James Iglehart (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical By Julia Polinsky 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…
Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) Romeo + Juliet By Deirdre Donovan Thanks to Sam Gold, Generation Z now has an opportunity to get up close and personal with Romeo + Juliet, which recently opened at Circle in the Square. Although some may object to the production’s conspicuous courting of a…
Dick Scanlan (Photo: Richard Termine) Cockeyed Optimist: Where Hammerstein Found His Hope By Deirdre Donovan The Lyrics & Lyricists concert series at 92NY opened their 2024-2025 season with a tribute to the late-great Oscar Hammerstein II, titled Cockeyed Optimist: Where Hammerstein Found his Hope. Directed by Dick Scanlan, and co-written by Scanlan and Malcolm Gets,…
Jim Parsons and the cast of Our Town (Photo: Daniel Rader) Our Town By Deirdre Donovan Kenny Leon, director of the current streamlined revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, brings a fresh new interpretation to the classic. He takes the revered play and makes it into a multicultural theatrical statement…
(Photo: Marc Brenner) Sunset Blvd. By Fern Siegel 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…
Leanne Best, Ophelia Lovibond, Helena Wilson, Laura Donnelly (Photo: Joan Marcus) The Hills of California By Marc Miller The Hills of California, to begin with, isn’t about California, or even hills. The title of Jez Butterworth’s great big Broadway play refers to some mid-20th century Johnny Mercer pop ballad, not a famous one, that receives…
Daniel Dae Kim (Photo: Joan Marcus) Yellow Face By Julia Polinsky Part backstage comedy, part political satire, part based in fact and part pure fiction, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face is by turns hilarious, touching, and disturbing. It’s been suggested that we might appreciate the gift to see ourselves as other see us. But we…
Patti LuPone, Mia Farrow (Photo by Julieta Cervantes) The Roommate By David Schultz It’s beyond unusual to start a show with the stars taking a bow. But Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone wield such theatrical clout that, as they walk onstage in The Roommate at the Booth Theatre, winding through designer Bob Crowley’s suggestive, minimalist…
Cole Escola (Photo: Emilio Madrid) Oh, Mary! By Deirdre Donovan Theatergoers can now rendezvous with Mary Todd Lincoln at the Lyceum Theatre as Cole Escola’s hit comedy Oh, Mary! transfers from its downtown digs to the Great White Way. Brilliantly directed by Sam Pinkleton, and starring Escola in the eponymous role, it is an uproariously…
Sutton Foster (Photo: Joan Marcus) Once Upon a Mattress By Deirdre Donovan 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…