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 several renditions here, along with Rodgers and Hart and other American songbook standards. At once a searing look…
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 might not. Yellow Face pokes hard at identity politics, as it…
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 stage, they get a round of applause, then walk off. And then the…
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 funny show that delivers a wild and wooly version of…
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….
After two sold out runs downtown, this probing drama has moved to Broadway. Director Michael Herwitz marshals this two-hander with an undercurrent of suspense that quickly intensifies as the evening progresses. Written by 26-year-old playwright Max Wolf Friedlich, this 80-minute roller coaster ride jolts audiences from the first scene, as Jane (Sydney Lemmon), shakily aims…
The competition of all competitions is underway at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC) this summer. Under the arrangement of the Really Useful Group, and the inspired direction of Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, a talented 23-member cast are strutting their stuff in Cats: The Jellicle Ball. This is a radical revisiting of the musical…
Wonder of Wonders: Celebrating Sheldon Harnick closed out the 2023-2024 Lyrics & Lyricists series on a glorious note. Written, directed, and genially hosted by Ted Sperling, it originally was planned to be a 100th birthday celebration for Harnick. But when the lyricist died on June 23, 2023, Sperling was determined to move forward with the…
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…
The new Alicia Keys-scored musical Hell’s Kitchen is now heating up the boards at the Shubert Theatre. Inspired by the life of Alicia Keys—global megastar and winner of fifteen Grammy Awards—it focuses on several months in the life of a musically precocious seventeen-year-old girl in New York in the 1990s. Hell’s Kitchen got its stage…