Waitress is an odd duck. I saw the movie when it first opened, and I have a vague memory that I enjoyed it and that it made me hungry. The musical is even odder, though, because it takes the film’s identity as a comedy-drama and stretches the hybrid form into extreme shapes that sometimes made … Continue reading THE FINAL BON-BON: “Waitress”

How fitting that a play about putting on a play in order to better integrate the theatre world should arrive during a season which, to all intents and purposes, has done just that! Hamilton, The Color Purple, even The School of Rock . . . the shows are packing them in, and the faces onstage … Continue reading SHUFFLE ALONG: Changing Things Up on Broadway

I saw Fun Home for the first time in New York City on July 4, 2015. This is what I wrote on Facebook (pre-blog) then: “In the program notes for Fun Home, book writer and lyricist Lisa Kron speaks of "a deep river of yearning" that she and composer Jeanine Tesori found throughout Alison Bechdel's … Continue reading THE SECOND TIME AROUND: Fun Home

I don’t think much of jukebox musicals. They are musical theatre junk food because they are essentially a lazy exercise. You take a composer, singer or group, open the songbook, and mash up the songs with an original libretto . It’s like one of those old ice cream shops where you mix in ice cream, … Continue reading JUKEBOX JIVE: Reviewing “On Your Feet”

Ethel Merman. Ha! You didn’t think I was going to start there, did you? But see, I’m not a professional reviewer, just a person living his life and including theatre in it as much as possible. Bear with me for a moment. If there was one Broadway figure who knew what the people wanted, it … Continue reading THE STORY OF TONIGHT: The “Hamilton” Review

I think it’s very cool that the name of the new play at the Public is Privacy. As for my review, I’m afraid I can’t give you many specific details about James Graham’s new play, now in previews in New York, because I promised Daniel Radcliffe I wouldn’t. No boasting here of a personal relationship with … Continue reading PRIVACY: My Self-Censored Review

Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple came out in 1982 and took the literary world by storm. Told in a series of letters written to God over forty years by Celie, an oppressed black woman in the American South circa 1909 - 1949, it won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983. … Continue reading GETTING IT RIGHT THIS TIME : “The Color Purple” on Broadway

I confess that at the intermission of the intriguing production of The Crucible at the Walter Kerr Theatre, I was full of questions. Why is this set in a modern day schoolroom? Why are these people dressed like our neighbors when their speech clearly marks them as from another century? Why are Ben Whishaw and … Continue reading MORE THAN WITCHES: Reimagining The Crucible