All stories by Christopher Rawson on BroadwayStars

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Stage review: 'The Humans' dishes out comedy with familial discord at Pittsburgh Public Theater by Christopher Rawson

Thanksgiving came early – and also Christmas and any other family-gathering holiday on your immediate horizon. But Stephen Karam’s disarmingly titled “The Humans” at the Pittsburgh P…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:05PM
Tuesday, October 24, 2017

PICT's 'Romeo and Juliet' set in 1930s Little Italy by Christopher Rawson

At the end, it isn’t just the famous young lovers who die, but also those interesting supporting roles in which Shakespeare specialized, the frantic, babbling Mercutio, fiery Tybalt and, i…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 05:40PM
Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Pittsburgh Playwrights' 'East Texas Hot Links' sizzles with 1950s racial tension by Christopher Rawson

There’s safety in the familiar, right? It’s 1955. Seven men gather to share stories and drink beer in Charlesetta’s coloreds-only roadside bar, a rough-cut place out in the woods somew…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 01:27PM
Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Quantum stages lengthy, powerful 'Red Hills' about the Rwandan genocide by Christopher Rawson

Early on in Sean Christopher Lewis’ “Red Hills,” the western academic expects to talk about what’s happened.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 06:30AM
Wednesday, August 16, 2017

'Cloud 9' offers parallel looks at colonialism and sexual oppression by Christopher Rawson

English playwright Caryl Churchill is a modern master, and her “Cloud 9” (1979) is a wonderful play; you could call it a modern classic. That makes the staging by the small, preprofessio…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 07:00AM
Friday, August 11, 2017
Friday, August 4, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Stage reviews: Shaw Festival's 'Saint Joan,' 'Wilde Tales' and 'Madness of George III' by Christopher Rawson

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario – Things always seem the same in this lovely little town with its big theater festival, but they’re always different, too.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 02:34PM
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Linguistic gymnastics propel the farcical plot in Kinetic Theatre's 'The Liar' by Christopher Rawson

Can you really have too much of a good thing — even of a very, very good thing?

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Sunday, June 25, 2017

Actor Mark Rylance celebrates the Battle of Homestead by Christopher Rawson

Mark Rylance is coming back to pursue a passion. The award-winning actor, director and activist will help celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Homestead here with a performance �…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM

Sir Mark Rylance: From London to Broadway and Hollywood to Pittsburgh by Christopher Rawson

 Mark Rylance was born in England in 1960 and brought up in the U.S. (primarily Wisconsin), 1962-78. He returned to England to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Tuesday, May 23, 2017

City Theatre stages the humorous and thought-provoking 'Ironbound' by Christopher Rawson

By any other name, the postindustrial wastes outside Elizabeth, N.J., might well be (insert familiar Western Pennsylvania steel town of your choice). So you settle in for a gritty drama of c…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Sunday, May 21, 2017

Stage review: Hurricane Katrina heightens the stakes in 'Hercules Didn't Wade in the Water' by Christopher Rawson

From its start some 14 years ago, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre (Mark Southers, founder and artistic director) has attracted most attention for its loving attention to August Wilson. But it…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 03:00PM
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Wednesday, May 3, 2017

PPT's 'Death of a Salesman' delivers powerful, understated truths by Christopher Rawson

Classics come in many dimensions and flavors, but they should always be engaging, no matter how familiar, and also reveal something new.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Quantum Theatre's 'Collaborators' features a playwriting Stalin by Christopher Rawson

Whizz! Bang! It’s off to the races with a comic chase scene, our hero pursued by an unmistakable Josef Stalin, one of the all-time monsters in the Hall of Despots, trying to brain him with…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Saturday, April 1, 2017

PICT stages ‘Oedipus Rex’ with clarity and zest by Christopher Rawson

And now for the granddaddy of them all, Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”! It’s not literally the oldest play in the western canon, but it’s the one most people know, the distant ancestor o…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 03:51PM
Friday, March 24, 2017

Stage review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,’ Parts One and Two by Christopher Rawson

LONDON — The blockbuster here is “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” as big since it opened last July as “Hamilton” is on Broadway, with tickets sold out more than a year in advan…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 01:52PM
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

'The Guard' dazzles on City Theatre stage by Christopher Rawson

In Jessica Dickey’s witty and absorbing new play, “The Guard,” we are referred constantly to an unseen painting: Rembrandt’s famous “Aristotle With [or Contemplating] a Bust of Hom…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 01:28PM
Saturday, March 4, 2017

Stage reviews: Point Park's 'Big Love'; CMU's 'Ragtime' by Christopher Rawson

Pittsburgh is blessed in its two big college theater programs, Carnegie Mellon and Point Park, which each year send dozens of graduates into the national professional pool.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 07:03PM
Friday, March 3, 2017

Review: Pittsburgh fortunate to see 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' return with its original champion by Christopher Rawson

What else would there be but rain, this being the west coast of Ireland, the setting for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane”? It falls steadily throughout the first scene and again at the end,…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:23AM
Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Stage review: John Henry tale is a heavy machine by Christopher Rawson

Take the exploitation of black America during Reconstruction, structure it with metaphoric parallels to the science of mechanics, interweave quotations from dozens of contemporary sources, t…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 03:14PM
Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Pittsburgh Public Theater stages a jocular 'Twelfth Night' by Christopher Rawson

“And thus,” says Feste, the professional fool presiding over the “Twelfth Night” festivities, “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.”

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Monday, January 23, 2017

Stage review: August Wilson's 'Jitney' debuts on Broadway by Christopher Rawson

NEW YORK — Frederick August Kittel, Jr. always said “my father very rarely came around.” He grew up in the cultural environment of his mother, Daisy Wilson, which is why, when his fath…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 02:45PM
Wednesday, January 11, 2017

2016 Post-Gazette Performer of the Year: Eugene Lee by Sharon Eberson and Christopher Rawson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Choosing the Post-Gazette Performer of the Year is never easy, and in the award’s 33rd edition, it was especially challenging. In 2016, audiences saw a number of superb ensembles at Pittsb…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Friday, December 23, 2016

Best of Pittsburgh Theater in 2016 by Sharon Eberson and Christopher Rawson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The New Year on Pittsburgh stages kicks off with “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” -- one of the best plays of the decade -- arriving at the Benedum Center on Jan. 3.

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 11:44AM
Monday, December 12, 2016

Stage review: 'Lungs' is worth its 100 minutes by Christopher Rawson

As the title initially suggests, “Lungs” has a lot of words. Director Spencer Whale starts it with a silent interpretive dance that in hindsight you realize epitomizes the story’s gene…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 11:33PM
Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Stage review: Quantum Theatre stages 'Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' by Christopher Rawson

Which of your senses would you give up first? Granted, the five enhance each other. But taste — that would be first to go, right? Then feeling — even with all the physical danger that wo…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 12:00AM
Friday, November 25, 2016

PITTSBURGH ON BROADWAY: Who's who in the big picture by Sharon Eberson and Christopher Rawson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

NEW YORK — Times Square was blanketed in Pittsburgh black and gold on Nov.16, when 130 Western Pennsylvanians showed their true colors and gathered for a photo that celebrates our region�…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 06:22PM
Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Stage review: Kinetic's '3 Days in the Country' is all heart, plus an overflow of wit and talent by Christopher Rawson

With more wit and thought than puns and pratfalls, this is what’s meant by “high comedy.” But for all its delicious dialogue, Ivan Turgenev’s play is never arch. Not Noel Coward, it�…

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 10:26AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards