New York Theater News

Review: ‘The Price’ at Roundabout Theatre Company at The American Airlines Theatre

This is one of Arthur Miller’s successes, and though it’s been revived three times on Broadway since it first appeared in 1968, it has never attracted the audiences that flocked to Death of a...

Review: ‘The Gravedigger’s Lullaby’ at TACT

Jeff Talbott established himself as a writer of great promise with the MCC Theater production of his first play The Submission in 2011. This excellent actor/playwright joined The Actors Company...

Review: ‘Evening at the Talk House’ at Pershing Square Signature Center

With the spate of openings in March, I wasn’t able to get to Wallace Shawn’s new play, the New Group’s production which played a strictly limited engagement through March 12, 2017, only until the day...

Review: ‘Linda’ at Manhattan Theatre Club

I don’t know all the works of author Penelope Skinner, but based on The Village Bike and the currently running New York production of Linda, I suspect she is now on the short list of the best female...

‘COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY:’ Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff: Part Two: ‘The Curtain Rises’: ‘Flora, the Red Menace,’ ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Zorba,’ and ‘The Happy Time’

John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Richard Seff at a dinner honoring Harold Prince. Photo courtesy of Richard Seff. THE CURTAIN RISES. One of the properties for which I tried to get this new team hired was...

Review: ‘If I Forget’ at The Laura Pels Theatre in the Steinberg Center

I know Playwright Steven Levenson only from his work as librettist on the musical Dear Evan Hansen, so this for me is his first play. It more than fulfills the promise shown in the musical, where his...

‘COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY:’ Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff: Part One: The House Lights Dim’

COME HEAR THE MUSIC PLAY: Memories of My Twenty Years as Agent For John Kander by Richard Seff OVERTURE. John Kander and Fred Ebb have written some fifteen musicals for Broadway as well as an...

‘Come Hear The Music Play’-A Behind-The-Scenes Look at Kander and Ebb’s Musicals by Their Former Agent Richard Seff Begins Tomorrow on DCMetroTheaterArts

On March 18th composer John Kander will mark his 90th Birthday and to honor that happy occasion I’m going to unearth some of the memories I have of the twenty years in which I represented him as his...

Review: ‘Significant Other’ at the Booth Theatre

It’s hard to accept the realization that your BFFs aren’t really F, especially if you’re the single, and more-than-somewhat-neurotic, Jordan Berman. Feeling increasingly alone and abandoned after...

Interview: Playwright Jonathan Leaf Discusses His New Play ‘Deconstruction,’ Playing at The Storm Theatre Company in NYC March 3-25th

Full disclosure – I’ve known Jonathan Leaf for a long time. We hung out in New York City in the early 2000’s when he was a budding playwright and I was finishing up grad school. Since then, Jonathan...

Review: ‘Nibbler’ at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

Making the transition from high-school graduation into adulthood can be a challenge, especially for teens who haven’t quite yet found themselves. Ken Urban’s Nibbler, a world-premiere production by...

Review: ‘Jonah and Otto’ at The Lion Theatre

Robert Holman is a British playwright whose plays have been done under the auspices of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, he’s had productions of his many plays at half a dozen...

Review #2: ‘Kid Victory’ at Vineyard Theatre

When seventeen-year-old Luke returns home to small-town Kansas after being missing for a year, he must come to terms with what transpired and face the aftermath with his family, church, and community,...

Review #1: ‘Kid Victory’ at Vineyard Theatre

John Kander, who will soon be celebrating his 90th birthday, has now confirmed that his collaboration with 39 year-old playwright Greg Pierce, is on solid ground, and offers us great promise for more...

Review: ‘Sunset Boulevard’ at The Palace Theatre

The Palace Theatre is back in business with a big time headliner on the bill. It’s Glenn Close, returning to the role of Norma Desmond, direct from her recent great success in it at London’s Coliseum...

From PlayPenn to Lincoln Center: A Conversation about ‘Oslo’ with Paul Meshejian and J.T. Rogers

Following its development in 2015 at PlayPenn — the respected thirteen-year-old Philadelphia-based artist-driven organization dedicated to supporting and fostering new work — playwright J.T. Rogers’...

Review: ‘The Object Lesson’ at New York Theatre Workshop

As an avid collector of art, antiques, and memorabilia, with a PhD in Art History, I have spent a lot of time around objects, studying, explaining, and appreciating them. And I’ve always known that...

Review: ‘Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose’ at The Loft at the Davenport Theatre

There is a delightful surprise in store for any of you who can manage to get to the Davenport’s 75-seat Loft Theatre to watch Ed Dixon’s one-man play in which he brings to vivid life the late great...

Preview: Bach’s St. John Passion with Ted Sperling and MasterVoices at Carnegie Hall

From Tevye the Milkman’s Anatevka of 1905 to the St. Nicholas Lutheran Church in Leipzig in 1724, Broadway conductor Ted Sperling is making quite a transition in settings this week. But it’s all...

Review: ‘The Originalist’ at Asolo Repertory Theatre

Playing now in repertoire with The Great Society, a stunning new play that New York has not yet seen, called The Originalist, is keeping the good citizens of Sarasota who clearly love good theatre...

A Report on the Reading of ‘Breathing Under Dirt’ at Cherry Lane Theatre

Patience Malarkey was alive and kicking and under the new direction of award winning Director Larry Moss, at the January 24th industry reading of Breathing Under Dirt at Cherry Lane Theatre in New...

Review: ‘Love for Sale’ at the Huron Club at SoHo Playhouse

Now in its American premiere after performing in London and Edinburgh, Love for Sale takes us to Paris, 1934, for a “cabaret-play” woven around the music of Kurt Weill and contemporary songwriters...

Review: ‘The Great Society’ at Asolo Rep Theatre

All The Way by Robert Schenkkan dealt with Lyndon Johnson’s efforts to influence the 88th U.S. congress to vote in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It first appeared in 2012 at the Oregon Shakespeare...

Review: ‘Yours Unfaithfully’ at the Mint Theater Company

I regret to say that until I saw Mint Theater Company’s production of Miles Malleson’s comedy Yours Unfaithfully, I wasn’t aware of the author, hadn’t heard of him. A great lack on my part, because as...

Review: ‘Jitney’ at Manhattan Theatre Club at The Samuel J Friedman Theatre

A remarkable new production of August Wilson’s play Jitney is now available to us all, thanks to the Manhattan Theatre Club, which has staged it on Broadway as the last of the Wilson 10 play cycle to...

Review: ‘The Present’ at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre

In the beginning there was a play by Anton Chekov that was simply called “a long play without a title”. He’d written a first draft of it in 1878, later called it Fatherlessness. He gave it to his...

Review: ‘Holden’ at New Ohio Theatre

The current remount of George & Co.’s critically-acclaimed Holden, first developed in New Ohio Theatre’s 2015 Ice Factory Festival, is as relevant and unnerving now as it was then, in a country long...

Review: ‘Off the Top’ at The Huron Club at SoHo Playhouse

Who would have thought that a fact-filled illustrated lecture on neuroscience could form the basis of a popular and critically-acclaimed Fringe show? Or that rap music could hold appeal for...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #6: Best Plays in Professional Theaters in Philadelphia, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey

Here are the DCMetroTheaterArts Staff’s honorees for Best Plays in Professional Theaters in 2016 in Philadelphia, NYC, New Jersey, and Delaware. Congrats to all our honorees! A Moon for the...

Review: ‘Ride the Cyclone’ at The Lucille Lortel Theatre

In 1964 Bob Dylan wrote that ‘the times they are a-changin’, and he might just as well have been referring to the musical theatre in America as he was to the war in Vietnam. Ever since Galt McDermott...

DCMetroTheaterArts’ Best of 2016 #3: Best Musicals in Professional Theaters in Philadelphia, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey

BEST MUSICALS IN PROFESSIONAL THEATRES IN PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, AND DELAWARE: A Bronx Tale at The Longacre Theatre. A Christmas Story: The Musical at The Media Theatre. A Taste of Things...

Review: ‘In Transit’ at Circle in the Square Theatre

I first ran into this musical which deals with the lives of several New York subway commuters in 2010 when it first bounced into town onstage at the 59 East 59th Street Theatre off/Broadway. It was a...

‘Take A Bow!’ Part 3: The Staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ Favorite DC/MD/VA Fall 2016 Performances/Directors/Designers by DCMetroTheaterArts Staff: DC/MD/VA/PHILLY/NYC AREAS

Here is the staff of DCMetroTheaterArts’ 3rd series of ‘Take A Bow!’ Fall 2016 honorees: Caroline Clay as Florynce Kennedy in (Re)Acts: Where Do We Go From Here? at Forum Theatre. It was a...

Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ at The Music Box Theatre in NYC

This highly imaginative and moving musical was presented off Broadway by the Second Stage company in May of this year. It enjoyed a sold out run for a month, and was honored by a dozen awards for...

Review: ‘A Bronx Tale’ at The Longacre Theatre in NYC

Chazz Palminteri’s career as actor and writer was given a big boost when his one-man play A Bronx Tale began its life off Broadway with the author as its star. The material was honed from his early...

Review: ‘Christmas Inn’ at Westchester Broadway Theatre

Christmas time, as it says in the famous song, “is the most wonderful time of the year.” So during the month of December, Westchester Broadway Theatre is taking a break from its scheduled lineup and...

Review: ‘A Name for a Ghost to Mutter’ at Urban Stages

In the summer of 2008 a group of artists, business people and supporters gathered to talk theatre, which led to the formation of Theatre East and an inaugural benefit in July 2009. Its core belief was...

‘Mary Poppins’ at The John W. Engeman Theater at Northport

Everyone’s favorite high-flying nanny has landed at the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport! Mary Poppins will be playing until the wind changes on December 31, 2016. The script, based on both the...

Review: ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812’ at the Imperial Theatre in NYC

A most elaborate and tastefully glamorous musical has arrived in town to brighten the holiday season. That’s Natasha, Pierre and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts plus a few lovers,...

Review: ‘Falsettos’ at The Walter Kerr Theatre in NYC

We must thank Andre Bishop and his staff at Lincoln Center Theatre for gifting us with a very early Christmas present called Falsettos, composer William Finn’s musical with a book he co-wrote with...

Review: ‘Les Liasons Dangereuses’ at The Booth Theatre in NYC

Christopher Hampton’s play, Les Liasons Dangereuses, based on the novel by Choderlos de Laclos, a story presented through a series of the characters’ personal letters, was first published in four...

Review: ‘The Front Page’ at the Broadhurst Theatre in NYC

This three act comedy – The Front Page –by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, currently packing them in at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway, is the best revival ever from the day when Broadway was...

United Solo Review: ‘Listen . . . Can You Hear Me Now?’ at Theatre Row in NYC

Growing up as a hearing child of deaf parents, Gloria Rosen faced many challenges, both in interpreting for and communicating with her family, and then struggling to find her own voice in the world....

Review: ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ at The Actors Company Theatre at the Clurman Theatre in NYC

Anglo-Irish Playwright Oliver Goldsmith’s “laughing comedy”- She Stoops to Conquer- was first performed in London in 1773. It’s been a favorite for study in English literature, and theatre classes...

Review: ‘HEISENBERG’ at Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in NYC

Let’s get the title out of the way for starters. Simon Stephens, the author of this play, uses it to remind us that the German physicist Werner Heisenberg introduced his Uncertainty Principle in...

Review: “Oh, Hello on Broadway” at the Lyceum Theatre in NYC

I imagine there is a first time for everything. There I was, sixth row on the aisle at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway, at an early performance of an evening called Oh, Hello On Broadway. I did not...

Review: ‘Inner Voices’ at Premieres in NYC

The human condition can be challenging, whatever your age, gender, background, or experience. Inner Voices explores, with insight and humor, some of those debilitating personal difficulties, and the...

Review: ‘Holiday Inn’ at Studio 54 in New York City

The gifted director Michael Blakemore once said, “When the curtain goes up, the audience is in trouble.” What he meant was that we out front want to know what we’re in for in the 2 hours traffic...

Review: ‘The Encounter’ at The Golden Theatre in NYC

Simon McBurney is one of European theatre’s most original and controversial artists working today. For more than 30 years he has led Complicite, the theatre company he co-founded in 1983 and his works...

Seven Days in Italy with Playbill’s ‘Broadway on the High Seas 7’

I took me a busman’s holiday from September 20 to 30, 2016, by joining Playbill on its seventh cruise featuring Broadway stars and Broadway “Ambassadors” who are on board to mix, mingle and entertain...