Joe Turner was real. Brother of the Tennessee Governor, he would swoop down on Black men in the early 1900s – gambling, preaching, just walking down the road – and keep them enslaved on chain gangs for seven years. “They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone / Got my man and gone” – the women sang it, a blues…
You don’t need an extensive knowledge about Golden Age Broadway musicals to thoroughly enjoy “Schmigadoon” which recently opened on Broadway, but it can enhance your enjoyment. Those who were fans of the television series will flock to see the live performance at the Nederlander Theatre starring Alex Brightman and Sara Chase, and directed by Christopher Gattelli. Book, Music and Lyrics…
Balusters are the decorative posts that support a porch railing – without them, the whole structure collapses. In David Lindsay-Abaire’s wickedly sharp “The Balusters,” now at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the title works both literally and metaphorically. The Vernon Point Neighborhood Association spends considerable energy debating historically appropriate balusters for the Crawfords’ front porch, but what they…
The play “Fallen Angels” written by Noel Coward, originally premiered on Broadway nearly one hundred years ago in December of 1927. The second Broadway revival that is currently on stage at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Todd Haimes Theatre, comes seventy years after its first Broadway revival in 1956. This current production stars Rose Byrne as Jane Banbury and Kelli O’Hara as…
“Time can be a blisteringly fast thing, where in the blink of an eye – ten years are gone from your life, but the next week is agony.” Nick Yarris (Adrien Brody) opens Lindsey Ferrentino’s “The Fear of 13” with this observation, and it establishes the play’s central paradox. What follows is true – a man wrongfully convicted, 22 years…
The musical “Titanique,” a parody of the well-known movie “Titanic,” has managed to dock at the Broadway stage of the St. James Theatre after it set sail from Los Angeles in 2017. It made a couple of stops at the Green Room for its New York premiere in 2018, and then berthed for three years at the off-Broadway, Asylum Theatre,…
When we saw “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” at PAC NYC last summer, the production didn’t work. The audience overpowered the performers – whooping, hollering, stomping on wooden risers until the vocals were buried and the show became chaos. We left disappointed despite the concept’s promise. The Broadway transfer at the Broadhurst Theatre solves every problem. We loved this production. The…
Some may say that Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman” may be the greatest play of the 20th century and there is evidence that supports that claim. It premiered on Broadway in 1949, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the TONY Award for Best Play. The sixth Broadway revival is now playing at The Winter Garden starring Nathan Lane…
For six scenes, “Becky Shaw” unfolds in shadows – David Zinn’s dark grays, Stacey Derosier’s moody shafts of light illuminating secrets and lies. Then, in scene seven, everything floods with brightness: whites, creams, merciless clarity. It’s a design choice that mirrors Gina Gionfriddo’s thematic strategy – dragging uncomfortable truths into the light. “Unless you’re Gandhi or Jesus, you have a…
“Giant,” the new play penned by Mark Rosenblatt that opened on Broadway refers to the well-known author of children’s books Roald Dahl. The word ‘Giant’ may pertain to Dahl standing six foot six inches in height, to his enormous status in the literary world, or to the giant who so often is sought after to be slain. In this case…