All stories by Jk Clarke on BroadwayStars

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Primary Trust by Jk Clarke

By Carol Rocamora . . .  Meet Bert. He’s the best friend a fellow could ever have—at least according to Kenneth. He’s warm, funny, supportive, and always there when Kenneth needs him�…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:30PM
Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Bernarda’s Daughters by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . .  Bernarda’s Daughters, by Diane Exavier, is a title guaranteed to trigger thoughts of The House of Bernarda Alba, the distinguished play by Federico García Lorc…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:00PM
Saturday, May 20, 2023

King James by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . .  The Manhattan Theatre Club is having a friendship moment. Over at its Broadway venue, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, David Auburn’s Summer, 1976 follows the on…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:09PM

Monty Python Invades Washington: “Spamalot” at the Kennedy Center by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . .  When I was eighteen years old, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) played my local cinema. My brother and I went to see it and were among the few in the theater tha…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 06:15AM
Thursday, May 18, 2023

The Fears by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . .  Like courtroom dramas, plays about people involved with branches of psychotherapy have a built-in theatrical premise. One or more characters gradually expose trau…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:29PM
Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Tartuffe or The Hypocrite by Jk Clarke

By Stuart Miller . . .  When my son and I saw Molière in the Park’s staged reading of Tartuffe in Prospect Park two years ago, we laughed frequently and marveled at the relevance of Moli…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 02:50AM

Disenchanted Offers a Snarky, Sardonic View of Happily Ever After by Jk Clarke

By Myra Chanin . . .  In 2009, when Disenchanted was getting ready to hold its first workshop (at Pearl Studios in New York City), over 700 women auditioned for the 11 roles for a one-night…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 02:29AM
Monday, May 15, 2023

A Celebration Worth Celebrating – Lynn University’s 2023 Celebration of the Arts by Jk Clarke

By Myra Chanin . . .  Zap! Pow! Wowie! I don’t believe I have ever watched a more fulsome, luxuriant, talent-flooded extravaganza than Lynn University’s 2023 Celebration of the Arts. Th…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:27AM
Tuesday, May 9, 2023

NAAP Benefit at the Corner of Chinatown and Broadway! by Jk Clarke

National Asian Artists Project (Baayork Lee, Executive Artistic Director), whose mission of “showcasing the work of Asian-American theatre artists through performance, outreach and educati…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 12:10PM

The Country Play – Theater for the New City by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . . In Richard Ploetz’s The Country Play, now at the Theater for the New City, the author wants desperately for us to make a connection with what he has written—the way …

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:03AM

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . . In his Foreword to the 1965 publication of Lorraine Hansberry’s 1964 play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, John Braine takes issue with the critics who, m…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 03:42AM
Tuesday, May 2, 2023

THE NEW YORK POPS SALUTE BARRY MANILOW by Jk Clarke

By Brian Scott Lipton . . . It may not literally be true that Barry Manilow has written the songs the whole world sings. Still, I would bet my bank account that most of the more than 2,000 p…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:22PM

Summer, 1976 by Jk Clarke

By Carol Rocamora . . .  In a boisterous Broadway season bursting with blockbusters, big casts, and flashy dance ensembles, a small, gentle play can still make a sound of its own. A deep, r…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:23AM
Monday, May 1, 2023

Chita Rivera in Conversation with Nathan Lane  by Jk Clarke

By Matt Smith . . . Living legend, multi-award winner and newly-minted memoirist Chita Rivera popped into the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center on Monday night, her first of many sto…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:46AM
Thursday, January 5, 2023

Eddie Izzard – Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations by Jk Clarke

By JK Clarke . . .  Great Expectations is one of those great novels most of us encountered in a sturdy high school English curriculum. Riveting and multi-layered with a multitude of conflic…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 06:28AM
Monday, January 2, 2023

H.M.S. Pinafore – Set Sail on a Sea of Mirth by Jk Clarke

By Walter Murphy . . .  Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuted in 1878 during England’s Victorian era. One could choose to study the decline of the empire since that…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:07PM
Monday, November 21, 2022

The Rat Trap – How Equals Come Apart by Jk Clarke

By Walter Murphy . . .  Imagine a teenage playwright beginning his career by addressing the sacrifices an accomplished woman must make when she weds a less-talented partner. Add societal ex…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:00PM
Sunday, November 20, 2022

& Juliet by Jk Clarke

By Carole Di Tosti . . .  Life is about second chances. So believes Juliet Capulet, the once tragic female protagonist of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, who steps out of 14th cen…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 10:27PM

Judi Mark: Merely Marvelous—The Songs Of Gwen Verdon by Jk Clarke

By Marilyn Lester . . .  Every so often all the parts of a show might just come together in a beautifully optimal way. Such was the case with Judi Mark’s Merely Marvelous—The Songs Of G…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:15PM
Friday, November 18, 2022

Only Gold  by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . .  The first rule of musical theater is that in creating a show one must have a story that keeps an audience’s attention. With that said, it’s sad to report that even…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:04AM
Thursday, November 17, 2022

Kimberly Akimbo by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . .  The quirkily charming new Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, at the Booth Theatre, brings to mind a small number of similarly inclined, small-bore, bighearted show…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:30AM
Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Evanston Salt Costs Climbing by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . .  If the title of Will Arbery’s new comedy-drama from the New Group sounds confusing, just put the emphasis on “climbing” and say it aloud as if it were a newspape…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:00PM
Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Camp Siegfried  by Jk Clarke

By Carol Rocamora . . .  The story of summer love holds sweet promise in the theater, don’t you agree? But not in the case of a certain summer, in a certain time and place . . .  Playwri…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:59PM

Where We Belong by Jk Clarke

By Carole Di Tosti . . .  How far back can you trace your lineage? For Madeline Sayet, Native American theater-maker and lover of Shakespeare, the challenge of understanding her identity as…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 11:45AM

Nordstrom + Paper Magazine’s Broadway Soiree  by Jk Clarke

by Cooper Lawrence . . . If you were wondering where your favorite Broadway stars are hiding out on Monday nights when their shows are dark, well last night November 14, they were at the mos…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:13AM
Monday, November 14, 2022

John Pizzarelli and Jesscia Molaskey at Café Carlyle by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . . The husband and wife team of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey have returned to the Café Carlyle for a two week engagement that is as warm and inviting as sitting by…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 10:46AM

‘Til Death Do Us Part . . . You First! by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . . Peter Fogel is a throwback to a time when you could watch a comedian like him on The Ed Sullivan Show, the CBS Sunday night variety series that ran from 1948 to 1971. Fa…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:30AM

The Old Man and the Pool by Jk Clarke

By JK Clarke . . .  Ask any working comic and they’ll tell you that the standup comedy business is more difficult now than it has been in over fifty years. Not since organized crime figur…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:30AM
Friday, November 11, 2022

The Phenomenal Leslie Uggams at 54 Below by Jk Clarke

By Ron Fassler . . .  No, the headline is not hyperbole. There were approximately 150 witnesses to the opening night performance of Leslie Uggams’ weekend run of shows at 54 Below on Thur…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:26PM

Where the Mountain Meets the Sea by Jk Clarke

By Samuel L. Leiter . . .  Once again this season, a writer with a gift for language has crafted a play that is essentially a work of literature, gussied up for the stage with creative desi…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 01:59PM
Thursday, November 10, 2022

Other Lives: The Story Songs of Michael Colby by Jk Clarke

A mélange of melody and tour de force performances featuring lyrics by Michael Colby, will be presented as part of Urban Stages 2022 “Winter Rhythms” series, produced by Tom Toce and Su…

SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 10:25AM

All that Chat

2022-2023 BROADWAY SEASON
Nov 27, 2022: KPOP - Circle In The Square