Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers and hot off the presses. Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . .  2nd edition: The Age and Stage of George L. Fox 1825-1877 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999; expanded ed.). 286pp. ...

Cabaret Review by Marilyn Lester . . . . Remember that 1984 hit film whose eponymous song had the call-and-response refrain: “Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!” Well, for aspiring cabaret performers, that “who ya gonna call?” can only also be answered by one...

Theater Review by Carol Rocamora . . . .  “Our town is sick . . . diseased . . . All our spiritual sources of life are poisoned, and our society is built on a heap of lies.” Sounds like a line from a new play about our ailing times, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t....

Theater Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . .  Like many reviewers, I’m always being asked what shows I’ve liked lately. Normally, my octogenarian brain is too crammed with recent shows to say at once what I really liked—or even what I really hated. However, I’m now...

Music review by Andrew Poretz . . . . When is the last time you saw an entire audience clapping, singing along and dancing to a 78-piece orchestra? The New York Pops orchestra has had some of the most thrilling seasons in its 41-year history under the direction of...

54 Below welcomes back star of stage and screen Tony Danza on May 28, 29, 31 & June 1 at 7pm. Tickets can be purchased at 54below.org/TonyDanza.  Tony Danza and his four-piece band return with his hit live show, Standards...

Honoring Stephen Sondheim’s birthday today March 22, 92NY re-released a 1971 audio recording of Sondheim on the closing night of the first Lyrics & Lyricists season – here’s a link. https://www.92ny.org/archives/ted-chapin-on-stephen-sondheim As it happens, today...

Music Review by Ron Fassler . . . . For more than a half-century, the husband and wife singing team of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé performed live the world over—producing best-selling albums together as well as separately—and recorded multiple singles and albums as...

Chavkin Way-Fabulation ReEducation of Undine-J2Spotlight Musical Theatre Season-Jennifer Roberts Loves Sheldon-Deborah & Joshua Zecher Ross-Best of Bway Flops-Origin 1st Irish 2024-Daryl Sherman Best Of Broadway Flops will be presented at 54 Below (254 W. 54 St)...

Theater Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . . Laurence Fishburne has been a TV, film, and TV presence for just about 50 of his vigorous 62 years. During that half-century of thespian activity, he’s accumulated acting chops that have gained him multiple awards and honors....

Cabaret Review by Ron Fassler . . . . Confession: I’ve been a fan of Leslie Uggams for more than sixty years, going back to when I first saw her on television as a small child. Of course, she was just a small child herself when she began in show business at age six...

Ben Platt will lend his vocals to an upcoming concert residency on Broadway this spring. The Tony Award-winning actor most recently seen onstage in “Parade” will offer audiences an 18-performance engagement at the newly refurbished Palace Theatre. Michael Arden, who...

Music Review by Marilyn Lester . . . . This year, 2024, marks the 125th birthday of one of America’s finest composers and musicians: pianist and band leader, Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington. For 100 of those years, The Duke Ellington Orchestra has been in continuous...

Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers and hot off the presses. Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . . Michael Meyer, Not Prince Hamlet: Literary and Theatrical Memoirs (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989). 292pp. Last year, after having...

Theater Review by Michael Dale . . . .  A 333-year-old woman and a pregnant robot walk into a studio apartment in Williamsburg . . .  While the initial premise behind playwright/director Micharne Cloughley’s 43 Stages of Grieving: A Comedy may seem a bit...

Theater Review by JK Clarke . . . . It seems oddly disconcerting this year that there are two significant Off-Broadway productions that confront eroding global standards of journalism. But the fact that both MCC’s excellent musical The Connector (which ended a...

Lempicka, the highly anticipated sweeping new musical portrait celebrating the gripping true story of renowned artist Tamara de Lempicka, released a new portrait of the principal company, ahead of the first preview on Tuesday evening Mar. 19th. The cast...

SoHo Playhouse’s U.S. premiere of Epidermis Circus, The Weirdest Puppet Show You’ve Ever Seen!, co-created and performed by Ingrid Hansen (Puppeteer for Jim Henson Company’s Fraggle Rock and Sesame Workshop’s Helpsters), co-created and directed by Britt Small...

Theater Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . .  It’s always a pleasure to anticipate whatever popular playwright-drag artist-actor Charles Busch is cooking up for his next comedic endeavor. Only rarely is one disappointed; to a limited degree that’s true as well of...

Theater Review by Brian Scott Lipton . . . . We’ve all heard that love is a drug. But can a drug cause love? That’s the big practical question being posed—alongside a host of philosophical one—by Lucy Prebble in her emotionally devastating and incredibly...

Todd Haimes, President/CEO, in memoriam; Scott Ellis, Interim Artistic Director) announces Emmy & Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth in KRISTIN: AN EVENING WITH FRIENDS FOR TODD, a special benefit concert directed by Warren...

Scott Siegel's BROADWAY BY THE SEASON returns for its second year at Merkin Hall with an All-Star line-up for three Spring concerts: March 25, April 29, and June 17. For the first show, Broadway stars Lisa Howard, Jenny Lee Stern, and song & dance man Danny...

Theater Review by Michael Dale . . . .  There are two main reasons I accepted the invitation to review Joyce Griffen’s The Script In The Closet: A) My desire to spend my latter years as a theater reviewer spotlighting affordable Off-Off Broadway and indie theater...

by Meredith Heyman . . . . Broadway leading man, Andrew Samonsky, is returning to the boards in the new musical, Lempicka, playing Tamara de Lempicka's husband, Tadeusz Lempicka. In a video interview with Theater Pizzazz, Samonsky revealed his cosmic connection with...

Theater Review by Ron Fassler . . . . It’s hard to believe that it’s been fifty-three years since A Little Night Music first opened on Broadway. Though a teenager at the time and with a few of its more adult themes going over my head, I was still wowed by what was the...

by Meredith Heyman . . . . Writer Carson Kreitzer is preparing to make her Broadway debut in the new musical, Lempicka. Kreitzer wrote the show’s book and lyrics and also came up with the original concept for the work. In a video interview with Theater Pizzazz, she...

By Sandi Durell . . . . She’s got that thing That sexy thing Long blonde hair and . . . A saxophone? A lady with a sax, that’s a real fact! And, by the way, not only can she toot This jazz baby can warble With personality to boot Oh, Don’t Tell Mama . . . but she sure...

Tony Award winner John Lloyd Young returns to the Café Carlyle, May 14-18, with one of his most-popular sets. Original Jersey Boys screen and stage star, John Lloyd Young, is one of the current longest-running recurring performers at the storied, iconic venue. For...

Cabaret review by Andrew Poretz . . . . When last we saw young French Canadian crooner David Marino, in July 2023, he was making his New York cabaret debut downtown (read HERE). He was quite good then, and has already grown in leaps and bounds, as evidenced by his...