The new musical “Smash,” opening on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre, creates more than one bombshell, strategically detonating a multitude of explosive twists, turns, and powerful production numbers, to create a good old-fashioned musical. Never having seen the popular television show of the same name, there were no comparisons or expectations to be fulfilled, so this production seemed fresh and…
Unlike the typical one-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle where the completed puzzle matches the image on the cover, “The Collaboration’s” dénouement and resolution are nothing like the playwright’s supposed intention when writing the script. Anthony McCarten sets us up for a scuba diving expedition. The playwright teases us into a deep-sea dive into the wreckage that is the lives of two disparate…
Successful entrepreneurs like Harry (an overzealous but hypersensitive Raúl Esparza) typically attempt to guard their “art” from “commerce” for as long as possible. They feel frightened by the prospect of commercial success overwhelming their sense of artistic integrity. At least that is Harry’s point of view in Theresa Rebeck’s “Seared” currently running in the Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater at…