by Meredith Ganzman   The Unsinkable Molly Brown’s title character proclaims from the top of the show that she “ain’t down yet.” But Tony Award-nominee Beth Malone’s performance as Molly Brown turns out to be  the only uplifting part of this overstuffed, heavy-handed show. The...

By Ron Fassler   Lucas Hnath is a playwright who with each new effort continues to surprise his audiences with an imaginative flexibility. His previous efforts include the well-received Off-Broadway plays Red Speedo, which dealt with athletic doping, and The Christians, about a pastor’s...

            By Brian Scott Lipton   “There are only two sure things in life, death and taxes,” Benjamin Franklin famously told the public, and playwright Young Jean Lee certainly isn’t arguing with at least the first half of this statement in We’re Gonna...

By Linda Amiel Burns   Since Jerry Herman passed away on December 26, 2019, I have attended many wonderful tributes for this legendary man of music who is considered one of Broadway’s greatest composer/lyricists. From Hello, Dolly! to Mame to La Cage aux Folles, no one has written...

 NEWS: Wild Dogs Under My Skirt Launches an engagement at The SoHo Playhouse April 16 – May 24, after being named this year’s “Outstanding Production” at this year’s Fringe Encore Series     by Marcina Zaccaria (originally reviewed Jan. 20, 2020)   Wild Dogs Under My...

        By JK Clarke   For many of us, the most preferable way to understand an historical event or era is through historical fiction with dramatized narratives. Obviously, works of historical non-fiction are the most direct and, ostensibly, reliable. But many find...

    By Sandi Durell   Two things happen when you have an opportunity to see the marvelous Marilyn Maye at Dizzy’s . . . the glamorous flickering lights of the New York cityscape provides the sensational backdrop. And, as gorgeous as it is, it all pales in comparison to the...

By Matt Smith   In titling her dynamic debut residency with the succinct Unplugged and Unplanned, Broadway beltress Eden Espinosa gets straight to the point. The evening, indeed, delivers exactly what it advertises: An exclusively acoustic evening of story and song, all of which are...

  By Alix Cohen Meg Flather had been on the scene for some time when, not long ago, medical issues put her on extended voice rest. Any singer will tell you this is difficult and frightening. As evidenced by her last two shows, the artist emerged not just undaunted, but defiant, with...

  By Sandi Durell   Who else but the definitive Wall Street Journal’s jazz critic and author of many books and articles Will Friedwald, the go-to for all things Sinatra, could conceive and execute a tribute evening, along with his side kick, Andrew Poretz, that would cover one...

Steppenwolf’s production of THE MINUTES by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, on Broadway. The cast of THE MINUTES includes Ian Barford, Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. Todd Freeman, Armie Hammer, Tracy Letts, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, Jeff...

    By Sandi Durell   It’s only the beginning of 2020 and we’re all tired of the political scene and rhetoric, craving more fulfilling ‘entertainment’ – like the music and talents in the cabarets and clubs that are the backbone of New York City. Looks like you may be ready to...

By Steve Nardoni   It’s heartening to know that for 30 years FRIGID NYC has existed to provide support and venues for both emerging and established indie artists. It has specifically been the catalyst for a large number of downtown theater productions which may never have made it to the...

          By Samuel L. Leiter   It must have seemed a pretty good promotional idea, on paper, at any rate. Two plays, titled Dracula and Frankenstein, playing in rotating repertory at the Classic Stage Company, one of New York’s best-known Off-Broadway theaters....

  by Edward Medina   West Side Story is one of the crown jewels of American Musical Theatre. Carousel, Music Man, Hello Dolly, and Oklahoma are among the glittering baubles that can rightfully stake that same claim to fame, but West Side Story holds its own unique place. Produced by...

    Real-life couple Bobby Cannavale and Rose Byrne will headline The Acting Company’s special one-night-only benefit reading of Arthur Miller’s iconic mid-century drama A View from the Bridge on Monday, March 24 at 7:30pm at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (695 Park...

By Alix Cohen   Backstory: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, née Godwin, (1797–1851) is best known for writing the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Her parents— philosopher/feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (who died a month after Mary was born) and incendiary political writer,...

  The buzz is all about Mrs. Doubtfire (a new Musical Poppets), that begins performances at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on March 9 and opening April 5. When multi Tony Award winning producer Kevin McCollum got the rights to the movie he brought aboard the team he successfully worked...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   “Who’s that fascinating creature” on the stage of City Center? While the late Jerry Herman’s lyric may specifically refer to the soon-to-be silent film star Mabel Normand, it now applies to the 1974 Broadway musical about her, Mack & Mabel, which ran a...

    By Marilyn Lester   Although playwright Pearl Cleage’s 1995-penned Blues for an Alabama Sky has been regularly produced in the US and abroad, the play is only now having its New York premiere by the Keen Company, in a limited production run. It’s a work that deserves to be...

  By Ron Fassler   Having heard of the Skivvies for some time from friends who swear by their talents as musicians, performers, musical arrangers and comedians, the opportunity to see their Presidents Day Show took me to The Green Room 42 Monday night to see what all the madness and...

        By Brian Scott Lipton   “A suicide kills two people, that’s what it’s for,” Arthur Miller famously wrote in his 1964 play After the Fall. But the women contemplating this desperate act in Alice Birch’s bracing play Anatomy of a Suicide, now at the Atlantic...

By Brian Scott Lipton   For close to two decades the British quartet Queen, led by the stratosphere-defying vocalist Freddie Mercury, thrilled its millions of fans with some of the most ear-filling rock music ever created. But the band didn’t really take America by storm until 2018 (a...

An Amusement Column     by Harry Haun   THOROUGHLY MODERN MOLLY: Guess who “ain’t down yet”? Margaret Tobin Brown, that’s who. Commonly called “Maggie” in real life, she was eternally re-tagged “Molly” by Meredith Willson when he musicalized a fictional facsimile of her life....

      By Samuel L. Leiter   I recently watched the first in Netflix’s three-episode series, “Dracula,” inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic horror novel. However, I wasn’t bitten deeply enough to view the later episodes. After experiencing Kate Hamill’s very loose,...

CURRENTLY CELEBRATED 100 PERFORMANCES!! Reviewed Originally on December 4, 2019   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...

  W.I. Productions is now presenting The Sickness, a new play written and directed by Emil Varda at Access Theater at 380 Broadway at White Street, NYC. Theater Pizzazz’s Marcina Zaccaria recently had the opportunity to ask some questions of Mr.Varda about this play that follows two...

  By Barbara & Scott Siegel   The Confession of Lily Dare – Another Charles Busch Comic Masterpiece!   Charles Busch puts the amp in camp; his shows spark with comic electricity, lighting up stages with bright creative surprise. And his latest laugh-fest is the...

  By Ron Fassler   When Seesaw opened on Broadway forty-seven years ago, the theatre was experiencing a dearth at the box office. In fact, the 1974 Tony Awards would include just a paltry three nominees—two of which were based on plays from the 1950s (Two for the Seesaw and A Raisin...

  By Samuel L. Leiter   Are you a sucker for sentiment? Do you really not care that much if a play you’re seeing is contrived, clichéd, and conventional, as long as you enjoy the company of its characters and the familiarity of its situations? That, at least, was my reaction to Cary...

By Adam Cohen   Vocal pyrotechnics are on full and fine display in Paper Mill Playhouse’s Unmasked: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The production, directed by Joann M. Hunter, is a retrospective of Lloyd Webber’s career as the composer of well-known musicals, including The Phantom of...

By Ron Fassler   In front of a sold-out Valentine’s Day crowd, the New York Pops dialed it up to 11 at Carnegie Hall last night with I’m Every Woman: Divas on Stage. Musical Director and Conductor Steven Reineke concocted a terrific evening dedicated to great female song stylists...

  Singer-Songwriter-Musical Director Michele Brourman will be honored with a Bistro Award on March 9 at 7 pm at Gotham Comedy Club, 208 West 23 Street, NYC. A Pittsburgh native, Michele Brourman’s songs have been performed on television, in film, in concert and cabaret rooms and...

      By JK Clarke   There are few among us who haven’t at one time or another pondered what life might be like living with a severely developmentally disabled family member. While those individuals may be loving and cherished people, they often present intense challenges...

By Marcina Zaccaria   You have to be ready to accept vocals that range to unexpected places, when listening to Roomful of Teeth. Ascending and plummeting, their music challenges the melodic standard with bits of operatic tone mixed with a smooth choral sound— all that while pop screams...

By Carol Rocamora   There are three of them— huge, ghoulish men wearing bowler hats, lurking in the shadows, slipping secretively through the scenes. In the course of director Yaël Farber’s electrifying Hamlet at St. Ann’s Warehouse, you’ll see them performing various tasks— pushing...

  Drift met with the press for photos and interviews. Theater Pizzazz was on the scene as Magda Katz captured it all. Drift is a new American drama written by William Francis Hoffman about to have its World Premiere off-Broadway at New World Stages, Stage 5 (340 West 50th Street), in a...

  By Marilyn Lester   Fans of Charles Busch and his devotion to the campy will not be disappointed in his latest outing, The Confession of Lily Dare, another paean to the drama queens of the 1930s silver screen. Mildred Pierce, Harriet Craig, Stella Dallas, Margo Channing––move...

By Tania Fisher Jean Dobie Giebel’s Chasing the River is a wonderful example of why people love going to Off-Off-Broadway Theater. This beautifully crafted play is deserving of all its accolades— it is a finalist for the ATHE Excellence in Playwriting Award and has been optioned for...

  Unmasked: The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and written with Richard Curtis opened at Paper Mill Playhouse on February 9. TheaterPizzazz’ Magda Katz was on the scene to capture the red carpet and curtain call.     The musical is...

    The Sixth Annual Chinese New Year Spectacular took place at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) on February 7, welcoming in the Year of the Rat, celebrating both American and Chinese cultures and the diverse melting pot that is New York City. This tradition marks the beginning of the...

  By Marcina Zaccaria   Nicov (Alexander Sokovikov) considers his easel with three brushes, wet with paint, in The Artist, the first story adapted for the stage in Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories.  The artist takes time to walk away from his creation. With a thick Russian accent,...

  by David Tane   STEW, now playing at the Walkerspace in Tribeca, is a timely offering of Page 73, the new plays incubator, occurring as it does in February, Black History Month.  Written by talented playwright, Zora Howard, STEW is a gritty family drama revolving around a...

  Photos: Maryann Lopinto The line up of star power turning out to help raise funds for Foster Kids (hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley) was breathtaking at The Town Hall on February 6. The organization You Gotta Believe (YGB), founded in 1995, focuses on finding permanent parents...

  by Matt Smith   “How did you get to be here? / What was the moment? / How did you get to be here?” Such was the question posed — and answered — as multi-hyphenate performer and Emmy-nominee extraordinaire Tituss Burgess took the stage of Carnegie Hall for his glitzy, glittering...

    by Alix Cohen   “It Only Takes a Moment” (Hello, Dolly) Michael Feinstein croons. Vocal is fleecy, music, a waltz. Life is a celebration “With You On My Arm,” he continues jaunty, emphasizing good/great/grand with an extended arm. (La Cage aux Folles). The opening medley of...

  By Ron Fassler   If you aren’t already familiar with the format that musical director, satellite radio host and hilarious entertainer Seth Rudetsky has adopted for his continuing series of story and song at The Town Hall these past two years, then allow me to fill in the blanks....

  In celebration of International Women’s Day, Disney on Broadway announces the 3rd annual “Women’s Day on Broadway: The Decade Ahead and How Women Will Shape It.” Following its launch in 2018, the event aims to engage attendees of all gender identities and expressions in a day of open...

  by Melissa Griegel http://griegelphoto.zenfolio.com   Theatre Forward held its 17th Annual Broadway Roundtable on Friday, January 31st at a luncheon in partner UBS’s Manhattan office. This year’s topic of discussion was “How does theatre mirror society?” Panelists included Celia...

            By Brian Scott Lipton   The tiny mini-dresses, the tight-tight pants and the paisley shirts. The velour sofas. The talk of key parties and “The Institute” and the copy of “I’m OK, You’re OK” casually left on the chair. Yep, the swinging ‘60s are...

By Marilyn Lester     A glittering evening’s gala capped off the 2020 Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival with revelers, patrons and participants expectantly waiting the award results. The third floor. of Rosie O’Grady’s in Times Square was abustle with the usual gala trappings:...

    The 2020 Kleban Prize winners received their just due at a ceremony at ASCAP and Theater Pizzazz’ Magda Katz was there to record it all. The event was hosted by Seth Saltzman and Patrick Cook. Daniel Messé received his prize as most promising theatre lyricist (Amelie,...

by Harry Haun   The stars were out yesterday afternoon at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre —along with a couple of original cast members, a knighted Beatle, some revival headliners and at least one original conductor—to sing the praises of Jerry Herman, one of the few composer-lyricists to...

By Linda Amiel Burns Composer and lyricist Jerry Herman (7/10/31–12/26/19) was a giant of the musical theater with an exceptional catalog of hit shows, memorable songs, and a musical legacy that remains unequaled. With so many great songs to chose from, it is not easy to decide what songs to...

      Diana, the upcoming new musical which begins previews on Monday, March 2, 2020, and opens on Tuesday, March 31, 2020, at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th St.) met with the press for a peek at what’s in store. Theater Pizzazz was on the scene with Shoshana Medney...

          By Samuel L. Leiter   In 2014, I reviewed The Real Americans, a solo docudrama written and directed by the versatile journalist/actor Dan Hoyle. In it, he recreated the multiple people he met on a trek to the heartland. His purpose, I wrote, was “to...

      EXTENDED THRU APRIL 19   By JK Clarke   Site specific productions have been particularly popular in recent years, especially in Off Off Broadway experimental theater endeavors. Recent shows have made use of nightclubs (Unmaking Toulouse Lautrec) or dining rooms...

  Coverage/photos/video by Melissa Griegel Photography http://griegelphoto.zenfolio.com Beth Leavel Girl from the North Country - Caitlin Houlahan, Colton Ryan Caroline or Change - Harper Miles, Nya Nasia Thomas Emojiland - Ann Harada, Max Crumm, Laura Schein Between the Lines - Julia...

An Amusement Column   by Harry Haun   GOODBYE, DOLLY!: For musical-theater fans, 2019 came encased in sort of sad parentheses. It was tough enough to lose an icon as indelible as Carol Channing in January, but, in the last few remaining days of December, the man who set her in such...

    by Marcina Zaccaria After being inspired by images of her grandfather at a Cigar Rolling Factory in Cuba, Anita Gonzalez dreamed of a musical that included the rise of unionism, ill-fated love affairs, and racial divide. She brought a script to Composer and Lyricist Dan Furman. ...

Photos/Coverage: Maryann Lopinto   Last weekend thousands of folks of all ages from New York, all over the United States, and even from out of the country, flooded the New York Hilton for the 5th Annual BroadwayCon which was  held from Friday, January 24th through Sunday January 26th.  Many...

Coverage/photos/video by Melissa Griegel Photography   BroadwayCon 2020 brought on the fun this year with lots of opportunities for über fans to mix and mingle with stars, show off their knowledge of Broadway trivia, and display their cosplay skills. When BroadwayCon had their first...

  By Carol Rocamora Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. Those are the words that best describes Simon Stone’s mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, 80-minute adaptation of Medea, the 431 BC classic by Euripides.   Rarely, if ever, have I seen the brilliant vision of an artist— in this case,...

  by Argenis Ovalles   In a post-apocalyptic world created by Nick Mecikalski, where climate change has flooded the majority of a totalitarian America, there is a little shack. Like an art studio, there are paint cans and papers all around a TV and a couch. We don’t see what’s on...

By Carol Rocamora “I think I would like a divorce.” (Beat) “All right.” (End of Scene.) If you’ve heard funnier opening lines on a New York stage this year, please let me know. As uttered with impeccable poker faces by Nancy (Jane Alexander) and Bill (James Cromwell), a septuagenarian couple...

      Photos/Video: Shoshana Medney   Ahead of its premiere at Miami New Drama’s Colony Theater in Miami Beach, Fl. (March 5-April 5), the press met with the cast and creatives to find out more about  A Wonderful World. Theater Pizzazz’ Shoshana Medney was on the...

    by Melissa Griegel photos/video by Melissa Griegel Photography   The Unsinkable Molly Brown met with the press as it readies to make its return to Broadway with a new book, new lyrics, and an updated point-of-view thanks to three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall...

          By Samuel L. Leiter   A Soldier’s Play, Charles Fuller’s vigorous, Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of racial tension among African-American soldiers in a U.S. Army camp during War II, was originally produced Off Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company...

By Marilyn Lester If fame is fleeting, then history can be fickle. While some names endure for generations, others fade from the spotlight and recede into darkness. African-American blues singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter (Rosalind Brown) was one of these, an artist who had fame from the...

  SIX, the electrifying new musical phenomenon by 25 year old Toby Marlow and 26 year old Lucy Moss, (written when they were students at Cambridge University in 2017) met with the press for interviews prior to its previews on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on February 13, 2020...

    by Linda Amiel Burns   44 Years and Counting…….this is how long The Encompass New Opera Theatre has been “bringing to life rare and rewarding musical experiences.” At their annual Gala on Sunday, January 26, 2020, two theater legends were honored: Estelle Parsons and Maury...

      By Linda Amiel Burns There is a photo in the 92Y Program for the opening of the Lyrics & Lyricists 2020 season that shows Yip Harburg being interviewed by Maurice Levine on December 13, 1970. This was the very first “L&L” talk that began this iconic series that...

By Fay Simpson Goose-stepping violin players and a red-nosed Odysseus holding onto a mighty ship of swaying chairs are just a few of the images that beset A Pink Chair (In Place of a Fake Antique) into a world of nightmarish Holocaustal dreams. Based on the work of Tadeusz Kantor, the Polish...

  Music on the Inside, (MOTI) is a music mentorship and education program where professional musicians teach and inspire new paths and hope for incarcerated youth and adults.  Christian McBride, one of the leading jazz musicians in the world today, will grace MOTI with an intimate...

  by Matt Smith   There are few who would refute, as maestro Steven Reineke claims, that the incomparable Rodgers and Hammerstein were indeed “one of the greatest songwriting duos in musical theatre history.” The least of which being a New York audience, and that’s why it was,...

  by Adam Cohen   Riffs on Shakespeare have been around since their world premieres.  And most like West Side Story or Scotland, PA succeed on their wit, casting, and opening the story for both actor and audience to find something original.  This is absolutely and pleasantly the...

An Amusement Column First in the 2020 Series by Harry Haun     A MAJORITY OF ONE: “I’m trying desperately not to be the old director who tells anecdotes to the company and directs the play,” he said, via videotape, at his own memorial. “I live for the next musical. I live in the...

  An Embarrassing Mea Culpa to Avi Hoffman and South Florida      by Myra Chanin   South Florida is now my official residence, but I still have a Pied-a-terre in Manhattan to which I escape whenever I’ve overdosed on Boca, Delray and Palm Beach sunshine and bliss. How...

            By Samuel L. Leiter   Samuel Johnson wrote of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic, 10,000-line poem in 10 (later, 12) books, first published in 1667, that it was “a poem which considered with respect to design may claim the first place, and with...

By Ron Fassler If 20 years is the arbitrary cut-off when a couple begins to feel the test of time in their marriage, then Orfeh and Andy Karl only have another year to go before all hell breaks loose. Fat chance of that happening, since they effortlessly appear to be a simpatico showbiz...

          By JK Clarke   It takes an extraordinarily special talent to take Shakespeare’s more problematic—or “less compelling”—plays and make them not only interesting, but downright exciting. Theater for a New Audience (TFANA) as a whole and Director Simon...

  Your Kids, Our Kids (Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, Founding Directors) proudly presents the 6th Annual VOICES FOR THE VOICELESS: Stars For Foster Kids, an event that brings together the very best performers from the American stage and screen to raise awareness about the plight of...

ABOUT LOVE and THE SICKNESS Culture Project presents About Love, a new play with songs and music. Music and lyrics by jazz artist Nancy Harrow and script and direction by Will Pomerantz. About Love plays a limited four-week engagement, February 25 through March 22 at The Sheen Center (18...

  by Ron Fassler   Scott Organ’s new play 17 Minutes is the latest drama offered by the Barrow Group, one of New York City (if not the country’s) most exceptional producing entities. Located as they have been for a while at a theatre on the 3rd floor of a non-descript building on...

          By JK Clarke   Upon introducing their evening of songs Tuesday night at Pangea, Barbara Bleier and Austin Pendleton explained they called the performance—which played every Tuesday night in January—“Bits and Pieces,” because they felt there was no...

  by Maryann Lopinto   Tony Award winner Beth Leavel played a totally sold out six performance show It’s Not About Me, (with 3 standing ovations) celebrating her long and storied career of her favorite roles at Feinstein’s 54 Below. Beth won the Tony for her performance in The...

By Ron Fassler Isaac Mizrahi: Fashion designer, singer, stand-up comic, and bon vivant extraordinaire is back at the Café Carlyle with a wonderful new show set for a three-week residency that he is calling Movie Stars & Supermodels. His opening night had him in rare form, skewering any...

          By Brian Scott Lipton   Thinking about taking a mid-winter romantic getaway? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but heading down to Paris, now at the Atlantic Stage 2, is not the answer. You see, the Paris in Eboni Booth’s darkly comic play has no Eiffel...

  Video Interviews/Photos: Shoshana Medney                        Curtain Call   EMOJILAND opened at The Duke on 42nd Street on Monday, January 19 to a cheering audience of enthusiastic fans. Written by Laura Schein and Keith Harrison the cast includes Lesli Margherita, Josh...

EXTENDED THRU MARCH 19!     By Samuel L. Leiter   Emojis! Those ubiquitous computer images we attach to our emails offering shortcut messages showing feelings, foods, celebrations, machines, weather, flags, animals, and nearly anything we experience or come in contact with and...

By Ron Fassler It’s hard to believe that the musical revue Forbidden Broadway began in 1982 at a tiny supper club on West 72nd Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In the intervening 38 years there have been nearly as many iterations (including the L.A.-based Forbidden Hollywood edition...

By Michael Tingley Before me, a tire, laying on mossy turf. A couch, tilted backward, slashed underneath. A bathtub. And, most strikingly, a pond— or a puddle more exactly. Something like a cool forest pool that, amidst the flotsam, turns menacing. The puddle has a bridge of three planks...

  By Matt Smith   “There’s no harder role for an actor to play than yourself.” Such is the bold declaration made by multi-faceted international entertainer Juan Pablo di Pace, toward the end of his self-titled solo show, which played the intimate The Green Room 42 last weekend....