By Elizabeth Ahlfors       “Your identity has nothing to do with your passport.” An observation that proves increasingly valid today.   In a U.S. premiere at the Horizon Theatre Rep, Jalila Baccar’s...

        by: Elizabeth Ahlfors   It was a hot sticky evening on Broadway but Cheyenne Jackson, was as cool and hip as a matinee idol in a black tie and white dinner jacket. A triple threat entertainer, he has a lot more to offer, however, than tall, dark, handsome...

              Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors   In the infamous McCarthy era of the early ’50’s, proof wasn’t necessary to create headlines and destroy lives. Accusations swept across the country, ferreting out suspects in films, theater...

    Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors       What is more All-American than the annual family dinner, say Thanksgiving? Playwright Kate Benson decides to give this traditional domestic comedy/tragedy an imaginative bizarre twist. She keeps all the traditional elements except...

    From All of Us at TheaterPizzazz – – Wishing you and yours a Happy, Healthy, Peaceful 2015  May all your dreams become realities and all your efforts great achievements.   Sandi Durell  – JK Clarke – Brian Scott Lipton – Joel Benjamin  –...

                      The professional and discerning reviewers that make up the backbone of TheaterPizzazz have weighed in with their TOP 5 PICKS in THEATER and CABARET for 2014.  THEATER PICKS: Sandi Durell Our Lady of Kibeho The...

    By Elizabeth Ahlfors   While Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Disgraced, currently runs on Broadway, Akhtar’s off-Broadway suspenseful thriller, The Invisible Hand, appears blocks downtown at New York Theatre Workshop, and is perhaps even more timely. Still...

                      Cabaret Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors   Brent Barrett has performed the work of numerous songwriters, Alan Jay Lerner, Maury Yeston, Stephen Sondheim, the Gershwins, but he seems to have a special affinity for the...

  NY Cabaret Review: Elizabeth Ahlfors   Move over, Michael Bublé and Peter Cincotti, Tony DeSare is the man to watch. This talented singer/pianist has a new meticulously crafted show, Night Life, at 54 Below where he musically wanders through the “chill still of the...

  NY Theater Review     By Elizabeth Ahlfors   “You gotta have heart,” as the song goes, and A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters has plenty of that. This is a play that could run indefinitely. Skip a few years between productions and add different actors and actresses to...

      NY Theater Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors     “What is your story?” Dirt, is the story of Sad, an Iraqi-born rose peddler played with stunning immediacy by Christopher Domig. Sad is one of the illegals struggling on the fringes of society, isolated by...

  NY Theater Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors   Greeting the audience are Adolph Hitler’s words about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin projected on the St. Luke’s Theater screen. “The sportive knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate,...

  NY Theater Review by Elizabeth Ahlfors     Accompanying herself with the theatricality of classical piano pieces, Mona Golabek’s one-woman memoir tells the arresting story of 14-year-old piano prodigy, Lisa Jura. In 1938, Lisa is forced to leave the security of her...

          NY Theater Reivew By Elizabeth Ahlfors   Why was Pat Kirkwood so angry? In her heyday, the golden cabaret and theater age of the British musical comedy, she was a vibrant, persuasive vocalist with a sassy wit. The Telegraph called her the “British...

    NY Theater Review By Elizabeth Ahlfors     “I can’t live – I can only imagine,” said Alfred Hitchcock, creator of film masterpieces like Psycho, Foreign Correspondent and Rear Window. His films are entrées to Hitchcock’s life. In David...

    By Elizabeth Ahlfors     It’s dark humor over kind hearts, humorous and heartbreaking but The Cripple of Inishmaan, directed by Michael Grandage (Red) at the Cort Theater with Daniel Radcliffe, and a keen ensemble, deliver it all with bittersweet humanity.   The...

Jazz and Standards with a Twist By Elizabeth Ahlfors         Clark Warren is a dapper silver-haired daddy with a hip jazz knack to his music.  Early in the show, he announced he is now officially a “geezer.”  If “geezer” means tangy and provocative,...

By Elizabeth Ahlfors             Cheyenne Jackson — now there is eye candy and ear candy for any stage.  He made a splash in 2009 on Broadway with All Shook Up, and he’s been shaking up fans from then on, appearing in concert halls, theaters,...

  By Elizabeth Ahlfors       Vienna in 1920.  It is the post-war period, the government is Communist, society is grim and sometimes a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.  Ever since Heléna Altman’s husband was reported killed by a grenade in World War I,...

          By Elizabeth Ahlfors   In Robert Schenkkan’s  All The Way, Bryan Cranston grasps the role of President Lyndon B. Johnson and doesn’t let go for almost three hours.  No easy task.  LBJ, who called himself “the accidental President”,...

    By Elizabeth Ahlfors   Still the “Crown Prince of Cabaret,” Steve Ross debuted on St. Patrick’s Day at Birdland, “the jazz corner of the world.”  With a salute to Cole Porter, that dapper aristocrat of song, he packed the house with Ross fans,...

    Sandi Durell is Publisher/Editor of TheaterPizzazz.com and has been writing, reviewing, producing, having a voice in the theater, cabaret and entertainment communities for over 25+ years. She is a Voting Member of the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards; member of the...