All stories by Jonathan Mandell on BroadwayStars

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Watch Broadway at Thanksgiving Day Parade 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

Below are videos from the Broadway casts who performed at the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: “& Juliet, “Spamalot,” “Shucked” “How To Dance in Ohio,” and rehearsal …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:46AM
Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Amid Falling Walls Review. Holocaust Songs of Cheek and Worry and Rage by Jonathan Mandell

Long before Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray sang “The Money Song” in the musical “Cabaret,” set in a cabaret in Nazi Germany, a performer sang a similarly satirical song about money in a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:21PM
Tuesday, November 21, 2023

The Gardens of Anuncia Review: The Anti Evita Musical by Jonathan Mandell

Graciela Daniele, a Broadway luminary for six decades, directs this lovely and peculiar musical written by her good friend Michael John LaChiusa, who uses Daniele’s life as the inspiration…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:54PM
Monday, November 20, 2023

Spamalot and Harmony: A Jew’s View. Steve Carell, Jeremy Strong, Tammy Faye on Broadway. Anna Deavere Smith’s New Play. Stageworthy News of the We by Jonathan Mandell

Of the eight shows I reviewed this past week, I probably reacted to two of them differently than I would have without the rise in antisemitism over the last six weeks.About the Broadway revi…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:52AM
Sunday, November 19, 2023

Broadway Thanksgiving Week Schedule 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

Below is the Broadway schedule for Thanksgiving Week 2023, which differs from the usual week’s schedule: Only two shows of the 26 currently playing have performances on Thanksgiving Day (T…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:47PM

Hell’s Kitchen Review: An Alicia Keys musical by Jonathan Mandell

“Hell’s Kitchen,” opening tonight at the Public Theater, is not a musical biography of Alicia Keys, nor, despite the title, is it about the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood where she grew…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:24PM
Saturday, November 18, 2023

A Good Day To Me Not To You Review by Jonathan Mandell

About halfway through Lameece Issaq’s solo show, a younger man named Gabe dressed as an angel, in a wig and women’s makeup, arrives at the home of the unnamed woman at the center of the …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:01PM
Friday, November 17, 2023

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding: The Perks and Pitfalls of seeing it on Broadway Live via your Computer by Jonathan Mandell

For only the third time in Broadway history, you can see a play this weekend live as it’s being performed on stage even if you live thousands of miles away. “Jaja’s African Hair Braid…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:01PM
Thursday, November 16, 2023

Spamalot Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

In its first Broadway revival, “Spamalot” is high-stepping, low-brow and often hilarious. The cast, featuring such comic royalty of the Rialto as Christopher Fitzgerald, Michael Urie and…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:53PM
Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Scene Partners Review. Dianne Wiest as a maybe delusional movie star by Jonathan Mandell

In “Scene Partners,” we first see Dianne Wiest in close-up on a screen, as pink and bejeweled as a movie star, though more nervous than one, as she says: “Hello! I’m Meryl Kowalski,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:53PM
Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Waiting for Godot Review: Paul Sparks and Michael Shannon as Beckett’s latest Didi and Gogo by Jonathan Mandell

On this, the seventieth anniversary year of the signature work of Nobel Prize winning author Samuel Beckett, a play in which (as one Beckett scholar famously put it) “nothing happens, tw…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:48PM
Monday, November 13, 2023

Harmony Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

When Barry Manilow’s musical finally debuted in New York last year, I was thrilled. I had just one small reservation. On my second viewing of “Harmony,” which opens tonight on Broadway…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:53PM

Sad Boys in Harpy Land Review by Jonathan Mandell

Alexandra Tatarsky’s solo show should probably come with a warning. This is not because she keeps on taking things out of her crotch, including a Styrofoam head to which she’s apparently…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:23PM

The Heart of New York Theater. Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

It’s been a week of what Broadway-goers might consider alternative theater  — above all, the announcement that “Sleep No More” and “Here Lies Love” are closing, which prompted …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:35AM
Sunday, November 12, 2023

Sleep No More is soon no more. But no more immersive theater? NO by Jonathan Mandell

It came as a shock to lovers of immersive theater, and reportedly even to the people who work on  “Sleep No More,” the show by the British theater company Punchdrunk that launched New …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:10PM
Saturday, November 11, 2023

Honoring Veterans Day with General Sophocles by Jonathan Mandell

The most enduring theater of Western Civilization was created by combat veterans. “Ancient Greek drama was a form of storytelling, communal therapy, and ritual reintegration for combat vet…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:42AM

The 5 Best Musical Theater Album Grammy Nominations 2024 by Jonathan Mandell

Five albums have been nominated for the best musical theater album, all of them of current or recent Broadway shows (like last year, but unlike the year before.). The 66th annual Grammy Awar…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:39AM
Friday, November 10, 2023

Watch Bring Them Home: A Broadway Prayer for The Oct 7 Hostages by Jonathan Mandell

In the video below, dozens of Broadway performers have recorded the song from “Les Miserables” with a slightly altered title on behalf of the more than two hundred people who were kidnap…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:36AM
Thursday, November 9, 2023

The Sound of (Black) Music, and Borrowed Landscape. 2 Musical Theater One-Offs by Jonathan Mandell

Electric Root’s version of “The Sound of Music” and BlackBox Ensemble’s newly translated version of “Borrowed Landscape”  each separately gave one-night-only performances this…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:39PM
Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Watch Night Review. A Lyrical, Harsh Response to Mass Shootings at the World Trade Center’s PAC NYC by Jonathan Mandell

“Watch Night” is Bill T. Jones and company’s response to the mass shootings by white supremacists of nine African Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charles…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:00PM
Tuesday, November 7, 2023

La MaMa Puppet Festival 2023: Solving the Mystery of Motel, but not of the Resonant Path by Jonathan Mandell

When we were little, I remember my brother being frightened by the Saber-toothed tiger in our book about prehistoric animals. I wasn’t. I had nightmares about Pinocchio – not the Disney …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:17PM

South Review. An Argentinian’s Songs of Home in NYC by Jonathan Mandell

Over the course of her solo show about an Argentinian who moves as a child to New York City, Florencia Iriondo hands out little round chipas, an Argentine cheese bread (savory), and little s…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:35PM
Monday, November 6, 2023

Broadway Goes Digital, Again. First Folio at 400. A Marathon of Raunch and Puppetry. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Raunch, regrets and puppets dominated the New York theater that opened this week, sometimes all three in the same show.  Two different plays told the story of an older man’s reaction to l…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:19AM
Sunday, November 5, 2023

Pal Joey at Encores! 14 photos, 2 minutes of video highlights and a backhanded compliment by Jonathan Mandell

Ephraim Sykes, one of Broadway’s top song-and-dance men, starred as Joey Evans in  “Pal Joey,” which ended its half-week run today as part of the New York City Center Encores! Concer…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:38PM

Poor Yella Rednecks Review: Vietgone’s Vietnamese refugees, chapter two by Jonathan Mandell

When last we saw playwright Qui Nguyen’s parents,  in “Vietgone,” Nguyen’s acclaimed 2016 play with an unconventional pop culture approach,  Quang and Tong had separately escaped…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:35AM
Saturday, November 4, 2023

Merry Me Review by Jonathan Mandell

In “Merry Me,” billed as a lesbian sex comedy,  a seven-member cast is charming enough to wring laughs out of playwright Hansol Jung’s raunchy effort to queer the canon, in what ofte…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:23AM
Friday, November 3, 2023

FOOD Review. A fake, freaky, fun dinner party at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. by Jonathan Mandell

At BAM, the waiter offered me the menu, but it only had one sentence written on it: “Say ‘I would like to order the Arctic char.’” “I would like to order the Arctic char,” I comp…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:49PM
Thursday, November 2, 2023

I Need That Broadway Review. Danny DeVito as a hoarder by Jonathan Mandell

Theresa Rebeck’s play about a hoarder is the slightest of comedies. Its plot is paltry. Its insights are pat. It promises more laughs than it delivers.  It even promises more junk than i…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:53PM

Sabbath’s Theater Review. John Turturro as Philip Roth’s sex-obsessed jerk by Jonathan Mandell

Mickey Sabbath, the 64-year-old self-absorbed, lecherous narrator and protagonist of Philip Roth’s 1995 novel, had a career as a puppeteer until he got arthritis, and there is a moment ear…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:25PM
Wednesday, November 1, 2023

November 2023 New York Theater Openings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a calendar of theater opening* in New York in November, featuring the return to the stage of Danny DeVito, Diane Wiest, Priscilla Lopez, James Monroe Iglehart and Christopher Abbott…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:50PM
Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Theater Quiz for October 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to theater news and reviews in October? Take this quiz and see. Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:54PM

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