All stories by James Wilson on BroadwayStars

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Arden of Faversham" - 3/16/23 by James Wilson

In adapting Arden of Faversham, the anonymously written domestic tragedy from 1592, Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat explain in a program note that they intended to merge the tragic and far…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:21PM
Saturday, March 11, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "I Love My Family, But..." - 3/11/23 by James Wilson

I Love My Family, But..., the amiable new revue at the Huron Club at SoHo Playhouse, is composed of sixteen musical snapshots focused on a presumably typical family in, as the script states,…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:44PM
Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "1 + 1" - 3/1/23 by James Wilson

Eric Bogosian's 1 + 1, now in a production by The Black Box at SoHo Playhouse, appears in the long tradition of plays about Hollywood. Kaufman and Hart's Once in a Lifetime, David Mamet's Sp…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:27PM
Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Seagull/Woodstock, NY" - 2/28/22 by James Wilson

The most successful adaptations of classic works allow audiences to see familiar texts in a new light. For instance, black odyssey, which opened this week, affords a spirited journey through…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:04PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Letters from Max, a ritual" - 2/28/22 by James Wilson

Don't let the subtitle fool you: Sarah Ruhl's Letters from Max, a ritual is very much a play. The production currently at New York's Signature Theatre centers around two sharply drawn charac…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:32AM
Sunday, February 26, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "black odyssey" - 2/26/22 by James Wilson

There is something magical happening on East 13th Street in Manhattan. Marcus Gardley's black odyssey, now playing at Classic Stage Company, is an adaptation of Homer's epic poem, but audien…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:30PM
Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "A Bright New Boise" - 2/21/23 by James Wilson

Perhaps my favorite play of the last year is Samuel D. Hunter's A Case for the Existence of God, an exquisite drama that plumbs the depths of a friendship between two men in Twin Falls, Idah…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:31PM
Monday, February 6, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Lucy" - 2/6/23 by James Wilson

Lucy, Erica Schmidt's new play, now in its world premiere production by Audible Theater at the Minetta Lane, begins with a mother of a six-year-old girl (and a baby on the way) interviewing …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:01PM
Sunday, January 22, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Memorial" - 1/22/23 by James Wilson

... it was quite illuminating to learn the full backstory behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial through Livian Yeh's Memorial, which is currently playing at A.R.T New York Theatres in a produ…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:29PM
Thursday, January 19, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sugar Daddy" - 1/19/23 by James Wilson

Stand-up comic and television writer Sam Morrison knows comedy. He has performed on "The Drew Barrymore Show" and has written for Bravo's reality television program "Blind Date." He also is …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:24PM
Monday, December 12, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Merrily We Roll Along" - 12/12/22 by James Wilson

It hasn't even been four years since the last professional revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Merrily We Roll Along. Roundabout Theatre Company presented Fiasco's pared-down prod…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:35PM
Thursday, December 8, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "A Child's Christmas in Wales" - 12/8/22 by James Wilson

Adapted and directed by Charlotte Moore, the musical pageant includes a cast of six immensely appealing performers who give life to a host of Welsh denizens, including a group of mischievous…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:41PM
Sunday, November 27, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "KPOP" 11/27/22 by James Wilson

It's part backstage musical, part jukebox-bio show, part multimedia extravaganza, and a large part arena-concert spectacle. The components do not cohere nearly as effortlessly as they do in …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:36PM
Sunday, November 20, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sandra" - 11/20/22 by James Wilson

[David]Cale's newest solo play, Sandra, currently running at the Vineyard Theatre, stars Marjan Neshat as a forty-something-year-old woman caught in a web of international intrigue, mysterio…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:03PM
Thursday, November 17, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Evanston Salt Costs Climbing" - 11/16/22 by James Wilson

A palpable feeling of dread pervades Evanston, Illinois. Individuals sense an invisible hostile being when they walk into a room. A ghost of a dead grandmother appears unexpectedly on street…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:36AM
Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Camp Siegfried" - 11/15/22 by James Wilson

The slogan, "Work sets you free," greeted new arrivals to many Nazi concentration camps. Although not explicitly stated, this is a guiding principle in Bess Wohl's Camp Siegfried, currently …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:06AM
Saturday, November 12, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Almost Famous" 11/12/22 by James Wilson

In adapting the screenplay for the stage, Crowe has expanded the narrative frame to such a degree that the story, the characters, and the very heart of the piece get lost in the muddle. Addi…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:35PM
Monday, November 7, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Good Enemy" - 11/6/22 by James Wilson

Good Enemy, Audible Theater's new production at the Minetta Lane Theatre, is one-part political thriller, one-part father-daughter reconciliation drama, and one-part sentimental road-trip co…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:38AM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "My Broken Language" - 11/6/22 by James Wilson

In My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes's autobiographical play produced by the Signature Theatre in New York, the author expresses a desire for a museum that would house the memories, …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:34AM
Sunday, October 30, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "A Man of No Importance" - 10/30/22 by James Wilson

In the current Classic Stage Company revival of the 2002 musical A Man of No Importance, Doyle applies the tactic sparingly–there are on-stage musicians as well as a handful of ensemble me…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:07PM
Monday, October 24, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "HOUND DOG" - 10/24/22 by James Wilson

Time and space have become glitchy and bafflingly fluid for the young woman protagonist in HOUND DOG, Melis Aker's new play with music in a co-production by Ars Nova and PlayCo. One minute s…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:33PM
Sunday, October 23, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Our Voices, Our Time" - 10/23/22 by James Wilson

The revitalized Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. has reemerged in the last few years as a training ground for up-and-coming Black artists, who are confronted with new and lingering concerns asso…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:20AM
Thursday, October 20, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Albert Camus' The Fall" - 10/19/22 by James Wilson

The Fall, Albert Camus's 1956 novel, is written as a series of confessions in which the narrator grapples with the absurdity of life. True enlightenment, the novel suggests, can only come wh…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:20AM
Thursday, September 29, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Weightless" - 9/29/22 by James Wilson

Weightless, the indie-rock musical by The Kilbanes and produced by the Women's Project, is described as a "theatrical concept album." The company of six musicians and singers present a tunef…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:01PM
Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "This Beautiful Future" - 9/20/22 by James Wilson

This Beautiful Future defies cogent description, and it needs to be experienced to understand how the strange, disturbing, and life-affirming elements all fit perfectly together under Jack S…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 02:53AM
Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Four Saints in Three Acts" - 9/19/22 by James Wilson

Under Ken Rus Schmoll's spot-on direction and Link's simple but effective lighting, the actor inexplicably becomes one with the words. Every utterance is imparted with the utmost conviction,…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:55AM
Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Jasper" - 9/14/22 by James Wilson

MacDermott addresses important issues about parenting, and there are some affecting moments among all of the conflicted characters. Ultimately, however, the play is unsatisfying as it hints …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:53PM
Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Los Otros" - 8/31/22 by James Wilson

The two characters that populate Los Otros, the affecting and intimate new musical by Ellen Fitzhugh and Michael John LaChiusa, appear to be from different worlds entirely. One is a twice-di…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:56PM
Thursday, August 18, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Patience" - 8/17/22 by James Wilson

As portrayed in Johnny G. Lloyd's Patience, now playing as part of Second Stage's Uptown Season at the McGinn/ Cazale Theater, professional Solitaire is a highly competitive, cut-throat, and…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:59AM
Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Between the Lines" - 7/12/22 by James Wilson

Within the first few minutes of Between the Lines, currently running at the Tony Kiser Theater, audiences may have the feeling they are watching what one might call a "genre musical" of sort…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:19AM
Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "53% Of" - 6/28/22 by James Wilson

The title refers to the percentage of white women that voted Republican in the 2016 presidential election, and the play presents a snapshot of the red and blue, gender and racial divide that…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:21PM

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