New York

IT DOESN’T JUST FLOAT, IT SOARS New York City Center’s Encores! describes itself,   “This series of concert stagings revisits the archives of American musical theater. Centered around The Encores! Orchestra, these revivals are produced with limited runs and rehearsal schedules, spotlighting the vocal talents of star-studded ensembles.” And, boy, does it ever in its current…

A SLINGSHOT IN THE DARK Poor King David. What a life. If the blonde-haired King of Israel isn’t being duped by the local townspeople to fight Goliath, he’s embarrassing himself at a cocktail party at King Saul’s palace. If he isn’t making war against other desert people, he’s cutting backroom deals with the enemy of…

AUDRA’S TURN AS ROSE Six-time Tony Award Winner Audra McDonald returns to Broadway this fall, 2024, taking on what is widely regarded as the greatest role in musical theatre, “Rose” in Gypsy. This upcoming revival will be  directed by the legendary five-time Tony Award-winning Director  George C. Wolfe with choreography by four-time Tony Award nominated Camille A….

SHE’S THE ONLY ONE. HERE SHE COMES AGAIN. THIS TIME ON BROADWAY. Beloved icon Dolly Parton is partnering with ATG Productions  to bring a new musical inspired by her life and trailblazing career titled  Hello, I’m Dolly to Broadway in 2026. The great  Bartlett Sher has been signed to direct. Produced by Parton,  Adam Speers  for ATG Productions, and  Danny Nozell  for…

COME HOME In the lovely Broadway revival of writer Samm-Art Williams’ Tony-nominated play Home, an African-American man named Cephus Miles contemplates life or, more to the point, his life. Sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of his farmhouse, with an expanse of cornfields reaching to the North Carolina sky just behind him,…

LA COMEDIA DE THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Full disclosure, I don’t speak Spanish. Oh, I’ve picked up a few phrases over the years and still remember a bit of what Mr. Sanchez taught us in high school but for all intents and purposes, I am not bilingual. Luckily, that proved to not be much of…

TWAS BRILLIG! YOU’LL GET A HEART-ON IN THIS SEXY HOLE “All in the golden afternoon. / Full leisurely we glide” is part of the opening poem of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland before she follows the white rabbit and falls into the hole. When you get out of the Jefferson L subway station in…

SWEENEY NOD By any measure, Irish playwright Brian Friel (who died in 2015) is one of the 20th-century’s great dramatists, whose works are among the lasting treasures of Irish literature. Irish Repertory Theatre is concluding its season of The Friel Project, a retrospective of Friel’s work starting with Translations, Aristocrats and Philadelphia, Here I Come!,…

THE CHOSEN FEW There is an impressive collection of talent on display in The Lonely Few, a rock musical making its New York debut at MCC after a run in Los Angeles at the Geffen Playhouse. Composer Zoe Sarnak has been making a lot of noise. In fact, as The Lonely Few is making its…