Wednesday, November 29, 2023
An exhaustive account of ambition, insecurity, and one astonishing career
It is hard to know where to start with My Name Is Barbra, the much reported on 1,000‑page memoir that took Barbra …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMThursday, April 20, 2023
On Broadway, there wasn’t an empty seat in the house – and we finally saw how compelling stories of victimhood can be
It comes around intermittently every few years; a show on Broadway t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMSaturday, November 20, 2021
When his Broadway show became a global phenomenon, the rigours of daily performance kept the actor and songwriter grounded. Then Disney and Hollywood came calling. Now, the ‘musical theatr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMSaturday, May 15, 2021
The Good Fight star went from relative obscurity in the UK to primetime in the US. Now she’s coming home on her own terms
Even virtually, Cush Jumbo’s energy enters the room before she d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:18AMSaturday, March 2, 2019
The former MP is set to play King Lear in New York – her second take on the role. She talks acting, ambition, and her admiration for the woman ‘slogging away’ at Brexit
Glenda Jackson,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AMThursday, March 15, 2018
As the murderous $1bn musical returns to London, composer John Kander and Ann Reinking, one of the first Roxies, unpick the secrets of its successIn the spring of 1924, Maurine Watkins, a yo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00AMSunday, September 25, 2016
The creator of the hit musical, whose fans range from Barack Obama to Salman Rushdie, reveals how mixtapes, hip-hop and America’s founding fathers inspired himOn a hot…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:56AMTuesday, August 9, 2016
Public Theater, New YorkThere is something deeply gratifying about seeing these characters, worn over centuries to archetypes, shaken into relevance by sheer force of performanceOne advantag…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:58PMSunday, July 31, 2016
There’s no plot, no subtext and no apparent point, but the tunes – including Memory, sung by Leona Lewis – drill into your brain like a flesh-eating worm Related: Leona Lewis on joinin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12PMFriday, July 22, 2016
Lincoln Center festival, New YorkThough the production is traditional, with Jonathan Pryce as Shylock leading the cast, it has truths to impart about modern hatred, violence and prejudiceSo …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:16PMThursday, July 21, 2016
Lincoln Center Festival, New YorkThe Kander and Ebb musical gets a new lease of life and a kitsch encore thanks to a delightfully playful production by Japan’s single-sex troupe Chicago, t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:39PMMonday, July 18, 2016
Part docu-theatre, part love story, the innovative Privacy reveals that the more we share online, the less available our interior lives become to ourselvesAt the beginning of Privacy, James …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:58PMSunday, July 10, 2016
They are one of the greatest combos in the history of musicals. The Pulitzer-winning pair behind Into the Woods talk about bumpy first nights, how to read audience coughs – and why shows t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:10AMMonday, May 25, 2015
In Robert Gottlieb’s sharp, efficient biography of Sarah Bernhardt, the woman whose name is a byword for theatrics emerges as the first modern celebrity.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:58PMWhen Stephen Sondheim was in his 30s, he would get approached, occasionally, by out-of-town theatre companies, struggling with a production. He was the hot new thing, the lyricist of West Si…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:58PMWednesday, February 18, 2015
He may be adored for his portrayal of Hawkeye the wisecracking doctor in MASH, but Alan Alda has a second passion: science. Which is why he has written a play, Radiance, about the hounding o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMSaturday, January 3, 2015
She made her name playing Queen Victoria and Meryl Streep’s mean assistant – but is Emily Blunt as plain-speaking in real life? Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMThursday, November 27, 2014
The Broadway musical, The Last Ship, is struggling and there’s only one way to save it. Sting has to join the cast himself Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:38PMThursday, July 17, 2014
The comic actor, who has died aged 82, performed a version of herself that became as famous as the songs she sangI interviewed Elaine Stritch six years ago, when she was still in residence a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:08PMMonday, May 19, 2014
Andrew Lloyd Webber's monster hit has all the subtlety of a plunging chandelier but it will soothe and transport youThe Phantom of the Opera is a perfect expression of the time it was writte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:46AMThursday, April 24, 2014
Studio 54, New YorkCumming, Michelle Williams and a great ensemble will break your heart and lift your spirits in Sam Mendes's production which has the ghost of Bob Fosse in the choreography…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:00PMFriday, January 10, 2014
Why pay hundreds to 'enjoy' cramped seats, overpriced booze and being herded like cattle? Because it's the theatre, that's whyJust before Christmas, I went to the theatre. It was a Harold Pi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:00AMWednesday, January 1, 2014
She performs semi-nude and asks audiences: 'Ever been raped?' Are you ready for this brash New Yorker's brand of polemic standup?Adrienne Truscott apologises to me before our meeting: the vi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00AMThursday, December 5, 2013
Julie Andrews found a little subtlety in the score. Underwood will go at it with the pop-eyed mania only Simon Cowell appreciatesJoining all the other things to make one's spirits sink at th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:30AMWednesday, October 9, 2013
Even 400 years on, Shakespeare's play is as alive as ever to an imaginative reinterpretation that shows the raw truth about powerMembers of Congress currently holding the House to ransom, co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:15AMFriday, April 19, 2013
Sam Mendes on making Bond, coming home and turning Charlie And The Chocolate Factory into a musicalCharlie and the Chocolate Factory has taken five years to become a stage musical, for reaso…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PMFriday, April 12, 2013
Review: With its epic burps, parenting parables and anarchic high spirits, it's no wonder the RSC's musical has New York enchantedThe RSC's Matilda opened on Broadway this week, and it was s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:59AMWednesday, December 12, 2012
After all the cliches – sleezy hack, crusading attorney, tart with a heart – isn't it time showbiz tackled chemical engineering?There isn't much to recommend the Broadway revival of Glen…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:42PMMonday, November 5, 2012
Musical's latest incarnation on Broadway is a crowd-pleaser in a city that desperately needs some cheering up after SandyI've never been a big fan of Annie the musical. The score is great, I…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:47AM 
