Friday, March 24, 2023

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Bad Cinderella" 3/23/23 by Howard Miller

How best to describe Bad Cinderella, the new musical with a score by über-successful theatre composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber that officially opened tonight at the Imperial Theat…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:03AM
Sunday, March 19, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Drinking in America" - 3/19/23 by James Wilson

In September 1986, Lily Tomlin took Broadway by storm in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Jane Wagner's play that explored, among other topics, women's issues and se…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:07PM

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Bob Fosse's Dancin'" 3/19/23 by Howard Miller

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/BobFossesDancin.html

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:01PM
Thursday, March 16, 2023

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Parade" 3/16/23 by Howard Miller

What a difference four months makes! Back in November, the Alfred Uhry/Jason Robert Brown powerhouse 1998 musical Parade, about the kangaroo court trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank,…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:14PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Arden of Faversham" - 3/16/23 by James Wilson

In adapting Arden of Faversham, the anonymously written domestic tragedy from 1592, Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat explain in a program note that they intended to merge the tragic and far…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:21PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Dear World" - 3/16/23 by Howard Miller

Hello, Encores! Well, hello, Encores! It's so nice to have you back where you belong. Back to your original mission, that is, somewhat lost in recent years, of producing brief runs of quickl…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:27PM
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Harder They Come" - 3/15/23 by Howard Miller

The Harder They Come, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks' adaptation of the reggae-infused 1972 Jamaican film of the same title, is rocking the Public Theater these days with its top-notch cast, an…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:53PM
Monday, March 13, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Coast Starlight" - 3/13/23 by Howard Miller

While watching playwright Keith Bunin's The Coast Starlight, opening tonight at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, I kept coming up with alternate titles: Strangers on a Train, Ship…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:26PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "How to Defend Yourself" - 3/13/23 by Marc Miller

Whew, this one really needed an intimacy coordinator. Liliana Padilla's How to Defend Yourself, at New York Theatre Workshop, is mostly about its titular topic, as reflected through the unea…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:23PM
Saturday, March 11, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "I Love My Family, But..." - 3/11/23 by James Wilson

I Love My Family, But..., the amiable new revue at the Huron Club at SoHo Playhouse, is composed of sixteen musical snapshots focused on a presumably typical family in, as the script states,…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:44PM
Thursday, March 9, 2023

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "A Doll's House" 3/9/23 by Howard Miller

Doubtless, there never were a lot of chuckles to be found in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. But this latest Broadway production, opening tonight at the Hudson Theatre in an adaptation by pla…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:33PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Dark Disabled Stories" - 3/9/23 by Wendy Caster

The press invitation to the The Bushwick Starr's open-hearted, funny, and smart Dark Disabled Stories, by Ryan J. Haddad and now onstage at Public Theater, offers detailed guidance on writin…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:31PM
Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Crumbs From the Table of Joy" - 3/7/23 by Howard Miller

Let us time travel, back nearly three decades to the year 1995. A 30-year-old native Brooklynite playwright who would later go on to win not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes, a MacArthur "Genius…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:21PM
Sunday, March 5, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Brainsmash" - 3/5/23 by Howard Miller

"Mann tracht, un Gott lacht," or so goes the Yiddish proverb. Man plans, and God laughs. That is the crux of Sophie Weisskoff's Brainsmash, a production of The Hearth opening today at 59E59 …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:46PM
Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Best We Could" - 3/1/23 by Marc Miller

There's more than a whiff of Our Town in The Best We Could, Emily Feldman's "family tragedy" now on Manhattan Theatre Club's mainstage. The Wilder influence begins with Lael Jellinek's sceni…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:30PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "1 + 1" - 3/1/23 by James Wilson

Eric Bogosian's 1 + 1, now in a production by The Black Box at SoHo Playhouse, appears in the long tradition of plays about Hollywood. Kaufman and Hart's Once in a Lifetime, David Mamet's Sp…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:27PM
Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Seagull/Woodstock, NY" - 2/28/22 by James Wilson

The most successful adaptations of classic works allow audiences to see familiar texts in a new light. For instance, black odyssey, which opened this week, affords a spirited journey through…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:04PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Letters from Max, a ritual" - 2/28/22 by James Wilson

Don't let the subtitle fool you: Sarah Ruhl's Letters from Max, a ritual is very much a play. The production currently at New York's Signature Theatre centers around two sharply drawn charac…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:32AM
Monday, February 27, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Elyria" - 2/27/22 by Howard Miller

Elyria, a new play by Deepa Purohit opening tonight at the Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater, is a sweeping and ambitious work, packed with enough ideas to fuel at least three d…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:12PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Becomes a Woman" - 2/27/22 by Michael Portantiere

The little-known or virtually unknown plays that have been expertly revived by the Mint Theater Company throughout its history have fallen into two broad categories: (1) obscure works by obs…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:15PM
Sunday, February 26, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "black odyssey" - 2/26/22 by James Wilson

There is something magical happening on East 13th Street in Manhattan. Marcus Gardley's black odyssey, now playing at Classic Stage Company, is an adaptation of Homer's epic poem, but audien…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:30PM
Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "A Bright New Boise" - 2/21/23 by James Wilson

Perhaps my favorite play of the last year is Samuel D. Hunter's A Case for the Existence of God, an exquisite drama that plumbs the depths of a friendship between two men in Twin Falls, Idah…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:31PM
Monday, February 20, 2023

Talkin' Broadway - Book Review: "Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical" by Linda Winer - 2/2023 by Rob Lester

... Laurie Winer sees many sides to the icon, with her own eyes wide open rather than with myopic wide-eyed fandom, and with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight fueled by modern-day perspectiv…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:46AM
Thursday, February 16, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Wanderers" - 2/16/23 by Marc Miller

Who are these people? Why are they sharing a stage? Where are the character details that would help us understand them better? The Wanderers, Anna Ziegler's new drama at the Laura Pels, shar…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:35PM
Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Cornelia Street" - 2/14/23 by Howard Miller

Sometimes it happens that you attend a play or musical and find that it suffers from a rickety script or uninspired score. Still, if you are lucky, there will be something about it that draw…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:01PM
Thursday, February 9, 2023

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Pictures from Home" 2/9/23 by Howard Miller

Playwright Sharr White's Pictures From Home, opening tonight at Studio 54, is a masterful translation to the stage from Larry Sultan's photo memoir of the same title. It is funny when it nee…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:58PM
Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Shedding Load" - 2/7/23 by Howard Miller

Patience is a virtue while attending a performance of Shedding Load, a Varsity Theatre Company production opening tonight at 59E59 Theaters. Written by Varsity's founder Jessica Owens, the 7…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:07PM
Monday, February 6, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Lucy" - 2/6/23 by James Wilson

Lucy, Erica Schmidt's new play, now in its world premiere production by Audible Theater at the Minetta Lane, begins with a mother of a six-year-old girl (and a baby on the way) interviewing …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:01PM
Thursday, February 2, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Endgame" - 2/2/23 by Marc Miller

Exactly what Samuel Beckett was up to with Endgame has been the source of much speculation. A meditation on the futility of life? A fever dream about the inevitable journey toward death? A p…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:03PM

Talkin' Broadway Sound Advice: Cryer & Ford: Hidden Treasures, Eric Hoffman & Ken Hatfield, and Claudia Acuna - 2/2/23 by Rob Lester

Now we give due appreciation to duos–with a retrospective of the oeuvre of a long-standing, outstanding songwriting twosome, and then it's time for spare pairings of one singer accompanied…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 12:49PM
Thursday, January 26, 2023

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Smuggler" - 1/26/23 by Marc Miller

Moral ambiguity seeps into, permeates, and ultimately overwhelms The Smuggler, Ronán Noone's intelligent little "thriller in rhyme" downstairs at Irish Rep. The one-hander, performed with s…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:04PM

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2022-2023 BROADWAY SEASON
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