While the exact location of composer Ben Green, lyricist Greg Edwards and bookwriter Allan Rice's funny and frothy new musical dating adventure, Neurosis, is never revealed, it's a safe bet that New Yorkers, who have glamorized and romanticized neurotic tendencies into a beloved badge of honor, will... (more...)
For the better part of the present decade, playwright/director Richard Nelson has been going seriously Chekhovian, first with a quartet of plays set during the Obama years in the Rhinebeck, New York home of a family named Apple and then with a trio of visits during the 2016 presidential campaign wit... (more...)
Eat your heart out, THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE. Paul Weiss' 1963 historical drama, better known as MARAT/SADE, now hands over the crown for play with the longest title to moun... (more...)
For the ninth entry in her awe-inspiring 12 EP series OBSESSED, Lena Hall pays homage to the person that the Hipster movement appropriated its fashion and peculiarities from singer-songwriter Beck. On OBSESSED: BECK, Hall offers up four songs from the quirky and much-admired musician. And while her ... (more...)
There are times in musical theatre when a talented cast performing their hearts out can make questionable material not only endurable, but even somewhat enjoyable. Sadly, this is not the case with R.R.R.E.D., which, while given a game try by a quartet of enthusiastic belters displaying ample showbiz... (more...)
The London Palladium and The King and I have welcomed back to the stage Ruthie Ann Miles with a warm embrace. Miles, who was forced to quit performing after a devastating accident earlier in the year, reprises the role of Lady Thiang - the King of Siam's (Ken Watanabe) chief wife - to great acclaim.... (more...)
Perhaps if Clifford Odets' landmark pro-union drama, WAITING FOR LEFTY, hadn't opened the year before, Lillian Hellman's 1936 labor drama, DAYS TO COME, the sophomore Broadway effort of the playwright who made a huge name for herself two years earlier with THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, might have been better... (more...)
Jessica Vosk, aka WICKED's current Elphaba, has vocals that cut deep and wide. Her debut album "Wild and Free" debuted at #14 on iTunes, and is currently making a dent on the Billboards. If it is a testament to the cult following of fans she has, "Wild and Free" was fully crowdfunded in a matter of... (more...)
With an innocuous book more focused on moving to plot points than creating interesting leading characters and a platitude-heavy score that tends to linger on moments instead of expanding on them, PRETTY WOMAN, based on the hit 1990 film, is the blandest musical to hit Broadway in recent memory.... (more...)
Linda Eder's career has had the kind of variety many performers would envy: everything from Broadway to solo albums to concert halls. If You See Me, her latest release, is her seventeenth solo album, which itself is an applause-worthy feat. The album itself is mostly a greatest-hits journey through ... (more...)
The past several Broadway seasons have seen extraordinary developments in musical theatre, with a steady stream of new shows, usually transferring from non-profit Off-Broadway, offering smart writing, inventive storytelling and expanded notions of the subject matter and musical styles that can be we... (more...)
Before BE MORE CHILL was an Off-Broadway sensation, actor and singer George Salazar and composer-lyricist-book writer Joe Iconis were close friends. Over the years, Salazar has gotten to sing and even premiere some of Iconis's best work. Recently, Ghostlight Records released TWO-PLAYER GAME, an albu... (more...)
The stage is quite empty, save for a makeshift throne in a corner and a couple of rows of ordinary looking chairs in the back, where actors not involved with scenes sit. The costumes are contemporary clothes, mostly black, with the occasional embellishment to suggest the 15th Century setting. When a... (more...)
It can be tough out there for a jukebox musical. Many have come, few have stayed. Yet, it seems like Broadway can't get enough of them. Recent hits like JERSEY BOYS and BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL are the picture of what a staged jukebox success looks like. They have paved the great white way... (more...)
It may not have the romantic sweep of 'Some Enchanted Evening' or the driving intensity of 'Don't Rain On My Parade,' but so far, the best new theatre song of this young season is a finely-crafted emotional shut-down carrying the unlikely title 'Michael In The Bathroom.'... (more...)
Two-thirds of the way through her ambitious 12-EP OBSESSED project, Lena Hall's August release honors rock genius David Bowie. Across its five tracks, OBSESSED: DAVID BOWIE is a delightful surprise because it adequately represents Bowie's varied musical styles without resting on the obvious hit song... (more...)
Back in the days, really not very long ago, when self-effacing gags about failed diets were one of the few topics of discussion deemed acceptable for women in comedy, the punchline Renee Taylor uses after telling about the time when she ate nothing but meatballs every day because it was the diet tha... (more...)
The last time an actor appeared in a Broadway musical playing a role he had previously essayed on film, it was 1983, when Anthony Quinn opened in the revival of ZORBA. Sharing that unusual distinction with him now is Israeli actor Sasson Gabay who has taken over as leading man of this past season's ... (more...)
There's a good reason that Measure For Measure is considered one of Shakespeare's 'problem plays.' It's a weird blend between comedy (featuring that immortal device of classical theatre, the bed trick) and a surprisingly bleak, mildly misogynistic outlook on love, marriage, and human nature as a who... (more...)
One of the most exciting and important voices to emerge from the 1980s-90s American performance art movement, Karen Finley might be regarded as one of the country's most noted censored artists.... (more...)
The late afternoon and early evening rain that had been steadily falling last Friday didn't stop the faithful from arriving at Central Park's Delacorte Theater for Shakespeare In The Park's return of the Public Works' 2016 musical version of TWELFTH NIGHT.... (more...)
'I sound like Borat and I look like Seinfeld,' jokes the Russian-accented illusionist Vitaly Beckman, who indeed sports a resemblance to 9th Avenue's most famous diner patron.... (more...)
Coming in at the heels of landmark musicals like AIN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE A NATURAL DEATH and INNER CITY, composer/lyricist Micki Grant's DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE was an important part of the early 1970s surge of Broadway musicals that were not only about African-American experiences but were writ... (more...)
Fans of late 16th Century pastoral poetic narrative tragicomedy have been all abuzz anticipating the Broadway arrival of the new song and dance adaptation of a Sir Philip Sidney classic. But rather than go the obviously commercial route and title their creation 'The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, t... (more...)
There was plenty to admire when playwright/director Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN opened at The Public Theater in November of 2014. Those familiar with the exceedingly non-traditional work of the Obie-honoree, whose past dramatic choices have included inserting a scene from 'Sesame Street' ab... (more...)
BWW Review: Musical Dating Adventure NEUROSIS Is Extremely Enjoyable Fluff
BWW Review: Richard Nelson Gives UNCLE VANYA The Rhinebeck Treatment
BWW Review: Jen Silverman's Weird and Wonderful COLLECTIVE RAGE
BWW Album Review: Lena Hall's OBSESSED: BECK Falls Flat
BWW Review: R.R.R.E.D. Warns of Genetic Extinction of Redheads
BWW Review: THE KING AND I, London Palladium
BWW Review: The Mint Revives Lillian Hellman's Intriguing Labor Drama DAYS TO COME
BWW Album Review: Jessica Vosk Flies High With Debut Studio Album WILD AND FREE
BWW Review: Bland PRETTY WOMAN Is Not An Affair To Remember
BWW Album Review: Linda Eder's IF YOU SEE ME
BWW Review: GETTIN' THE BAND BACK TOGETHER Salutes A Different Breed of Jersey Boys
BWW Album Review: George Salazar and Joe Iconis's TWO-PLAYER GAME is Entertaining and Fun
BWW Review: Austin Pendleton Creates a Shakespearean Combo in WARS OF THE ROSES: HENRY VI & RICHARD III
BWW Album Review: Donna Summer Fans Will Love To Love The Original Broadway Cast Recording of SUMMER
BWW Review: Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz's Hard-Rocking, Super-Charged and Very Well Written BE MORE CHILL
BWW Album Review: Lena Hall's OBSESSED: DAVID BOWIE is Delightfully Fresh
BWW Review: Renee Taylor's MY LIFE ON A DIET Is a Comedy Feast
BWW Review: Israeli Star Sasson Gabay Revisits His Film Role in Broadway's THE BAND'S VISIT
BWW Album Review: DESPERATE MEASURES Revisits A Wild West
BWW Review: Karen Finley's Defiant GRABBING PUSSY Attacks Patriarchal Sexual Oppression
BWW Review: Public Works' Joyous Musical TWELFTH NIGHT Returns To The Delacorte
BWW Review: Illusionist Vitaly Beckman Dazzles and Charms in VITALY: AN EVENING OF WONDERS
BWW Review: Savion Glover Directs/Choreographs Micki Grant's Landmark DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE
BWW Review: Sir Philip Sidney Meets The Go-Go's in Love-Happy Romp, HEAD OVER HEELS
BWW Review: Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN Returns to New York Faster, Funnier and Focused
