Broadway

The music lives forever in ‘Ain’t Too Proud:  The Life and Times of the Temptations’ at The Imperial Theatre

The most successful singing group in the history of R&B proudly lives on in the Tony-award winning jukebox musical Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. Now onstage at Broadway’s...

Celebrating Broadway’s Biggest Season in History with ‘Stars in the Alley®’

The statistics are in for the 2017-18 Broadway season, and according to The Broadway League (Broadway.org) – the national trade association for the Broadway industry, founded in 1930 – it’s been a...

Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ at the Lyric Theatre

Amazing bursts of magic that dazzle in the darkness, distinctive characterizations of a host of eccentric, endearing, and evil personalities by an enthralling cast, a complex and compelling tale of...

Review: ‘SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical’ at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

As with all of the shows in its genre, the latest offering in the surge of biographical jukebox musicals on Broadway, SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical, holds appeal for a built-in audience of the...

Review: ‘Three Tall Women’ at the Golden Theatre

Brilliant. Extraordinary. Ingenious. Superb. The best. Yet all adjectives and superlatives pale in comparison with the truly unsurpassed quality of the script, performances, direction, design, and...

Review: ‘Mean Girls’ at the August Wilson Theatre

If you’ve ever witnessed (or worse yet, experienced, encouraged, or participated in) the “girl-on-girl crime” of high-school cliques, malicious gossip, fierce competitiveness, and vicious...

Review: ‘Lobby Hero’ at Second Stage Theater

In the current American climate of daily accusations of “fake news,” public denials of misdeeds, not-so-secret cover-ups of illegal activities, and arbitrary job terminations of public officials at...

Review: ‘Rocktopia’ at The Broadway Theatre

A mash-up of classical music with classic rock, Rocktopia, co-created by vocalist Rob Evan (of New York stage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra fame) and Maestro Randall Craig Fleischer (a noted Conductor,...

Review: ‘Angels in America’ at the Neil Simon Theatre

London’s blockbuster National Theatre production of Angels in America – Tony Kushner’s sweeping two-part eight-hour epic about AIDS, politics, and gay life in America in the 1980s – has alighted on...

Review: ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ at the Marquis Theatre

If you’re in the mood for a fun-filled island vacation, look no further than Manhattan Island and the Broadway premiere of Escape to Margaritaville at the Marquis Theatre. With music and lyrics by the...

Review: ‘NSO Pops: West Side Story in Concert’ at The Kennedy Center

West Side Story remains glorious from its opening notes to its incredibly powerful final curtain. The National Symphony Orchestra’s (NSO) Pops concert version adds its own distinctive, intelligent...

Review: ‘Hey, Look Me Over!’ by Encores! at City Center

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the very successful Encores! series threw us a party by offering its seven audiences (February 7–11) a potpourri of book scenes and musical numbers from eight...

Fifteen Top Theater Picks for Valentine’s Day in NYC

If you’re in New York City for Valentine’s Day and planning to celebrate your love of the stage, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Nicole Hertvik and Senior Reviewer Deb Miller have some suggestions for a...

Review: ‘John Lithgow: Stories by Heart’ at Roundabout Theatre Company

In 2002, when his 86-year-old father was gravely ill, award-winning actor John Lithgow read stories to him at his bedside – the same stories his dad Arthur Lithgow, a regional theater artist to whom...

Review: ‘Farinelli and the King’ at the Belasco Theatre

I believe there’s a reason the name of the countertenor Farinelli precedes that of King Philippe V of Spain in the title of the play running currently at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway. Unlike The...

New Records: Listening to ‘Bandstand’ and the Music of Alan Menken

This report on New Records includes three Alan Menken shows that recently received fresh recordings, plus a Broadway show from this year that unfortunately closed after a modest run. God Bless You,...

Review: ‘Once On This Island’ at the Circle in the Square Theatre

The first Broadway revival of the 1990 Tony-nominated hit musical Once On This Island, with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty, brings an innovative vision to an old...

Report: ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ Rocks the Theater World at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City

To call New York City’s 975-seat Walter Kerr Theatre intimate may seem a bit hyperbolic, but when the artist on stage is Bruce Springsteen, that is exactly how it feels. “The Boss” can sell out...

Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre

David Yazbek has been one of the less publicized composer/lyricists from the generation of writers who followed those who wrote musicals in the “Golden Age” of Broadway. Yazbek has earned nominations...

Review: ‘Kinky Boots’ at the Academy of Music

Drag queens save the day and light up the stage in Kinky Boots, making its return to Philadelphia for a limited run this week at the Academy of Music. Presented in the Broadway Philadelphia series by...

Review: ‘Prince of Broadway’ at the Manhattan Theatre Club

Hal Prince, producer/director extraordinaire is far too modest. His new offering at the Manhattan Theatre Club is so vastly entertaining that I hereby elevate him from PRINCE to KING OF BROADWAY for...

New Records: Listening to ‘War Paint’ and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

This month we focus on two more shows that opened on Broadway this year and are currently running. War Paint (Ghostlight Records) War Paint is an old-fashioned show, in the best sense of that term....

Review: ‘Wicked’ at the Academy of Music

From its origins in L. Frank Baum’s1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to its adaptation in MGM’s blockbuster 1939 film The Wizard of Oz to its annual TV broadcast on CBS beginning in 1956 (which...

New Records: Listening to ‘Groundhog Day’ and ‘Hello, Dolly!’

New Records is our column about recordings of shows and concerts. It’s a companion to the reviews that regularly appear here on DC Theater Arts. This month we take a look at albums from two more shows...

Review: ‘1984’ at the Hudson Theatre

One of the most fascinating items on the Broadway scene is the current production of a British import, 1984. Co-adapted from the 1949 novel of George Orwell by Duncan Macmillan and Robert Icke, it...

Review: ‘Marvin’s Room’ at Roundabout Theatre Company

Scott McPherson wrote Marvin’s Room, a play about illness, family ties, and death when he was just a lad of 30. As a gay man, he was of course aware of the AIDS epidemic that had been ravaging the gay...

Review: ‘Of Human Bondage’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

The first-ever stage adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, written by Vern Thiessen and directed by Albert Schultz for Canada’s Soulpepper Theatre Company, is also the recipient of the...

Review: ‘Fun Home’ at the Forrest Theatre

Winner of five Tony Awards in 2015 – including the first-ever Best Musical honors given to a show written entirely by a team of women – Fun Home, with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine...

New Records: Listening to the Music of 3 Tony-Nominated Shows

New Records is a new column that discusses recordings of theatrical shows. It’s a companion to the theater reviews that appear here on DC Theater Arts. This week, in connection with the Tony Awards,...

Review: ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’ at the Golden Theatre

In 1982 a distinguished group of Broadway pros, including Hal Prince, Betty Comden and Aldolph Green, came up with what was then thought to be a misbegotten idea: what happened to Nora Helmer after...

Review: ‘Bandstand’ at the Bernard F. Jacobs Theatre

Eleven new musicals have opened since War Paint and here comes the last before the April 30th deadline for Tony Nomination. It’s called Bandstand and it didn’t offer us Bette Midler or Patti LuPone or...

Review: ‘Anastasia’ at the Broadhurst Theatre

As the theatre season races to the end of its nomination deadline for the Tony Awards, musical shows are exploding all over the place. We’ve had half a dozen in the last two weeks, and Anastasia...

DC Favorites ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘Come From Away’ Vie for Best Musical as the 2017 Tony Award Nominations Are Announced

DC Mega-hits Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away, which wowed audiences during their sold out runs at Arena Stage and Ford’s Theatre, will be vying for Best Musical, as the 207 were Tony Award...

Review: ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre

The night I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the new musical based on Roald Dahl’s novel, the theatre was packed with moms and dads with little kids in tow. All of them seemed to know the story...

Review: ‘Groundhog Day’ at the August Wilson Theatre

Andy Karl is a delightful musical theatre leading man, but he’s been having a bit of bad luck lately. During a late preview of Groundhog Day, his latest outing on stage, he suffered severe damage to...

Review: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ at the Barrymore Theatre

John Guare’s masterpiece from 1990 solidly launched his career, earning a run of 155 performances off-Broadway which extended to a run at the Beaumont Theatre on Broadway of 485 additional showings....

Review: ‘The Little Foxes’ at the Manhattan Theatre Club

I’ve seen this play so many times. As a youngster of 19 I played “Horace” at NYU in a production that helped me along in my burgeoning acting career. Someone saw me in it, and suddenly I was playing...

Review: ‘Hello, Dolly!’ at the Shubert Theatre

I’m going to tell you a short story before I get to my review of Hello, Dolly! which is now playing at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. I do so to give what’s now called “transparency” to my words in...

Review: ‘Indecent’ at the Cort Theatre

Playwright Paula Vogel has been writing plays for almost forty years, in which she has dealt with issues that fueled her life. She’s been particularly interested in exploring the need for theatre to...

Review: ‘War Paint’ at the Nederlander Theatre

This project began with a fine title, one that conjurs up a fun musical once you know it’s about the battle for supremacy in the field of female skincare and beauty. It sounded like even more fun when...

Review: ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’ at the Forrest Theatre

When John Cameron Mitchell (book) and Stephen Trask (music and lyrics) were developing their gender-bending rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch for its Off-Broadway premiere in 1998, the Berlin...

Review: ‘Oslo’ at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center

I had only dim memories of the 1993 agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which had been secretly arranged by a Norwegian couple, who had spent from April 1992 until September of the...

Review: ‘Present Laughter’ at the St. James Theatre

It doesn’t take much to create a smash Broadway hit. All you need for starters is a witty script that isn’t in a hurry (not a 90-minute mini-play, but a full-size evening that keeps you interested and...

Review: ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ at The Lyceum Theatre

The Lyceum Theatre on Broadway is playing host to a most unusual guest.. It has brought in the Cornley University Drama Society’s production of The Murder at Haversham Manor and because of a number of...

Review: ‘AMÉLIE’ at The Walter Kerr Theatre

Based on a charming French film, Amélie the musical begins with a narrator letting us know we’re going to be in Paris and its surroundings for the next 90 minutes, and as he and the music box music...

The League of Professional Theatre Women’s 2017 Awards Celebration and Big Mingle

Founded in 1981, the mission of the League of Professional Theatre Women, a non-profit advocacy organization headquartered in New York City, is to promote increased opportunities, greater visibility,...

Review: ‘Sweat’ at Studio 54

It took a while, but the Oregon Shakespeare Festival helped by staging this remarkable play in the summer of 2014. It caused enough of a stir for the Public Theatre in New York to pick it up for a run...

Review: ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at The Belasco Theatre

This is the play that introduced me to the writings of Tennessee Williams long ago, in 1945! That was the original production at the Playhouse Theatre on Broadway, and it contained the now legendary...

‘COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY:’ Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff: Part Three: ’70 Girls 70,’ ‘Chicago,’ ‘The Rink,” ‘The World Goes Round,’ ‘The Act,’ ‘Woman of the Year,’ and ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

ACT TWO. Two years later, in 1970, I once again tried to put together a package of my clients – in the show that became 70 Girls 70 – for I’d enjoyed looking after Chita Rivera, Ron Field, Kander and...

Review: ‘Come From Away’ at The Schoenfeld Theatre

One thing is certain about this new musical, now on Broadway at The Schoenfeld Theatre – it had the youngsters in the audience hooting and hollering and having themselves a fine time from start to...