by Sandi Durell   The press met with four time Tony Award winner writer-performer Harvey Fierstein and his director Kimberly Senior at Manhattan Theatre Club’s rehearsal space today (interviews by Sandi Durell) to talk about Bella Bella. Based on long time friendship with Bella...

  Interview By Brian Scott Lipton   Is there anything Norbert Leo Butz can’t do? Or won’t do? In the past year, the two-time Tony Award winner has finished up his Broadway run as Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady, starred opposite Sherie Rene Scott in the deeply autobiographical...

    The cast and creatives of Broadway’s Tony Award Winning Tootsie were on hand to celebrate the release of their CD at Barnes and Noble with live performance and signings of their CD. Present were David Yazbek, Santino Fontana, Sarah Stiles, Andy Groteluschen, Lilli Cooper,...

        by Alana Silber   In today’s political climate, it’s nearly impossible to open a news article, switch on a television, or read a headline without witnessing something that could fill any stomach with dread. From bombings in Syria to incessant mass shootings...

  by Carole Di Tosti     The power of life and death ultimately resides in our own minds. For some the problem is not in dying, but as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet suggested in his query, “What dreams may come…must give us pause.” What happens after life ceases? Thoughts of the...

  by Cathy Hammer   Just opened at Theater for the New City, Dining With Ploetz is composed of three one act plays loosely held together by the theme of food. Presented in a black box space with modest set pieces provided by Mark Marcante and essential lighting by Alex Bartenieff,...

  An Amusement Column           by Harry Haun   MY LORD OF THE FLIES: Two of the more arresting plays around these days involve small-fry, both visible (Make Believe through Sept. 22 at Second Stage) and invisible (Eureka Day through Sept. 21 at...

          By JK Clarke   Some experiences in life are only fully realized in hindsight. We don’t recognize a story is taking place until it is all over. Consequently, it often makes sense to start a story at the end, where it is finally understood in its...

      By Samuel L. Leiter   It’s hard to write critically about a play that affects people so deeply that you feel like embracing those applying hankies and Kleenex to their tearstained faces. Such is the dilemma with D.C. Fidler’s Boogieban, an award-winning, deeply...

    By Ron Fassler   How do you review a night of five comics doing their usual standup material when you’re mostly used to covering live theatre? Such is this reviewer’s dilemma, but I’ll give it my best shot. Playing cities around the country, Laughing Liberally has landed in...

    Jason Danieley will return to Feinstein’s/54 Below in a musical evening of loving remembrance of Marin Mazzie in “A Heart to Heart” September 18 thru 21 at 7 pm. with musical director Joseph Thalken.     Jason starred on Broadway in The Visit,...

  Nicole Henry (Soul Train and Bistro Award Winning Vocalist) returns to Feinstein’s/54 Below September 18 and October 16 at 9:30 pm with I Wanna Dance With Somebody: The Music of Whitney Houston. You’ll be reminded of the Greatest Love of All when Nicole is on stage and...

   An Amusement Column     By Harry Haun   THE JOYS OF JERRY: Working with director-choreographer Jerome Robbins wasn’t the easiest job in the world. It may, in fact, have been the worst. Every one of the creatives connected with Fiddler on the Roof attest to that difficulty in Max...

      Forget about Woodstock . . . it’s WILLSTOCK!  Celebrate with the illustrious jazz expert Will Friedwald at The Triad Theater on Monday, September 16 starting at 9 pm.   It’s only a $10 cover (2 drink min) to hear on-going entertainment on screen and live with...

    By Samuel L. Leiter   The riveting East Coast premiere of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s bitingly topical dramedy, at Walkerspace, Soho Rep’s usual haunt, reminds me of the immortal words of Sean O’Casey’s bibulous “paycock,” Captain Jack Boyle: “The world’s in a terrible...

  The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation announced the recipients of their 2019 Idea Awards for Theatre; three grants awarded to adventurous new voices in playwriting and musical theatre, as well as the the visionary playwrights who have inspired and blazed trails before them. The two...

                    Starring Three-time Olivier Award Winner Eileen Atkins and Olivier and Tony Award Winner Jonathan Pryce       The cast and director met the press at Manhattan Theatre Club’s rehearsal studios on September 4 to give some insight into Tony Award Nominee...

  by Sandi Durell     Cat lover and owner of Minna – ‘The Miracle Cat’ – I was delighted to come upon a Private Sanctuary for cats in Falls Village, Ct. while on a recent mini-vacation. It truly is one of the most remarkable and impressive places I’ve visited! Winding our...

  NYU Skirball will present Elements of Oz, a live performance/augmented reality mash-up of theater, technology and pop culture that celebrates and deconstructs The Wizard of Oz, from the New York-based performance company, The Builders Association, on Saturday, December 7 and Sunday,...

  by Linda Amiel Burns   NYC impresario Scott Siegel decided to revive his legendary Broadway Ballyhoo, and on September 1, the first of the series was performed at Feinstein’s 54 Below. Scott says that he is happy to bring it back to its rightful home as the show was...

  Ricky Ritzel’s August Surpasses Dorian’s 195 mph. winds with Category 5 Gales of Entertainment     By Myra Chanin   Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway, like Brigadoon, pops up on the fourth Friday night of every month at Don’t Tell Mama where the antics of Ritzel and Company unfurl...

  by Susan Hasho   If you are a fly on the wall for a family dilemma – be prepared! Batten down the hatches. The Exes is full of family of several different stripes and dilemmas galore. In fact, there’s even a butler. It opens with a man Richard (Tim Hayes) talking on a cell phone,...

  An Amusement Column         by Harry Haun   THE SHORT-CUT LANE: Apparently, Nathan Lane is shopping around for shorter shows. His most recent Broadway opus—Taylor Mac’s Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus—was a start, tipping the scales (sans intermission) at a...

  by Carole Di Tosti     To what extent does the mind govern the body’s ability to heal? If faith healers encourage the mind’s power over the body to eliminate pain, how can this be exploitive, fraudulent? To what extent is belief “mind over matter?” The riveting musical Felix...

    Jane H. Goldman has had a myriad of exciting careers, the first being a corporate litigator at Time Warner. However, through the years, she has kept a diary, written musings and thoughts, all on separate pieces of paper that have now turned into her first book  “With No...

  By Ron Fassler   Alice Ripley, the 2009 Tony Award winner for her fiery performance in the Pulitzer Prize winning Next to Normal, is an actress and singer of vast range and power. At Feinstein’s 54 Below, she showcased her vocal prowess as well as her songwriting abilities, backed...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   As host/producer Scott Coulter informed the rapt audience at 54 Below before “Music of the Knights” on August 28, the evening’s three titular subjects – Andrew Lloyd Webber, Paul McCartney and Elton John – have more in common than the word “Sir” before...

    Krysta Rodriguez makes her long-awaited Feinstein’s/54 Below solo debut!  Krysta presents a brand new concert exploring career highlights from her time in Broadway shows including Spring Awakening, First Date, The Addams Family, In the Heights, A Chorus Line and Good Vibrations....

    Shoshana Bean (star of Wicked, City Center’s Songs for a New World and as Jenna in Broadway’s Waitress), has made her Feinstein’s/54 Below debut beginning on August 24. She now has two additional shows added September 4 & 5. This show is all about Broadway and Shoshana...

                                                                                                                      An Amusement Column   By Harry Haun     ROUGE AWAKENING: Right from the starting gun of the first preview, it was clear Moulin Rouge! The Musical would be a...

  It is with deep regret that I write that beloved musical director, pianist, friend, arranger and icon of the cabaret community died on August 22 at 3:37 pm in a hospital in Atlantic City. He had a massive stroke Sunday evening in Cape May, NJ and was found Monday morning in a deep...

    By Samuel L. Leiter   A word of advice for anyone writing a new musical: don’t play a medley of pop hits before the show starts and during its intermission. As demonstrated by the generic pop rock score in Contact High, the latest addition to the plethora of high school...

  By Sandi Durell   –Theater Pizzazz mantra: “If music was everywhere and in everyone’s life, the world would surely be a better place” (more than ever!) —   Falling into cabaret as the weather begins its yearly migration from summer, the trees shedding their...

  Photos: Maryann Lopinto       Tony Award Winning Revival, OKLAHOMA, released their original cast CD with a musical presentation by the cast and the signing of the CD on August 22. The release took place at Barnes and Noble at 150 East 86th Street where the entire cast...

  by Alana Silber     Basic Glitch, the first full-length play written by New York based playwright Stephanie Salazar-Amaro, takes place in a world similar to our own, but with one slight difference: customer service is actually helpful instead of disappointing. Cassi Torres...

  by Edward Medina   While watching the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival production of Heloise one could imagine what it was like watching a first draft workshop rehearsal of The Lion in Winter. You could tell there was a great deal of possibility and promise to be explored and...

    By Ron Fassler   The annual Rave Theater Festival is underway on the Lower East Side of Manhattan this August with theatre, dance and music to entertain (as the circus once said) “children of all ages!” Last evening, I was treated to ten tapping feet courtesy of the...

        An Amusement Column   By Harry Haun       BOYS TO MEN: It took half a century, but an unbroken gay line of The Boys in the Band finally formed last April for its first Broadway revival—to name Names: Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Matt...

    by Alix Cohen   Steeplechase begins with the sound man on a bare stage regulating techno-pop by laptop, the first of many why moments in a self-indulgent chronicle of, is it, redemption? Next we see the cast moving to his music, each in his/her own axis. Uh huh. Then, two rows...

  by Adam Cohen   Surrounded by cast members from his most recent Broadway production, The Prom multi-hyphenate (actor, singer, writer, composer, dancer, conductor), Josh Franklin and friends, held court on August 18 at The Green Room 42.  The evening was an opportunity for Josh and...

  The Off Broadway Alliance has announced that its hugely popular semi-annual ticket promotion, 20at20, will return from September 3 to September 22, 2019.  20at20 makes $20 tickets available to dozens of Off Broadway shows 20 minutes prior to curtain for 20 days. Now in its 13th...

          By Myra Chanin   One of the greatest things about New York City is that it gives artists the opportunity to change, alter and modify. And that is exactly what happened to Dan Manjovi, a talented composer (with songs in Woody Allen films), musician and...

                                           An Amusement Column   By Harry Haun     SNOW WHITE AT 100:  “Life Upon the Wicked Stage” has worked out pretty damn well for Marge Champion, who hits her 100th birthday on Sept. 2. She and her then-husband Gower Champion, you’ll...

    by Cathy Hammer   Now in its third year, the boutique Broadway Bound Theatre Festival shines the spotlight on emerging playwrights. This year’s lineup of 18 carefully selected productions and three staged readings has been moved uptown to Theatre Row, within blocks of famed...

  By Marilyn Lester   Country came to Feinstein’s/54 Below, and it was a clear case of “Come on in and sit right down and make yourself at home.” The Mandy Barnett Nashville-in-New York experience was a refreshing evening of tunes both familiar and those seldom heard in...

  The keeper of the flame of the Great American Songbook, its Ambassador Michael Feinstein, has had some of the music world’s prominent artists join him during his run at Feinstein’s/54 Below. From August 6 – 13, it was the one and only Marvelous Marilyn Maye. From...

  An interview with Saturday Night Live Director, Don Roy King     By Tania Fisher   So how does the son of a mailman from a small town near Pittsburgh end up directing more live network television than anyone else in the history of the medium and being one of the most...

      By Samuel L. Leiter   Ah, the variety of New York theatergoing! One night it’s the raucous, decadently spectacular, nearly three-hours-long, jukebox musical Moulin Rouge in Broadway’s grand, lushly appointed, Al Hirschfeld Theatre. The next it’s the quietly...

      By Marilyn Lester   That familiar opener, Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A-Train” (the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s theme song from 1940 on) was a sure bet to herald a delightful 90 minutes of the Maestro’s music in this year’s edition of the...

    by Magda Katz   On the first day of rehearsals, the cast and creatives of Fern Hill held a meet and greet with the press at Theatre Row Studios. The play, written by Michael Tucker (who is also one of the actors), features his wife Jill Eikenberry, along with cast members...

  EXTENDED THRU SEPTEMBER 22 | Theater Review by Brian Scott Lipton     The power (and limits) of imagination. The ways we repeat (and defy) our own family history. The ways we lived then (and now). These are heady subjects to throw together in one play – especially one that’s...

                                                                                             An Amusement Column         By Harry Haun     FIDDLE & HARNICK: It’s not generally known, but Sheldon Harnick snuck into show business as a professional violinist, fiddling...

  Theater Review by Edward Medina   Let’s play a ghoulish little game. Let’s create a fast paced comedy thriller that puts four characters in a spooky setting. Let’s play up who’s dead versus not dead, who’s a ghost versus a corporeal being. Perhaps someone is a special evil spirit...

  by Dr. Bernie Furshpan   What is now termed, “No-mo-phobia,” (no mobile phone phobia), or fear of being without your smartphone, is affecting 40% of the population, according to the psychology community. At this point in our social evolution, smartphone technology provides the...

    Cabaret Review By Myra Chanin   I recently watched a PBS show called Broadway Musicals, A Jewish Legacy, which featured a seemingly endless list of topnotch famous Jewish composers – Arlen, Berlin, Bernstein, Bock, Brooks, Gershwin, Herman, Kander, Kern, Lerner, Loesser,...

  It’s time to bless the new theater season and producer Pat Addiss and Kathryn Fisher have scheduled what promises to be a rousing Broadway Blessing to kick off the 2019/2020 season at St. Malachy’s on Monday September 16 at 7 pm. The Actor’s Chapel located at 239 W. 49th Street will...

  An Amusement Column   Posted August 10   By Harry Haun   JUDY! JUDY! JUDY!: Fifty years and six weeks have passed since Judy Garland passed—and still she’s with us. In fact, on Sept. 27, Judy will actually be in movie houses in the physical form of Renee Zellweger, who’s...

    Review by Brian Scott Lipton   In a culture where we too often talk about having our pizza delivered in under 30 minutes as “a matter of life and death,” we sometimes need to be reminded of the true meaning of these words. This exactly is what happens during “Sea Wall/A...

    Theater Review By Sandi Durell   Having not been weaned on Jim Steinman nor Meatloaf, the experience of seeing the West End jukebox production of Bat Out of Hell, jamming in as many larger than life rock tunes as humanly possible in two hours and 40 minutes (with...

  by Matt Smith   All was buzzy and bright inside Midtown hotspot Feinstein’s/54 Below last week, when the second installment of Tuesdays at 54… with Robbie Rozelle!, the brassy, sassy talk show/game show/open mic hybrid, kicked off at the intimate venue. And the evening was...

  by Alana Silber   When asking the question, “What’s your favorite genre of music?,” I would assume it is quite atypical to hear “Leftist Political Folk” as the response. Coming into the Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan Concert, I did not know what to expect. I knew I liked many of Dylan’s...

  by Alix Cohen   Our audience takes its seats confident that if Steve Ross likes tonight’s especially chosen material, so will we. Taste is one of the artist’s signature attributes. There will be well known songs, those for which we have particular affection, and unfamiliar ones...

  Featuring Marilyn Maye in “I Happen to Like New York”     by Sandi Durell   The ever stylish, forever boyish Michael Feinstein (twinkle in his eye) is back at his namesake Feinstein’s/54 Below raising the roof celebrating the town that never sleeps. With so many New York...

              By JK Clarke   Coriolanus is one of many Shakespeare plays that can be played for its uncanny prescience in modern times, though it doesn’t always have to be. Like Julius Caesar, it’s an especially apt play today when our domestic...

    The Lambs, America’s first professional theater club and the oldest professional theatrical organization in the US, marks the 100th Anniversary of the Actors’ Strike of 1919. A century ago this month the biggest story in show business was unfolding, an event with repercussions...

    by Magda Katz   Friday, August 2, 2019, Grammy Award winning Canadian-born singer-songwriter,  pop star Sarah McLachlan took the stage of the Forest Hills Stadium backed by the lush sound of the The New York Pops conducted by Steven Reineke. The New York Pops were augmented...

  An Amusement Column                                                             by Harry Haun       THE LONG-DISTANCE RUNNERS: The Main Stem’s main man, Harold Prince, was as far from his Broadway home base as he could get when he died last week—in Reykjavik,...

            By JK Clarke   Fish-out-of-water incarceration stories are nothing new. From the wrongfully imprisoned (Hugo’s Les Misérables) to the belatedly, unexpectedly indicted (Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black”), stories of imprisoned individuals who...

  by Michael Bracken   Rachel (playwright Domenica Feraud) is home for the weekend, and everyone is walking on eggshells. Well, not quite everyone. Her brother, Brody (a fearlessly direct Jake Ryan Lozano), is indifferent bordering on resentful. But Mom, Joan (Florencia Lozano), and...

    By Myra Chanin   OK, OK, I know that declaring anything a work of art may be tantamount to dooming it to perdition, but I believe that a market for artistic quality exists and that one of that market’s masters is Zalmen Mlotek, the Artistic Director of the National Yiddish...

    By Marilyn Lester   Continuing a very long, unbroken streak of excellence at the Irish Rep, Elaine Murphy’s gem of a play, Little Gem, is another solid production home run. It’s a deceptively simple piece, but one that packs a very major punch, aided by the powerhouse...

  The Off Broadway Alliance has announced that its hugely popular semi-annual ticket promotion 20at20 will return from September 3 to September 22, 2019.  20at20 makes $20 tickets available to dozens of  Off Broadway shows 20 minutes prior to curtain for 20 days. This year’s participated...

    On July 31, TheaterPizzazz.com’s Marcina Zaccaria met with the Artistic Team of Heloise, slated to be performed at The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. Playwright Michael Shenefelt described this 12th century story, focused on the relationship between a teacher and a student in...

      By JK Clarke   Measure for Measure is one of those Shakespeare plays that’s decidedly hit or miss. A strong production makes for an outstanding play, but,if it’s even a little bit “off” it can make for a dreary evening of theater. Happily, The Acting Company’s new...

    by Elizabeth Ahlfors   You won’t find a classier trio, Eric Comstock on piano, Boots Maleson, on bass, and the star — a svelte songbird, Barbara Fasano, dressed in casual chic for a hot summer evening of captivating songs. Fasano’s new show was Easy to...

  On July 30, Grammy and Tony-nominated actress, singer and author Vanessa Williams hosted a Fall Preview Party celebrating the launch of the upcoming season at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture.  Joining Vanessa Williams on stage were Drama Desk Award-winner Ken...

  JANUARY 30, 1928 – JULY 31, 2019 Harold Prince died this morning at 91 years of age after a brief illness, in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is missed and loved by his family – Judy, his wife of 56 years; his daughter, Daisy; his son, Charles; and his grandchildren, Phoebe, Lucy, and Felix. As...

    by Edward Medina   Langston Hughes, whose Harlem home is still a popular place for visitors and artists of all likes to gather and reflect on art and the body politic of the day, is himself still a monumentally impactful player on the worlds stage and in the lives of...

      by Matt Smith   “What am I doing here? Why am I doing this show?” Such is the question posed by a loose, relaxed and casually dressed Adam Pascal at the start of Stories and Songs… So Far, his seemingly self-explanatory — and surprisingly intimate — new solo show,...

  Theater Pizzazz is proud to have Melissa Griegel’s Photos Part of the 40 Page Booklet Accompanying the Jonathan Larson Project CD     Article & Photos: Melissa Griegel Photography   Last night, the team that put together a musical tribute to RENT’s Jonathan...

  by Alix Cohen   It’s been thirty years since Jeff Harnar and Alex Rybeck performed this loving tribute to the 1950s and there’s not a speck of dust on the stellar show. Fifties Gold is fun; evocatively and personally written, performed with authenticity of the era. For many of us,...

      by Carole Di Tosti   The Acting Company this season is performing two plays in repertory: William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Native Son (1939) by Richard Wright. Native Son is the titular classic about a poor black man trying to find his way to survival on...

      By Sandi Durell   For those of you familiar with the talented Mark William, who presented his first show Come Croon With Me at The Green Room 42 last year, I’m preaching to the choir. But if, by chance, he’s a new name in your musical repertoire, I urge you to get to...

    By Marcina Zaccaria   Filled with boisterous movement and characters who bound from the trash heap floor to a band stage of makeshift platforms, Rat Queen Theatre Company’s interpretation of the Reagan era defies traditional consciousness. Judy Doomed Us All features Book...

        by Carole di Tosti   Accepted into the New York Musical Festival 2019, Till, the story of posthumous Civil Rights icon Emmett Till is perhaps the most powerful offering in the lineup of outstanding musicals this year. Till is based on the true story of Emmett...

    Review By Samuel L. Leiter   Arthur Miller’s 1953 classic, The Crucible, uses the 17th-century Salem witchcraft trials as a metaphor for the political “witch hunt” carried out by mid-20th-century rightwing forces against citizens suspected of leftwing sympathies. British...

    By Brian Scott Lipton   Having bounced around, under various titles and incarnations, for over 15 years, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Road Show has now landed for a too-brief run at New York City Center (as part of the Encores! Off-Center Series) in a production that...

      By Sandi Durell   It’s a splendid colorful storybook of characters of love and romance, sex and grit displayed in an embarrassment of opulence pitting the idealistic Bohemians against the monied Aristocrats. The setting is fin-de-siècle Paris. It’s 1899 Montmartre in...

    by Alana Silber   When she ascended the stage at The Green Room 42, the first thing that touched me about Alice Ripley was not her lush voice or her fabulous blue party dress, but the way she described her show before even starting to sing. “Tonight,” she began, staring...

  By Sandi Durell   Finally getting to see Halley Feiffer’s adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, after being caught on July 13 in the NYC westside blackout at MCC Theater, was a wake up, slap in the face to the master’s work. Of course, now that it’s all of 95 minutes (instead of...

    by Edward Medina   Broadway Bounty Hunter is a living breathing nonstop comic book action adventure smash hit with a real live bad to the bone legendary leading lady kickin’ ass and taking names. One can almost feel the vibrantly colored pages turning and words like pow,...

  EXTENDS AT CHERRY LANE THRU AUG. 18 AND MOVES TO LUCILLE LORTEL REOPENING AUG. 28   By Myra Chanin   Why would anyone who’s been cashing social security checks for over 20 years go out on a deadly hot evening to watch a comedian she’s never heard of ruminate on blow jobs for...

    by Cathy Hammer   Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoots Macbeth, two related one-acts written by Tom Stoppard in 1979, are playing at Atlantic Stage 2 as part of Potomac Theater Project’s 33rd season. Created after more (relatively) traditional plays including Jumpers and Travesties,...