Richard Seff

‘Conversations With Chita Rivera’ Interviewed by Richard Ridge at The New School in NYC

I think we can safely call her the last Broadway Diva of the golden age. For she’s been putting together a career that is unique in this day and age in that it has been lived almost exclusively in...

‘Love and Money’ at Signature Theatre in NYC

Master Playwright A.R.Gurney has used his own life as background material for some 50 plays, 4 musicals, plus 3 novels. Born in 1930 in Buffalo, New York, he decided early on to “write what he knew”,...

‘John’ at Signature Theatre in New York City

There are many plays that are known for their sparkling dialogue, others for their rapid fire words that require actors who can deliver them in machine gun manner. Now we have the prolific and...

Review: ‘Amazing Grace’ at The Nederlander Theatre in New York City

It’s miraculous that this musical managed to cross the finish line, to land at the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway. We all know how difficult it is to mount a musical these days, not only because of...

‘Fun Home’ at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City

This year’s Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home opened in New York when I was in California. I finally caught up with it this weekend at the Circle in the Square Theatre, where it has now settled in...

‘Show for Days’ at Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center

Patty LuPone is a highly original and always welcome star who has built a brilliant career primarily on stage, and we who love live theatre have been its beneficiaries. Season after season she’s...

‘Significant Other’ at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City

Joshua Harmon’s first play Bad Jews introduced us to him as an imaginative writer with an uncanny ear for authentic dialogue. It also informed us that he could write with rage about matters that...

‘Hand to God’ at The Booth Theatre in New York City

As summer fare this highly imaginative black comedy by Robert Askins is not what you’d expect. No Butterflies are Free, no Barefoot in the Park romantic romp is this play that features a grieving...

‘An Act of God’ at Studio 54 in New York City

Jim Parsons was put together with pieces of PeeWee Herman, Jerry Lewis, and James Stewart and the result is a most appealing actor who’s found himself a character very close to the real Jim Parsons....

Richard Seff Predicts The Tony Awards: Best Play and Musical and Play and Musical Performances

Many scribes have been offering opinions on who might win the Tony Awards this coming Sunday, June 7th, and for those of you who haven’t yet made up your minds, I offer my own thoughts on this year’s...

‘Something Rotten!’ at The St. James Theatre in New York City

It doesn’t sound like much of an epitaph for a Broadway season, but Something Rotten is indeed the title of the last show to open before the deadline for a 2015 Tony nomination. Happily, the title is...

‘Wolf Hall’ at The Winter Garden Theatre in New York City

Hillary Mantel is a novelist, dramatist and critic whose best known works are her two novels about the Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell. The play Wolf Hall is the collective title of two long plays...

‘Dr. Zhivago’ at The Broadway Theatre in New York City

This will be a short review because I have respect for the creative team behind Doctor Zhivago, but disappointment in their relentlessly moving musical now at the Broadway Theatre. Boris Pasternak was...

‘Finding Neverland’ at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City

I suggest that producers, composers, writers, stars and others with lots of money earned from their work other than in theatre, those who have done no apprenticeship in theatre, who have never trained...

‘The King and I’ at The Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City

When all the elements fuse, when a director is clearly in charge and on the right track, it is such a pleasure to be out front watching everything come together, to make magic from first light to...

‘The Visit’ at The Lyceum in New York City

Full disclosure: I have known and loved Chita Rivera and her talent since we were virtually toddlers. I was then (we’re talking the early 1950s) a baby agent and she had just emerged from the choruses...

‘Living on Love’ at The Longacre Theatre in New York City

In the 1940s and ’50s summer theatres popped up all over the place, particularly in New England, where every other town boasted of one. Westport, Ct. had two; Hyannis, Falmouth, Dennis, all on Cape...

‘An American in Paris’ at The Palace Theatre in New York City

“Fresh as paint” kept buzzing through my head as I sat, enthralled, as this latest “new musical based on a famous film” sang and danced its way across the boards of the famous Palace Theatre. Soon I...

‘It Shoulda Been You’ at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City

If you leave your sense of disbelief checked in the cloak room at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway, you might just have a fun time as you watch this marriage romp unwind, filled with twists and...

‘Skylight’ at The Golden Theatre in New York City

For those of you who love live theatre enough to cherish the teamwork of two major acting talents, Skylight by David Hare should motivate you to book yourself a seat this spring, for the run is...

‘Gigi’ at The Neil Simon Theatre in New York City

The current stage revival on Broadway of Lerner and Loewe’s film Gigi is lovely to look at. It’s filled with principal performers in supporting roles, who have played leads on Broadway, and for those...

‘Paint Your Wagon’ at City Center’s Encores

I’m sending you this note on the City Center’s staged reading of Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon even though its brief 6 performances scheduled ended earlier today. I was at yesterday’s matinee...

‘On the Twentieth Century’ at Roundabout Theatre Company’s American Airlines Theatre

The word is out. It didn’t arrive in town with much hoopla, most thought “another revival of a relic from the past” so it fooled even the vast ticket buying public, but the fact is the Roundabout’s...

‘The Heidi Chronicles’ at The Music Box Theatre

In 1989 Wendy Wasserstein’s play hit Broadway hard, dealing with her fervent feelings about women’s liberation which began with her graduation from high school just as the 1960s were rolling in. She...