New York

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced initial casting and the venue for the world premiere of  We Had A World, written by the amazing Joshua Harmon  (Prayer for the French Republic,  Bad  Jews, Significant Other) and directed by Tony Award nominee  Trip Cullman  (Cult of Love). This is  MTC’s first production at NY City Center Stage II (131 West 55th Street) since the…

SMASH TO OPEN ON BROADWAY THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2025 PREVIEWS BEGIN   MARCH 11 AT IMPERIAL THEATRE Starring Robyn Hurder  as “Ivy” Brooks Ashmanskas  as “Nigel” Krysta Rodriguez  as “Tracy” John Behlmann  as “Jerry” Kristine Nielsen  as “Susan” Caroline Bowman  as “Karen” Jacqueline B. Arnold  as “Anita” Bella Coppola  as “Chloe” Casey Garvin  as “Charlie” The company will include  Wendi Bergamini, Sarah Bowden, Jacob Burns, Deanna…

LET’S BE FRANKLIN Were our Founding Fathers good fathers to their children? Lloyd Suh‘s play Franklinland, directed by Chika Ike, now having its world premiere at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, concerns one of the greatest polymaths of all time. The only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris, peace with Britain, and…

BRILLIANT. COMPLICATED. DARIN. Priority Access Pre-Sale begins Monday, October 21, 2024 at Just in Time Broadway General on-sale begins Wednesday, October 23, 2024 Exclusive Night Club Floor Seating Available Jonathan Groff  will return to Broadway in the new musical  Just in Time  this spring. Performances begin at the  Circle in the Square Theatre on March 28, 2025, ahead of…

WHOSE TOWN IS IT ANYWAY? Long before there was a Sheriff Taylor and a Mayberry (google it) there was a Stage Manager and a Grover’s Corners. Thornton Wilder’s classic paean to small-town life centering on that bucolic New Hampshire enclave first premiered on Broadway in 1938. Since its initial run, Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Our…

PUTIN ON THE FRITZ The most entertaining part of Manhattan Theater Club‘s Vladimir, which opened tonight at NY City Center, was the tirade the woman sitting behind me went into during intermission, pointing out to her companions the play’s numerous historical inaccuracies, double standards, instances of naiveté, ignorance and anti-Putin propaganda, as well as its…

A BEACON OF NOPE A secluded matriarch, a remote cottage on the Irish coast, and a haunting family secret. The key components of an Irish drama are here. Yet despite strong performances and a haunting ambience, The Beacon leaves its audience searching the horizon after the final bow. First presented at Garry Hynes’ distinguished Druid…

Inside a one-room apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, Oliver (Darren Criss) lives a happily quiet life listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant. But what else is there to do when you’re a HelperBot 3, a robot that has long been retired and considered obsolete? When his fellow HelperBot neighbor Claire…

THERE’S GOLD IN THESE HILLS It’s always difficult for the children when a mother passes away, even if those children are adults. And if that mother is a strong-willed widow who struggled and fought to raise her four daughters by herself, supported only by the inconsistent income of running a lower-end, seaside hotel in Blackpool,…

THE BONES ARE INDEED GOOD, IF NOT A BIT SKELETAL The website houseful states, “good bones” refers to the core foundational elements of the home, “:a steady structure that can withstand time, wear, and elements. A home with good bones typically has a sturdy foundation, structural stability, and a strong roof.” The decades old, abandoned,…

AN ASTOUNDING CAST CAN’T HELP TO SHAKE THE FEELING THAT WE’VE WITNESSED THIS BEFORE Pedro Antonio Garcia, a criminal defense attorney and a playwright, must have written The Witness Room as a hyper-realistic example of how corrupt our criminal justice system is, but he ends up with what looks like a good episode of Law…

SOMETIMES THINGS HAVE TO GET VERSE TO GET BETTER Medea: Re-Versed, a Hip Hopera by  Luis Quintero, has landed at the Frank Shiner Theatre  and  it  is, without doubt, a memorable experience. Old-school hip hop, the one used for social commentary  in the early 80s,  is the beat throughout the piece — familiar-sounding music created by Quintero to smoothly deliver his…

I’D LOVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SEE It is extremely hard to translate the work of  writers  as ingenious and imaginative as  RyŠ«nosuke Akutagawa, the father of Japanese short stories, into plays or films without falling into flat versions of the complex originals; very few artists have succeeded although many have tried. Presented at…

FOR THE ROOMMATE, IT’S ULTIMATELY ABOUT THE CASTMATES Take a big dose of Grace and Frankie, add a bit of Arsenic and Old Lace, and top it off with the magnificent Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone and you’ve got Jen Silverman’s The Roommate, a two-hander helmed by Jack O’Brien which opened last night at the…

RESPLENDENT ISLAND Sri Lanka is the epitome of a tropical paradise with golden sand beaches and luxurious palm trees, regal elephants and sexy leopards, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean once known as Ceylon. Its history goes back to at least 125,000 years, before the Europeans came knocking and mayhem started, but very few of…

A FASCINATING SUBJECT BOTH MOLD AND NEW In 2019, antibiotic resistance contributed to almost 5 million deaths globally affecting everyone, no matter what age, race or financial status. Here in the States, more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur each year and more than 35,000 people die as a result. You would never think that…