia Eliseeva Beg. Borrow. Steal. In a breathtaking leap, famed Audra McDonald has vaulted past anything she’s ever done to this pinnacle of performance art, her portrait of Billie Holiday, the mesmerizing, tragic figure who haunts us still with the beauty and wreckage of her life, and…
By Michall Jeffers Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig (Joan Marcus) There’s no doubt about it; Neil Patrick Harris is a rock star. His fans are out in force for his stellar turn as Hedwig, a transplanted “girly boy” from East Berlin who’s had a tough life, including a botched sex change operation. The angry inch…
03/31/2014 Amaluna By: Eugene Paul Prospera in Amaluna Costume designer: Mérédith Caron (Photo credit: Yannick Déry) For perhaps its loveliest incarnation, Cirque du Soleil, the most unbelievably successful traveling circus in the world, has acquired renowned Broadway theater talents to weave and present the astounding human talents Cirque du Soleil scours said world to find,…
ALL THE WAY Reviewed by EUGENE PAUL Bryan Cranston as LBJ There’s a classical theatrical bromide been around for ages: “There are no small parts, there are only small players.” Total bull ca ca. I don’t know how many brilliant actors are walking the streets completely unappreciated because they’ve never been zapped by the Fickle…
04/13/2014 A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity & Clean By: Eugene Paul Gavin Jon Wright and Joanna Tope in a scene from A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity (Photo credit: Jeremy Abrahams) Please allow me to give you the full title of the first of the two plays of the evening: A Respectable Widow Takes…
04/06/2014 If/Then By: Eugene Paul Idina Menzel and James Snyder in a scene from If/Then (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) Composer Tom Kitt and lyricist/book author Brian Yorkey, prize winners for their Next to Normal, have written an original show – “original” in the sense that it is not based on a film or another written…
03/28/2014 The Bridges of Madison County By: Jeannie Lieberman Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale photo credit Joan Marcus If you l loved Robert James Waller’s 1992 book, got teary through the Meryl Streep/ Clint Eastwood 1995 movie, nothing brings a story home as watching it live onstage.j This version is utterly and unabashedly romantic. Especially…
03/26/2014 Aladdin By: Jeannie Lieberman Arabian Nights opening number in Aladdin (Photo credit: Deen Van Meer) Disney Does It Again! Delivers the requisite feel good family show utilizing all the resources at hand. The delightful 1992 animated film is now brought to glorious Technicolor life thanks to the efforts of a crack team: Director/ choreographer…
03/23/2014 Satchmo at the Waldorf By: Deirdre Donovan John Douglas Thompson as Louis Armstrong in a scene from Satchmo at the Waldorf (Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson) Terry Teachout is changing hats from theater critic to playwright with his one-man play Satchmo at the Waldorf which stars John Douglas Thompson as the jazz legend. Both…
01/29/2014 Machinal By: Eugene Paul Rebecca Hall and Morgan Spector in a scene from Machinal (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) If you look up “Machinal” in English dictionaries, you’ll find definitions centering on its reference to machines. The French do it better: they liken “Machinal” to one’s life becoming machine like. Rebecca Hall, lovely scion of…