Paul Schoefler, and cast Photos by John Vecchiolla By Eugene Paul There’s an apocryphal story that in 1960, Dale Wasserman, who wrote his non-musical teleplay “I,Don Quixote”, went to a fortune teller to advise him about allowing director Albert Marre to develop it into a musical for the stage. The fortune…
by Marc Miller This was not your usual cabaret show. The Metropolitan Room website beckoned with just “Jason Graae” listed. That’s inducement enough; Graae is a veteran and expert cabaret performer/Broadway singer-actor/chronicler of the Great American Songbook, with a nimble tenor and a wicked sense of humor. But imagine one’s surprise upon arriving…
Jason Robert Brown, Alfred Uhry, Steve Oney, Julie Burstein Photography by Melanie Einzig / Museum of Jewish Heritage by Rachel Goddard Bringing history to the stage was the theme for the evening and the subject was the Broadway musical Parade, the 1999 Tony Award Winner for Best Book of a Musical and Best…
Sarah Killough and Ellen Adair photos by Colin Shepherd by Eugene Paul New plays, new theatre companies, continue to seek the limelight from one end of the country to the other, nowhere more generously than on New York City’s turf. Its name trailing martially bold Shakespearean allusions, the Happy Few Theatre Company, producers…
L-R: Matthew Russell (The Bard), Ryan McCurdy (Mercutio), Christine Verleny (Mistress Quickly), Mick Bleyer (Ben). Photo by Gerry Goodstein by Julia Polinsky Verona Walls, by the talented young playwright Laura Hirschberg, presents a back story for Romeo and Juliet. It focuses on Mercutio, whose tale of love and death plays out against a…
Ito Aghayere and Melanie Nicholls-King Photos by Joan Marcus By Michall Jeffers The United States is a nation of immigrants. The tug-of-war between assimilating and keeping tradition alive is indeed Familiar to many Americans. And what better way could this conflict come to a head than planning a wedding. Marvelous Chinyaramwira (Tamara Tunie) and her…
by Eugene Paul Theatrical deity Eugene O’Neill, whose masterworks continue to astound and gratify audiences around the globe, reached Broadway in 1920 with Beyond The Horizon, the first of his four Pulitzer prize plays. He was thirty-two. Steeped in theater, he had learned his craft from his parents, famous, self-burdened actors, at the…
Photos by Joan Marcus Reviewed by Eugene Paul They were the most successful religious community in the country. In addition to their farming properties and industries, their stunningly simple esthetic continues to affect millions with its beauty. At their peak, they numbered 5,000. Today, there are six. These are the Shakers, more properly, the…
Erin McCracken as Patsy Cline Photos by John Vecchiolla By Ed Lieberman The Westchester Broadway Theatre’s latest production is Always . . .Patsy Cline, a tribute to the famous country singer, whose life was tragically cut short in a plane crash in 1963, at the age of 30. Cline, who was the first woman…
Kellie Overbey, Emily Walton, Beatrice Tulchin, and Shannon Harrington Photo: Richard Termine. By Marc Miller The title Women Without Men evokes one of those 1950s women’s-prison melodramas, where Hope Emerson terrorizes Eleanor Parker or Ida Lupino bats Phyllis Thaxter around, while Agnes Moorehead or Howard Duff look helplessly on. Hazel Ellis’s 1938 drama, as…