All stories by Jonathan Mandell on BroadwayStars

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Understanding Public Obscenities. 5 Lessons for New York Theater by Jonathan Mandell

“Don’t worry; I hear it’s easy to understand,” a Bengali-American in my row at Soho Rep reassured me, before “Public Obscenities” began.  For him, I thought. As it turns out, …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:51PM
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Fat Ham Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Sure, his uncle killed his father and is about to marry his mother, but Juicy, the big Black queer Southerner at the center of “Fat Ham,”  would prefer to forget about the revenge his…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:58PM
Monday, April 10, 2023

White Girl in Danger Review by Jonathan Mandell

If “White Girl in Danger” were an actual soap opera, it would unfold over several years, which would give us time to savor Michael R. Jackson’s febrile intelligence and his subversive …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:45PM

April is Be Kind to Your Usher Month. Legislating Against The Broadway Body. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

April is the kindest month; at least that’s what Playbill president Philip S. Birsh is requesting in a full-page letter in the April edition of Playbill, in which he gently reminds audienc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:36AM
Saturday, April 8, 2023

Tao of Glass Review. Boring Philip Glass, Living Theater. by Jonathan Mandell

Philip Glass fell asleep in the middle of the pitch that actor and director Phelim McDermott was making for a theater piece the two could create together. “I’ve bored Philip Glass McDer…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:52PM
Friday, April 7, 2023

New York Theater Awards 2023: Guide and Calendar by Jonathan Mandell

Below is an explanation of the major annual New York theater awards, plus a 2023 calendar of nomination announcements and award ceremonies Why was Sarah Bernhardt — one of the world’s gr…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:09AM
Thursday, April 6, 2023

Sweeney Todd Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Theatergoers wearing “I ❤️ My Josh” t-shirts filled a row of the Lunt-Fontanne the night I attended the fourth Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s darkly c…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:44PM
Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Lucille Lortel Award Nominations 2023. Off Broadway’s Best by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the nominations for the 38th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway.  Winners will be presented at the annual ceremony on Sunday, May 7, 2023, a…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:39PM

Oscar Isaac, Alex Edelman to make Broadway debuts. Shucked. Life of Pi. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Oscar Isaac is making his Broadway debut in a last-minute addition to the Broadway season: Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” also starring Rachel Brosnahan…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:26AM
Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Shucked Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

“Shucked” is corny. Corn is what the corn-growing townsfolk of Cob County sing about from the opening number of this new country-flavored Broadway musical; it’s the subject of the “f…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:40PM
Sunday, April 2, 2023

Theater Quiz for March 2023 by Jonathan Mandell

How well were you paying attention to the theater in March? Take this quiz to find out. Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:29PM
Saturday, April 1, 2023

April 2023 New York Theater Openings by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a calendar of theater opening* in April 2023 in New York, including nine shows on Broadway featuring (sometimes radically) reworked versions of a Golden Age musical, a 1970s romanti…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:22PM
Thursday, March 30, 2023

Life of Pi Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

Whether or not his fantastical tale of sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days on the open seas will “make you believe in God,” as the 17-year-old shipwreck survivor named P…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:49PM
Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Puppetry’s Moment! An Oscar, Broadway Debut, Museum Blockbuster, String of Festivals by Jonathan Mandell

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”  won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature this month, not the first movie with puppets to win an Oscar – “The Sound of Music” and “The Godfathe…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:16PM
Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity by Jonathan Mandell

“This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever been told they were too fat,too short, too gay, too disabled, and otherwise too much or not enough to be in a musical,” Ryan Donovan writes…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:56PM
Monday, March 27, 2023

Happy World Theater Day. DeVito, Smash on Broadway. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

In honor of World Theater Day, celebrated internationally every March 27th since 1962, here are some beautiful theaters from around the world: Theater isn’t just the buildings in which it …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:08AM
Sunday, March 26, 2023

Bad Cinderella Broadway Review by Jonathan Mandell

What’s so bad about “Bad Cinderella”? Sure, it takes great liberties with the fairy tale, sexing it up, setting it to loud pop music, replacing the familiar story with a berserk comic …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:51PM
Thursday, March 23, 2023

Parade Review. Ben Platt as Jewish Martyr in Unsettling Revival by Jonathan Mandell

Two years after a jury convicted Leo Frank of murdering a 13-year-old girl and condemned him to death, a prison guard enters his jail cell with a message from his wife Lucille:  Georgia Go…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:36PM
Monday, March 20, 2023

Sondheim. Fosse. Jerry Herman. We ❤️ NYC. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

This week felt like a reunion of some of the greatest figures in American musical theater — the Broadway opening of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’,” the concert version of Jerry Herman’s �…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:04AM
Sunday, March 19, 2023

Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ Review by Jonathan Mandell

The sensuous slouch, the bowler hat placed rakishly on the tilted head, the turned-in pigeon toes, undulating abdomen, hands reaching out as if roping in their prey, or palms up in the air s…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:03PM
Saturday, March 18, 2023

Dear World Review. Donna Murphy in Jerry Herman’s Flop Musical. by Jonathan Mandell

“Dear World” was a vehicle for Angela Lansbury, though one that otherwise crashed when it ran on Broadway for a mere 132 performances in 1969, even as Jerry Herman’s other musicals on …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:01PM
Friday, March 17, 2023

Careful The Spell You Cast: How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical by Jonathan Mandell

Stephen Sondheim was not a cynic; he was a romantic. That in a nutshell is the thesis Ben Francis puts forth in Careful the Spell You Cast: How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the Ame…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:41PM
Thursday, March 16, 2023

A Doll’s House Review: Jessica Chastain Escapes Her Chair! by Jonathan Mandell

It’s too tempting to mock this austere version of Ibsen’s play as Broadway’s answer to the movie that just swept the Oscars. Call it: Nothing Nowhere With No Intermission! Jessica Cha…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:00PM
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

The Harder They Come Review. Suzan-Lori Parks Adapts Jimmy Cliff’s Reggae Movie by Jonathan Mandell

“The Harder They Come” is a largely faithful stage adaptation of the 1972 movie starring Jimmy Cliff that is said to have introduced the world to reggae music; its fidelity to the origin…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:00PM
Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Radio 477! review. Ukraine then and now: jazz, destruction and defiance. by Jonathan Mandell

In 1929, a group of avant-garde artists in Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, put on a jazz musical revue called “Hello, This Is Radio 477!” celebrating the city’s lone radio…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:20PM
Monday, March 13, 2023

Digital Theatre Is Here To Stay: Paula Vogel’s Bard at the Gate by Jonathan Mandell

By Jonathan Mandell. Theatremaker Jonathan Mandell discusses virtual playwriting series Bard at the Gate and looks at the impact and future of digital theatre.

SOURCE: HowlRound at 12:20PM

#Oscars Hidden Theater Connections. New Michael Jackson in MJ. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Connecting Oscars to theater news: A24, the film company that had the best night — with its seven awards for “Everything All At Once,” including Best Picture and three of the four perf…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:55AM
Sunday, March 12, 2023

Oscar Winners 2023: Everything Everywhere All At Once Best Picture, Best Actress, five more by Jonathan Mandell

Best PictureEverything Everywhere All At Once Best DirectorDaniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once Best ActressMichelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Onc…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:19PM
Saturday, March 11, 2023

Puppetopia Festival: Deeper Closer Warmer by Jonathan Mandell

“Deeper Closer Warmer,” a fun hour of puppet monster mayhem, is the creation of identical twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro from Santurce, Puerto Rico who for more than a decade,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:58PM
Friday, March 10, 2023

Digital theater is still here! 6 Innovators Who Persist. by Jonathan Mandell

On the third anniversary Sunday of the pandemic having shut down in-person theater, even people who welcomed digital theater in 2020 and 2021 surely now — some eighteen months after theate…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:03AM
Thursday, March 9, 2023

Dark Disabled Stories Review by Jonathan Mandell

Ryan J. Haddad is not going to make disability funny tonight the way he usually does, he tells the audience at the Public Theater near the beginning of this groundbreaking  production. “…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:40PM