All stories by Jonathan Mandell on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Holiday Gifts For Theater Lovers 2022 by Jonathan Mandell

My eleventh annual theater gift guide below features links and information on shopping for theater tickets,theater subscriptions/memberships,cast recordings,play scripts and books about the …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:57AM
Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Taylor Swift’s Lover House, Desegregating Lifeguards, The Lost Sock Rescue Society and other theater by experience designers by Jonathan Mandell

In a play entitled “Pool, Vol. 1″ — one of the fourteen odd and inventive works by “experience designers” showcased during a day-long event called The New Frame — Megan Livingst…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:15PM
Monday, November 21, 2022

A Christmas Carol Broadway Review. Jefferson Mays as Scrooge and 49 other characters by Jonathan Mandell

Jefferson Mays’ version of “A Christmas Carol,” in which he portrays some fifty characters,  struck me as a singular adaptation of Charles Dickens’ story in four distinct and memor…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:29PM

Broadway Season of Cheer and Challenges. Chastain, Comer, Criss, Kalukango Coming to Broadway. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Thirty-three Broadway shows are on offer this Thanksgiving Week (see schedule), and there’ll be eight more Broadway openings before the new year, but the theater industry enters the normal…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:59AM
Sunday, November 20, 2022

The Patient Gloria Review. Psychotherapy as Misogyny in Phallic Fringe Theater by Jonathan Mandell

“The Patient Gloria” is inspired (if that’s the right word) by a film that some see as a breakthrough; others as a betrayal. In 1964, a recently divorced woman named Gloria Szymanski …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:07PM

Thanksgiving Week 2022 Broadway Theater Schedule by Jonathan Mandell

Below is the Broadway schedule for Thanksgiving Week 2022, which differs from the usual week’s schedule: Only two shows of the 33 currently playing have performances on Thanksgiving Day (T…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:14PM

Broadway’s 7 Longest Running Shows by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the seven longest-running shows currently on Broadway, with descriptions and links. This feels the right time for an update given that the longest one has announced a closing date,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:36PM
Saturday, November 19, 2022

George Kaplan Review. Hitchcock Inspired Paranoia about Activists, Hollywood and the Deep State by Jonathan Mandell

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film “North by Northwest,” Cary Grant is mistaken for the spy George Kaplan by villain James Mason and his thugs (possibly Russian.)  As we eventually disc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:25AM
Thursday, November 17, 2022

& Juliet Broadway Review. Britney Shakespears? by Jonathan Mandell

The Bard takes a back seat to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears in “& Juliet,”  a jukebox musical that is being billed as a sequel to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” i…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:31PM

The Lion King ASL Discrimination Suit: The Deaf/ASL Community Responds by Jonathan Mandell

Earlier this month, Keith Wann, a performance artist and long-time sign language interpreter for the Deaf on Broadway, filed a lawsuit against Theater Development Fund for rescinding its job…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:28PM
Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Downstate Review: A Contrarian’s Play About Pedophiles and Punishment by Jonathan Mandell

At the beginning of “Downstate,” an unsettling play by Bruce Norris, Andy (Tim Hopper) is confronting the man who sexually abused him thirty years earlier, reading with shaky breath fro…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:13PM

The 6 Best Musical Theater Album #Grammy Nominations 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

Six albums were nominated for the best musical theater album, all of them of current or recent Broadway shows (unlike last year). The 65th annual Grammy Awards will take place on February 5,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:12PM
Monday, November 14, 2022

Playbill flees. Museum of Broadway pleases. Mike Birbiglia and Kimberly Akimbo diseases. Shuck, Dancin’on Broadway 2023. #Stageworthy News of the W by Jonathan Mandell

Theater is fleeting, which is why the new Museum of Broadway feels long overdue. Theater twitter seems to be fleeting too – or fleeing, to be more precise. Playbill’s last Tweet: Twitter…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:23PM

Museum of Broadway: 10 things I learned, 11 rooms I liked by Jonathan Mandell

Individual Broadway musicals take pride of place at the Museum of Broadway, opening tomorrow, with literal show rooms: elaborately designed rooms dedicated to such shows as “Oklahoma,” �…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:24PM
Sunday, November 13, 2022

Broadway Review: Mike Birbiglia The Old Man & The Pool by Jonathan Mandell

Mike Birbiglia is so popular he can joke about cancer and diabetes and still fill up a Broadway theater.  “The Old Man and the Pool,” opening tonight at the Vivian Beaumont, recalls the…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:00PM
Friday, November 11, 2022

For Veterans Day, Reconnecting Soldiers with Theater by Jonathan Mandell

In honor of Veterans Day, veterans and current active duty service members were given free tickets this week to attend a one-night-only reading just for them of James IJames’ 2022 Pulitzer…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:58AM
Thursday, November 10, 2022

Kimberly Akimbo Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

“Kimberly Akimbo” arrives on Broadway with its terrific cast and quirkiness intact. What’s best about this musical remains – above all,  the slowly unfolding oddball relationship b…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:58PM
Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Where We Belong Review: A Native American Who Identifies with Caliban by Jonathan Mandell

Madeline Sayet begins her enlightening solo show at the Public Theater with an acknowledgement of the original inhabitants of Manhattan,  the Lenape, which is as standard an opening messag…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:30PM

Watch Senator-elect John Fetterman’s Victory Speech: “I’m proud of what we ran on…” by Jonathan Mandell

“This campaign has always been about fighting for anybody who’s gotten knocked down that ever got back up,” John Fetterman said in his victory speech early this morning after he was ca…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:04AM
Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Broadway in sign, song and dance urges: Vote! by Jonathan Mandell

Today is Election Day! If you live in NYC, find your polling site here. If you live anywhere in America, you can go to Vote.org. Learn the location of your polling place and what’s on you…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:07AM
Monday, November 7, 2022

Six Musical New Cast. Music Man Extends. Almost Famous. Almost Safe. #Stageworthy News of the Week. by Jonathan Mandell

“If the British armed forces are not perhaps what they were on the world stage, they’re certainly world beaters in ceremony and ritual and pomp. We’re still good for theater.” — Do…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:43AM
Sunday, November 6, 2022

My Broken Language Off Broadway Review: Quiara Alegría Hudes Stages Her Memoir by Jonathan Mandell

In her gorgeously written memoir, which was published last year with the same title as the play that is opening tonight at the Signature Theater, Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote that it was the…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:02PM

You Will Get Sick Review: Linda Lavin and Daniel K. Isaac in Debut Play by Jonathan Mandell

Inventive stagecraft, watchable stars, a vague, artsy script: In his New York debut, playwright Noah Diaz arguably has a story he wants to tell about caregiving and the psychological effects…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:30PM
Thursday, November 3, 2022

Almost Famous Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

The “world’s greatest rock critic” offers some advice to William Miller, a friendless, precocious 15-year-old who has just lucked into an assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to acco…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:00PM
Wednesday, November 2, 2022

The American Theatre 1962 to 2002 as seen by Hirschfeld by Jonathan Mandell

A sign of the vitality of American theater in the 1960s is how many shows that Al Hirschfeld caricatured at the time are currently on New York stages in revivals: 1776, A Delicate Balance, F…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:20PM
Tuesday, November 1, 2022

November 2022 New York Theater Openings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a day-by-day calendar of theater opening* in November, a month that features six new Broadway shows, four of them musicals, as well as some exciting theater-adjacent events, such as…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:19AM
Monday, October 31, 2022

Broadway 2023 Shapes Up. Off Broadway Heats Up. Sondheim Salvaged. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Broadway 2023 is shaping up, even as Fall 2022 heats up, with eight Broadway shows having opened in October, six more scheduled to do so in November, and Off Broadway featuring new plays wit…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:51AM
Sunday, October 30, 2022

Theater Quiz for October 2022 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to New York theater in October — the shows (eight on Broadway alone!), the controversies (many)? Answer these ten questions to find out Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:22PM
Saturday, October 29, 2022

Hound Dog Review by Jonathan Mandell

“Hound Dog,” a play with music, evokes Elvis, Joni Mitchell and “Ramy” the Hulu series about an Egyptian-American immigrant family in New Jersey (the last unintentionally) — which …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:58PM
Friday, October 28, 2022

Finale: Late Conversations with Stephen Sondheim by Jonathan Mandell

In 2016, Stephen Sondheim, who was working on a new musical based on two movies by Luis Buñuel,  was listed on an internal memo at the New Yorker Magazine as a possible subject for a prof…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:53PM
Thursday, October 27, 2022

Walking With Ghosts Broadway Review. Gabriel Byrne Performs His Memoir. by Jonathan Mandell

Gabriel Byrne gives four different kinds of curtain calls in the middle of “Walking With Ghosts,” his lovely solo show opening tonight at Broadway’s Music Box Theater. These are hilari…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:00PM