Rob Weinert News

Amidst the welter of Best of and Most lists for 2025, American Theatre magazine took on a wider time horizon in its survey of the most influential theatre titles of the last 25 years, or quarter-century if you prefer. Like any such list, the results are fascinating and immediately provide a foundation for debate, disagreement and discussion, but this was no list cobbled together from the opinions of the magazine’s staff, as is often the case with such efforts, but a genuine survey. 

The curtain has risen on Ragtime, now running at Lincoln Center Theater on Broadway. Read all the reviews to see what the critics had to say about the new revival, directed by Lear deBessonet.

Center Theatre Group has announced “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine,” featuring Bill Pullman (Independence Day, The Sinner, Oleanna, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?), and Raymond Lee (Quantom Leap, Kevin Can F*** Himself, Vietgone, Tokyo Fish Story), as the first in a series of Taper Legacy Readings on Saturday, May 18 at 7 p.m. at the Mark Taper Forum.

TCG is presenting the return of American Theatre print edition. Get the latest news and updates from the world of theatre in the new issue.

Learn about the recent appointment of Kelundra Smith as the new Managing Editor of American Theatre. Discover how her expertise and passion for the arts will shape the future of the publication.

Governmental funding shifts continue around the globe as governments reveal their latest budget proposals - often with some form of a decrease of support for the creative economy as these countries wind down the support they offered at the height of the pandemic.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey will bring their latest Broadway triumph, “Clyde’s,” a co-production with Goodman Theatre in Chicago to the Mark Taper Forum November 15 to December 18. It recently concluded the Goodman engagement.

The strictly limited 16-week engagement of Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog celebrates its opening night on Broadway tonight!

The critics have weighed in on Death of a Salesman, directed by Miranda Cromwell, who co-directed the London production alongside Marianne Elliott. The revival of this classic play opened on Broadway Sunday, October 9 at the Hudson Theatre.

Stories of transformation highlight the newsletter this week - with two different stories below - one looking at the evolution of Broadway, the other how Regional Theatres are transforming. Both are asking questions in light of racial justice protests that have occured over the past few years, alongside a powerful moment for the labor movement.

The  Top 10 Most-Produced Plays and Top 20 Most-Produced Playwrights for the new season include Clyde's, Clue, Once, Sweat, and more.

With Pass Over moving into their space, another big step was taken on the Road to Reopening for Broadway in particular - along with the announcement of safety plans and procedures from the League and Unions.

This week, we have a lot of stories about the path to reopening from the around the globe - from Australia where reopening has already occurred and they’ve got Broadway productions playing to big houses to a story from The New York Times about what it took to get a new musical up and running in Tokyo with a global creative team.

Randy Reinholz (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Producing Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, is stepping down after more than two decades leading America's only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to developing and producing new work by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights.

New York City Children's Theater (NYCCT) will present their vision of the future of family theater and theater education at their annual Gala with the theme: A Bridge to Future on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 6:30pm at The Edison Ballroom, 240 West 47th Street, New York City, NY.

Signature Theatre and American Theatre will present an in-depth discussion with the design team behind Dave Malloy's Octet, showcasing the creative collaboration involved in bringing this acclaimed chamber choir a cappella musical to life.

What do you do when some Bozo commits murder? You go see the newest show being offered by Padgett Productions, CLOWN BAR, at Immersive KC (formerly Prohibition Hall) in Kansas City. The hilarious campy comedy written by Adam Szymkowicz runs Friday and Saturday nights through July 20. This 65-minute production is riddled with sidesplitting humor, musical numbers, and hilarious choreography.

Darius de Haas (Shuffle Along, Rent, Children of Eden) is looking very animated lately, especially as presented in a new cartoonified recording session video of "Real Thing," released today, Friday, March 29, as a single from the album "All the Possibilities: Broadway Sings Wartofsky" on Yellow Sound Label.

In the last few decades, theater has become much bigger business than it used to be. However, in that same period of time, the coverage of it in mainstream media outlets has dwindled. Many of us may not remember a time that off-Broadway openings were covered on Entertainment Tonight, but it happened. In recent years, even in America's theater epicenter, theater is losing ground in major publications. Neither The New York Post or The New York Daily News has a critic on staff any longer. It is hard to even tally the amount of veteran theater writers from around the country that have lost their jobs in the last decade.