An Amusement Column       by Harry Haun     THE DIRECTOR AS WHIRLING DERVISH It’s possible to mistake director Carl Andress for a visible blur these days. Since Thanksgiving, he’s been in Workaholic Heaven, gamely juggling three shows at once. Two of them come due...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   Bronx-born Lea Michele quickly became one of Broadway’s brightest stars at age 10 as Tateh’s daughter in the original production of Ragtime, along with performing numerous roles in the original production of Les Miserables and, later, Shrpintze in the 2004...

    by Alix Cohen   Ed Dixon’s fifty plus years as a well traveled actor of diverse talent has reaped a wealth of lively experience. His translation of this into brief O’Henryish anecdotes presented with self effacing humor and theatrical timing creates an enjoyable evening....

  Interview/Filming: Magda Katz   J. Robert Spencer rose to fame when he created the role of Four Seasons bassist,  Nick Massi in the Tony Award- and Grammy Award-winning show Jersey Boys, with additional credits beyond as an independent film director, producer, writer and singer....

    by Edward Medina   There’s a joyfully festive noise ringing out uptown and its coming from The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of A Christmas Carol in Harlem. It’s that time of year when theatre companies across the country pull out their volumes of the Charles...

    By Marilyn Lester   Is there a soul alive who hasn’t wondered about the great mystery of life beyond the grave? Judging from the volume of thought recorded over the millennia of human existence, the answer to that question is a vigorous “who hasn’t!” The desire to...

By Marcina Zaccaria   Right on time for the holidays, Adrienne Haan brought sparkle to the stage in White Christmas at the Triad, and the music of Irving Berlin sounded grand. For those profoundly moved by the songs such as “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” “Happy Holiday,” and of...

  By Matt Smith   “Christmas is my favorite time of year. As the beauty of the season surrounds us, it’s quite exciting. However, sometimes we take the holidays for granted. And even when we think we have things all figured out, we realize we don’t.” Such is the plight at the center...

by Carol Rocamora   Once in a while, a powerful play blows in from the past to hit you with the force of a gale wind. Such is the case of Judgment Day, Ödön von Horváth’s chilling 1937 moral fable about a crime unwittingly committed by a stationmaster in a small town near the...

      By Ron Fassler   Sam Harris has been entertaining audiences now since 1983, when he was the first winner of the syndicated series Star Search, which preceded American Idol and America’s Got Talent… and all the other competition shows that have come since. His singing...

  Interview/Filming/Photos: Magda Katz Sketch: Joan Chiverton   Seth Sikes will celebrate New Year’s Eve at Feinstein’s/54 Below on Tuesday, December 31 at 7:00PM in “Twenty ‘20s Songs for 2020,” an entirely brand new show that will celebrate songs made famous nearly a hundred years...

    Dr. Barbara Ann Teer‘s National Black Theatre (NBT) hosted a special evening of community gathering on Slave Play on Monday as it convened a town hall to discuss the critically acclaimed Broadway phenomenon by playwright Jeremy O. Harris. The intimate event, which included...

    By Steve Nardoni   NYU Skirball, the theater venue of New York University, has a declared mission to “present work that inspires, yet frustrates, confirms yet confounds, entertains, yet upends.” They have succeeded with The Builders Association’s Elements of Oz which...

Interview/Filming/Photos: Magda Katz Sketch by Joan Chiverton       Funny lady, radio personality Christine Pedi – you hear her on Sirius XM – will return to Feinstein’s54 Below with her delicious comedy show, with at least a dozen famous ‘friends’...

    by Scott and Barbara Siegel   A Christmas Carol at The Lyceum Theater… It is rare that we go to the theater with anything but enthusiasm and hope, always expecting/wanting to be joyfully entertained, if not uplifted and/or moved. But here we were, booked to see yet another...

      By Fay Simpson   Against the backdrop of the Washington Heights riots of 1992, our cast of unhinged characters are found in a Church, not quite in-the-Heights site specific but close enough, in the well worn Church of The Center at West Park in A City of Refuge....

    By Brian Scott Lipton   Few of us would volunteer to spend three hours, perhaps even three minutes, with a group of foul-mouthed, potentially violent ex-cons, drug addicts and homeless women. Fortunately, art doesn’t always imitate life, so I suggest you immediately grab a...

  By Barbara & Scott Siegel   While Broadway ticket sales this year are lagging slightly behind last year’s robust business, the actual income this year is somewhat higher than last year because ticket prices (believe it or not) are yet still higher. One would think that the...

    By Marilyn Lester   As you enter 59E59’s Theater B, the star of One November Yankee is remarkably and stunningly apparent—a full-sized, single-engine, yellow Piper J-3 Cub, crashed nose down, but mostly intact. The little plane’s serial number, 241-NY, which gives title to...

  Tony nominated star of Porgy & Bess, Sweeney Todd, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera NORM LEWIS ,will bring his brand of Holiday cheer to Feinstein’s/54 Below beginning December 17 thru December 22 at 7 pm with Joseph Joubert on piano. Lewis is a magnetic entertainer with...

  By Myra Chanin   The final Friday night of November marked the peak of 2019’s entertainment year for me! It’s when Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway and his More than Ready for Primetime Players vanish like Brigadoon, fortunately only for 63 days, not a century. His delightful monthly...

    Photos/Filming: Magda Katz   Harry Townsend’s Last Stand opened at NYC Center Stage II on December 4 and Theater Pizzazz was on the scene and at the after party. The heartwarming yet sorrowful play with Len Cariou and Craig Bierko, written by George Eastman and...

              The cast and creatives of Anything Can Happen at the Theater: the Musical World of Maury Yeston, opened at the York Theatre last night to big applause from the audience and continued at the after-party at LIPS where the food and beverage flowed...

An Amusement Column     by Harry Haun   CATHY AND HEATHCLIFF, TOGETHER AGAIN—FINALLY!   Once upon a buffet line, 20 years ago, at the Cannes Film Festival, Rosemary Harris crossed paths with The Paley Center’s archival super-sleuth, Jane Klain, and inquired if she’d come...

  By Meredith Ganzman   Everything’s there in the new musical Jagged Little Pill, featuring the award-winning music of Alanis Morissette. Troubled characters, a slew of the singer-songwriter’s singles – 23 to be exact – and a topical story ripe with relevant issues. And...

    By Ron Fassler   It’s true that “Anything Can Happen in the Theatre.” It’s one of the reasons those attend it heavily (or even lightly) and who go hoping that something magical might happen at any given moment. After all, at the movies, the 2:00pm show will always go the...

        By Adam Cohen   Seth Rudetsky held court at the Town Hall with Broadway royalty Jessie Mueller and Megan Hilty as part of his second annual concert series. The event was held in support of Sandy Hook Promise, an organization dedicated to honoring all victims...

    By Sandi Durell   This is not a new story but playwright George Eastman puts a comfortable light-hearted spin on the topic of aging, losing a symbiotic spouse, dealing with child-parent relationships and leavening the loss, heartbreak and survival of aging with comedy. Such...

        By Samuel L. Leiter   A “red herring,” says Wikipedia, “is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion.” In a...

    By Sandi Durell   “I’m one lucky guy” says Grammy and Emmy Award winning Steve Tyrell as he expresses both his gratitude for a dream life as a producer of recordings for some of the biggest and best in the industry – and that includes Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, Linda...

  by David Tane   New York jazz lovers are a hardy lot. Braving the first snow storm of the season, a healthy crowd made its way downstairs to the Birdland Theatre for the Anderson Brothers’ salute to Cole Porter. It may have been cold outside but Will and Peter Anderson (Juilliard...

  by Carol Rocamora   “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away….” It’s an age-old phrase, but when you hear it in The Young Man from Atlanta, Horton Foote’s deeply moving play about loss, it’s like hearing it for the first time. Will Kidder, Foote’s feisty protagonist, gets fired from...

  by Carol Rocamora   In the boldest theatrical stroke so far this season, playwright Tony Kushner has written himself into his own play! Granted that A Bright Room Called Day is an “old” play (his first, actually), and granted that its reviews were less than enthusiastic when it...

    by Harry Haun   RING THE DICKENS OUT OF THEM CHRISTMAS BELLS ‘Tis the season of bell-ringing and hand-wringing, and both acts are spiritedly in sync for the Broadway return of Charles Dickens’ Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol, now making merry at the Lyceum through...

    By Sandi Durell   If you’re a jazz aficionado and lover of the Great American Songbook, you’re in for the treat of your life as Veronica Swift, bebop and swing artist, places her own unique stamp on tunes that make our hearts sing. She’s young, she’s hip, she was born...

  by Hazen Cuyler   New Light Theater Project’s current production provides requisite holiday fare while exploring our alarming tendency to disappear from our loved ones lives. Charming and impactful, Everything is Super Great encourages togetherness by articulating the pain caused...

  By Myra Chanin   I arrived early at Don’t Tell Mama to watch Dean Benner and his Rockin’ Six-Piece Band’s Country Jukebox show and found myself at the end of a long line of compatriots who watched Mama’s Booking Manager Sidney Myer carrying unoccupied tables and chairs into Mama’s...

  by Adam Cohen   Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella is given an animated, electric revival at Paper Mill Playhouse. The production is absolutely top notch, highly entertaining and extremely fun. Children of all ages will find themselves smiling from the opening notes. The story,...

    By Sandi Durell     There is only one, no, two possibilities when it comes to Callaway . . . Liz and Ann Hampton . . . the extraordinary sisters who don’t look alike nor sound alike but make sister music like nobody else, setting the evening’s tone from sparkling,...

By Ron Fassler   Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” is one of the most famous and expressive compositions in the classical repertoire. First written and performed around 1716-1717, great portions of it are easily recognizable by virtue of its having been co-opted over the years by...

  By Myra Chanin   Renee Katz is a buoyant, optimistic Cabaret star whose powerful, rapturous, playful soprano reminds many of her fans of Barbara Cook because, like Cook, Renee Katz sings with her whole heart in the same exquisitely intimate way Cook did. She also reminds me of...

  By Samuel L. Leiter   American playwright Matthew Lopez’s (The Legend of Georgia McBride) marathon play, The Inheritance, directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott), comes to Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre after its multiple award-winning London run, produced by the Young Vic....

  By Argenis Ovalles     Step right up to a world of child-like wonder in Kit Goldstein Grant’s musical masterpiece, The Giant Hoax. Be ready to meet The Cardiff Giant (Daniel Moser). He doesn’t show himself for most part, but we do meet an imaginative version through Emily...

        By Sandi Durell   The cast and creative team of “Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston” met with the press at the York Theater today to present some of the musical numbers and provide interview time with Maury Yeston, Gerard...

  By Ron Fassler   Let’s start at the end, shall we? After entertaining a sold-out crowd at SubCulture in downtown Manhattan for nearly ninety minutes, Jason Robert Brown and Betty Buckley teased us with an introduction to their encore by detailing a story of how (after a...

  By Sandi Durell   The Green Room 42 was packed to the rafters with fans, friends and celebrities as the one and only host/impressario Daniel Dunlow welcomed the audience and Mark William unveiled his “grand sparklin” new show Feeling Good. William is on a track . . . the track to...

    by Edward Medina   At a time of great political uncertainty, in the shadow of an unprecedented presidential impeachment inquiry, in the wake of a two-party system wrenching the electorate this way and that with unceasingly maddening frequency, in the midst of all this...

    By Brian Scott Lipton   There can be no argument that Maury Yeston belongs in the pantheon of great musical theater composers. The 74-year-old New Jersey native has won Tony Awards for his scores of Nine and Titanic, as well as thrilled audiences with such shows as Phantom,...

  by Sandi Durell   Theater Pizzazz is always interested in getting to know about young theater companies and artistic directors on the rise not only in New York City, where so many blossom, but in the other boroughs. We seek to help get the word out and introduce them to...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   The fluidity of identity – the reality that both how we define ourselves and how others define us can change multiple times in our journey from cradle to tomb – is a subject that almost seems tailor-made for Will Eno, one of our most philosophically-minded...

    By Sandi Durell   What happens when you put two belters on a stage together . . . one a little older, the other a little younger? It’s the battle of the broads! The claws and feathers are flying! Well, not really, although the theme created was anything you can do, I can do...

  By Meredith Ganzman   Bring napkins and tissues to the new Broadway musical, A Christmas Carol. The first because the cast members, who are not playing holiday music before the show begins, are handing out and even throwing clementines and small bags of Tate’s chocolate chip...

    by Marcina Zaccaria   The debate floor is appropriately aged, with the orange curtains and the enormous IBM Selectric typewriters are set for Confidence (and The Speech), a play about the energy crisis and former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Confidence...

by Adam Cohen   Having a muse is a pretty handy thing, especially if you’re a genius physicist named Albert Einstein.  In the new musical “Einstein’s Dreams”, based on Alan Lightman’s novel, Einstein dallies and debates with his muse and advances his theory of relativity.  The dreams...

An Amusement Column     by Harry Haun     KENNY LEON AND ON AND ON: A young man from Atlanta if there ever was one (he still uses a 404 area-code phone), director Kenny Leon is hitting New York stages these days like a one-man ant farm, spinning theatrical plates all over...

    By Sandi Durell   Nothing like two loving legends colliding and making great music together. In this case, they are the winning duo of trumpet icon Herb Alpert and his Grammy winning wife Lani Hall (who sings in several languages). In the sumptuous environs of the Café...

By Ron Fassler If you don’t know who singer/songwriter Georgia Stitt is, you should. On Monday night at Birdland, she performed another iteration of her “& Friends” show, or as she puts it “& Best Freaking Voices in New York City.” And with such theatre professionals as Kate Baldwin,...

    By Melissa Griegel Photos by Melissa Griegel Photography http://griegelphoto.zenfolio.com    Rosie’s Theater Kids celebrated their 16th anniversary by honoring Elizabeth Matthews, CEO of ASCAP and comedian Ben Stiller at their annual gala hosted by Rosie O’Donnell on Monday,...

    by David Tane “Sing out, Louise!” commanded Mama Rose to her hesitant daughter in Ethel Merman’s tour de force, “Gypsy”.   Well, there was no hesitation tonight as Merkin Hall was filled with the glorious sound of the human voice, without the aid of microphones or other...

      By Sandi Durell   Never get in the way of two exceptional and powerful women pursuing their extraordinary careers – Marie Curie – two time Nobel Prize winner in two different scientific fields and Hertha Ayrton, British engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor...

    CAAD Partners LLC & The Cutting Room Present “CHRISTMAS AIN’T A DRAG – A BIG BAND CABARET MUSICAL” in its NYC DEBUT on Saturday December 7th, at The Cutting Room. 44 East 32nd Street, NY, 10016. This rock’n cabaret musical was inspired by the big band era,...

    By Brian Scott Lipton   “Solea! Solea! Solea!” I would not have been surprised if those words had been shouted in unison as Solea Pfeiffer took her bows after turning in her absolutely outstanding performance in the title role of New York City Center’s often-exhilarating...

An Amusement Column         by Harry Haun   CAN’T SEE FORSTER FOR THE TREES: He arrived in movies on a horse bareback—bare everything, in fact–an object of festering obsession for Marlon Brando in John Huston’s 1967 Reflections in a Golden Eye, and he should...

    by Carol Rocamora   If you’re desperate for political theatre to illuminate our turbulent times, you never have to look further than Shakespeare. Watching the Druid Company’s mesmerizing, lacerating production of Richard III, we’re acutely reminded of tyrants on the world...

    By Marcina Zaccaria   Angela Lansbury spoke at Lincoln Center’s Library for the Performing Arts, as part of the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Oral History Project. The hour long talk began with an introduction by Ludovica Villar-Hauser. Then, Charlotte Moore,...

    by Alix Cohen   Betty Comden (1917-2006) and Adolph Green (1914-2002) collaborated for six immensely fertile decades resulting in 18 musicals, 9 screenplays and their own high spirited performing. Some of our most beloved musicals stemmed from the couple’s professional partnership....

    By Sandi Durell   When Brian Stokes Mitchell takes the stage at Feinstein’s/54 Below, the world is his oyster . . . brimming with impeccable musicianship, he is the epitome of the joyful storyteller of songs and tales. Think each song as a one-act play in his show entitled...

  Stephen Sondheim accepted the British honorary fellowship from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) at an intimate gathering of artists and special guests in New York. Mr. Sondheim said he’s been an Anglophile for a long time. . .and this is a continuing love affair. . .!...

  By Samuel L. Leiter   The title of William Luce’s The Belle of Amherst used a posthumous nickname by which poet Emily Dickinson will long be remembered. We might, however, want to remember another belle of Amherst, the fascinating Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932), who now, thanks to...

By Ron Fassler   Thirty years ago, Tommy Tune’s Grand Hotel: The Musical, opened on Broadway. Beautifully staged, and choreographed to the nth degree, it won five Tony Awards. But in a fight to the finish line, at the end of the evening, its chief rival (the more conventional and broader...

  by Carol Rocamora   You slide so gently and easily into this family scene. Though you may be in the audience, you feel as if you’re sitting with them around their kitchen table, a longtime friend, a welcome guest. The lights are warm, the atmosphere is cozy, the dress is casual,...

  Exciting things are happening at the Park Avenue Armory for its December production (December 5 thru January 11, 2020) of Judgment Day—the world premiere of Christopher Shinn’s new adaptation of Ödön von Horváth’s 1937 play. Chosen by acclaimed British theater director Richard Jones,...

    by Melissa Griegel Photos by Melissa Griegel Photography http://griegelphoto.zenfolio.com     The York Theatre Company’s 28th Annual Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala was a love-fest exalting the incredibly talented André de Shields (Hadestown). He was named this year’s...

  By Brian Scott Lipton     Usually, it’s not a nice thing to take audiences for a ride but Will Nunziata’s ambitious and highly entertaining concert staging of the 1974 musical Over Here, fittingly presented on Veteran’s Day (November 11) at the Triad Theater, proved to be a...

      by Michael Tingley   A tall, wooden sailboat sits on the coffee table of a meticulously well-furnished apartment in the Upper East Side. The sailboat signals to us to get ready, the calm before the storm will not last long. On some wall of this apartment, we will...

  By Sandi Durell   Nothing like those Callaways as they get ready to return to Feinstein’s/54 Below Nov. 26, 27, 29, 30 at 7 pm and Nov. 28 at 8 pm! The sisters are one-of-a-kind in harmony, humor and soaring sounds. Liz Callaway, Tony nominated star of Baby and Miss Saigon; Ann...

  By Marcina Zaccaria   There’s something exciting about what NYTW Next Door has done in presenting Fur by Migdalia Cruz, directed by Elena Araoz, produced by Boundless Theatre Company. At first, Fur is a bit harrowing to watch. Inside a cage, Citrona awaits the visitation of...

      By Samuel L. Leiter   Like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson is a fictional boy with supernatural powers who has earned widespread popularity in a series of books. Percy was created by a middle-school teacher named Rick Riordan, who entertained his son, afflicted—like...

  Bite of the Best is always busy! And that means food critic Bonnie Tandy LeBlang making her way from restaurant to restaurant to taste, savor and continue to report the yummy and not so yummy not only here in New York City, but stretching through the boroughs and around the world in...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   Fifty-one. Fun-sized. Full-voiced. Fashionable. Fearless. Flawless. Perhaps there’s a dictionary somewhere full of other “F” words to describe Kristin Chenoweth, but as anyone who sees her new Broadway concert For the Girls can attest, these adjectives will...

    By Samuel L. Leiter   Wikipedia lists 496 municipalities in Arkansas, none of them named Broadbend, the town in the title of the Transport Group’s unconventional, excellently performed, but problematic and ultimately unsatisfying new musical at The Duke on 42nd Street. The...

  An Amusement Column   by Harry Haun   MONDAY BLOODY MONDAY: With all the galas and benefits going on these days, you’d think somebody would come up with some kind of Calendar of Events so they don’t all collide on the same bloody night—but, no! Just grab your checkbooks and...

  By Tania Fisher   When one shows up to see a Lainie Kazan show, a certain amount of the unexpected is expected. A cross-generational pool of fans and devotees once again filled Feinstein’s/54 Below to bask in the presence of this entertainment industry legend. But on this...

        By JK Clarke   Edmond de Rostand’s 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac is a story that lends itself to reinterpretation and modernization. With a simple, straightforward theme about self-confidence (or lack thereof) and judgment based on superficial external traits,...

      By Sandi Durell   Having watched Mark William since he debuted his first show “Come Croon With Me” at The Green Room 42 last year, and subsequent revivals, there’s no doubt this young man has what I call the “it” factor. That show has now been released on his debut...

    By Sandi Durell   “I’m a Wizard everyday . . .” that about describes the incomparable Tony Winner Brian Stokes Mitchell (Kiss Me, Kate, Ragtime, Man of La Mancha) about to return to Feinstein’s/54 Below beginning November 12 -16 and November 18 – 23 at 7 pm in concert...

  by Alix Cohen   “Willkommen,” nods maestro Steve Ross from the piano, launching into Cole Porter’s lilting “Wunderbar” and Gus Kahn/Walter Jurman/Bronislau Kaper’s jaunty “San Francisco.” “What could be more oom pah pah mit schlag than “Wunderbar” and more American than “San...

    By Marilyn Lester   Some events in life seem absolutely cosmic. Imagine being a kid growing up, listening raptly to the music of Michel Legrand being played at home by a concert pianist father. Flash forward and imagine being mentored by this very composer and becoming one...

  The press met with Len Cariou, who will be playing the role of Harry (an 85 year old widower) in Harry Townsend’s Last Stand – a comedy with heart about fathers and sons – and Craig Bierko who plays Alan, his son. The play is written by George Eastman and directed by...

  by Edward Medina   The Seance Machine is a troubled production. It never seems to fully understand what it is or what it wants to be let alone what it wants to achieve. It’s billed as immersive theatre but its immersive theatre in its tritest form. Upon arriving at The Tank...

  Review by Meredith Ganzman   Wearing a skintight, red-hot leather mini dress, Tony Award-nominee, Adrienne Warren, effortlessly struts down a flight of stairs -in stilettos – to meet her roaring crowd. Playing living music legend Tina Turner, Warren’s entrance is one that...

  The Lincoln Center Fall Gala raised over $4 million in support of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and featured star-studded appearances and performances on the Adrienne Arsht Stage at Alice Tully Hall: Kelli O’Hara, Jane Lynch, Lynn Ahrens, Harolyn Blackwell, Sierra Boggess,...

By Sandi Durell     Currently starring in Scotland, Pa, Ryan McCartan will make his solo debut at Feinstein’s/54Below on Nov. 11 & Dec. 9 at 7 pm. Ryan is not only making waves at Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre, but will more than impress you as a music producer doing his thing...