Saturday, January 7, 2017
The last time I walked by the TKTS booth on Time Square at 47th Street, 22 Broadway shows were offering same-day discounted tickets, most for half-price plus a two dollar service charge. Sev…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:25PMTuesday, December 20, 2016
A seasonal departure from play reviews to reviewing having played… … Continue reading …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:49PMThursday, December 15, 2016
Crafted by Chazz Palminteri from a true story from his 1960s youth, “A Bronx Tale” originated as his one-man show in 1989 (revived on Broadway in 2007, directed by Jerry Zaks). The 1993 …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:41AMSunday, December 4, 2016
How cool would it be to have Sutton Foster come to your house to sing and dance in your living room? And suppose she brought some talented friends to perform with her? Well, that’s not gon…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 06:50PMMonday, November 21, 2016
Set over Christmas Eve and Day in the year 1183, “The Lion in Winter” is based on events in the lives of seven historical figures: Henry II, King of England, Scotland, Wales, etc.; his Q…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:31PMTuesday, November 15, 2016
Beginning at 8PM on Christmas Eve, you can watch the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” twelve times in a row on TBS-TV, screening on the even hours up to 6PM on the 25th. Sans song and danc…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:58PMTuesday, October 25, 2016
Thinking about Mad Love, the word “lark” popped into my head. Where’d that come from? I thought, so I looked it up in my Oxford: Something mischievous…an amusing adventure or escapad…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:45PMMonday, October 10, 2016
The Producers has the potential to offend pretty much everyone: Jews, gays, women, seniors, prudes and the self-appointed Good Taste Police. When well staged, however, the holder of a record…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 09:08PMThursday, October 6, 2016
Back in the day, I produced and performed in summer-stock musicals. They usually featured about six principals and double that number of backup singer-dancers. I like to think the shows were…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 02:55PMMonday, September 19, 2016
The Wikipedia entry for Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, known as the Mother of the Blues, lists her life span as April 1886 to December 1939. Based on Two River Theater’s stunning production of …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:17PMSunday, September 11, 2016
Have you ever seen Othello played by a Caucasian actor? I’ve seen Orson Welles’s and Laurence Olivier’s “blacked-up” film versions, and Pavarotti singing the Verdi operatic role at…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:31PMWednesday, August 31, 2016
Legend has it that when British producer-actor Sir Donald Wolfit toured as Othello, he was dismayed when Iago got all the notices. He replaced the actor with a less-talented fellow, who also…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:02PMSaturday, August 27, 2016
Has any long-run Broadway show counted as many detractors as has Cats? (Besides Oh, Calcutta! I mean.) Upon hearing that I was attending the Broadway revival, comments from friends and colle…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:30PMWednesday, August 10, 2016
[As will appear in September issue of American Mensa Magazine] In 1962 a group of Canadians and Americans produced weekend performances of George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell and Candid…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:37AMTuesday, August 2, 2016
Published in 1960, Harper Lee’s semi-autobiographical To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most revered American novels of all time, and the 1962 movie is one of the best book-to-films ever…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:16PMThursday, July 28, 2016
Rarely has a slice of history been as entertainingly portrayed as in Butler. Richard Strand’s play depicts an actual Civil War development with a creative imagining of how it might have un…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 09:37AMThursday, July 21, 2016
(As published in the August 2016 issue of the Magazine of American Mensa) William Shakespeare’s second tetralogy, known as the Henriad, covers 22 years of English history, from 1398 to 1…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 10:25AMSunday, July 17, 2016
The rock opera Tommy was written in 1969 by guitarist Pete Townshend and recorded by the British group The Who. It was made into a movie in 1975. In 1993, Townshend and theatrical director D…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:26PMMonday, July 11, 2016
Without the role of Louise Seger, Always, Patsy Cline would be just a couple hours of one woman singing 25 songs associated with the country-pop crossover star who died in a plane crash on M…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:52PMTuesday, July 5, 2016
The aphorism “There are no accidents” has been variously attributed to Sigmund Feud, Deepak Chopra and Pablo Picasso. Things that occur seemingly by chance are, accordingly then, intende…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:28PMMonday, June 13, 2016
It’s a safe bet that Heather Mac Rae never dreamed she’d be cast in a role created by Marlon Brando. No, the venerable actress is not playing Terry Malloy in a remake of “On the Waterf…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:15PMTuesday, June 7, 2016
I must confess that although I wanted to attend Paper Mill Playhouse’s first opening following the announcement of the venue’s Regional Theatre Tony Award (see below), I was thinking t…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:06PMFriday, May 27, 2016
Writer, composer and leading actor of the record 16-Tony Award-nominated “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Rivera, will likely sweep his personal categories on June 12 and have been thanked by his …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:00PMWednesday, May 11, 2016
The principal difference between a stage play and a radio play is that a certain amount of the exposition is – or should be – shown on the stage while it is all told on the radio. Even t…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:11PMTuesday, April 26, 2016
What better place to spin a yarn about shipwrecks, pirates, sex and violence and such than in what’s known in modern parlance as a dive bar? While William Shakespeare did not set “Pericl…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 02:50PMWednesday, April 20, 2016
French dramatist Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) claims to have written “Becket” “by chance,” after reading an account of twelfth-Century English history in which some 30 pages were devoted…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:00PMTuesday, March 29, 2016
If you require Broadway Musical Pizzazz – brassy production numbers and high-kicking chorines – you might as well pass on “She Loves Me”. But if attractive characters, a tender love …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:52PMWednesday, March 16, 2016
There is an interesting one-act play dwelling within “For Worse,” Deborah Rennard’s two-hour, two-act play now world-premiering at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. The titl…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:51AMWednesday, March 9, 2016
The time stamp on “Hughie,” Eugene O’Neill’s late-career one act play, reads: “between 3 and 4 a.m.” In “Guys and Dolls,” Sky Masterson basks in “a couple of deals before d…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 08:39AMWednesday, March 2, 2016
Presley, Paul and Prince do not look much like brothers, but thanks to “Ropes” playwright Bárbara Colio, translator (from the Spanish) Maria Alexandria Beech, three sterling performance…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:24AMSunday, February 21, 2016
“A Bronx Tale” must have been a tremendous source of satisfaction for Chazz Palminteri over the years. Crafted by him from the true story of his 1960s youth, the piece originated as …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:37PM 
