Most jukebox shows rely on the name-recognition factor to lure in the crowds. Well, here's a musical that has sort of the opposite goal: to bring our attention to a name that many of us have…
Here's my final roundup of reviews from the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). I saw 19 shows over the course of three weekends. It was a bit grueling at times, but overall I fou…
Here's my third round of reviews, out of four, of shows from the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Seeing so many shows in such a short time has been a really rewarding process,…
You gotta admire the cojones on anyone who writes a musical called Atomic. I mean, theater critics and their editors can be mean enough with headlines even without such low-hanging fruit. OK…
Here's my second installment of reviews from this year's New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF). I continue to be impressed at the overall higher caliber of shows at this year's festival. …
One of my favorite theatrical experiences of this past season was seeing the lustrous Audra McDonald in the play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, so much so that I went back a second tim…
Ah, summer. Looks like it's time for a little NYMF-ing. Well, maybe more than a little. I mean, faced with the prospect of 24 new musicals, 9 concerts, 10 development readings, and numerous …
Hey, folks. Here are my latest posts for About.com. Lots of fun info here regarding what to see on Broadway this summer, which recent cast recordings to buy, whether you spell in "theater" o…
I was in the Berkshires over the July Fourth weekend, and had no intention of seeing any theater. Honestly. But I wound up taking in two shows, one of which was The Servant of Two Masters at…
Here's a roundup of my latest posts on About.com (theater.about.com). I'm supposed to post at least twice a week, which is a bit more frequent than I've been used to in my blogging, but so f…
I just got back from a three-show day in NYC. I hadn't planned on blogging about any of the shows -- I wanted to just sit back and enjoy on this trip -- but as I sat watching one of...
I'm sure that some of you, like me, greeted the news of a prospective Tupac Shakur musical with at the very least a raised eyebrow. I think this is a vestige of our propensity of limiting ou…
I can't recall the last time I was so genuinely enchanted by the first act of a show, only to be so disenchanted by the final curtain. The new musical Fly By Night at Playwrights Horizons fe…
Here are my two most recent posts for About.com. One of them is about some A-list Hollywood types that will be playing on Broadway in the coming season (including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenha…
So, the Tonys are over, and another season has come and gone. I've caught up (mostly) on my reviews, but I wanted to alert y'all out there in EIKILFM land that I've picked up a companion wri…
OK, I admit it. I was skeptical when the Roundabout Theatre Company announced its plans to bring its acclaimed 1998 revival of Cabaret back to Studio 54. It seemed like a cynical attempt to …
Regular readers will recall that I occasionally attend "straight" plays. (I prefer to call them "non-musicals.) My attendance at these belting-deprived affairs is usually cont…
We can complain all we want about star casting, but the fact remains that it works. Not always, of course, as the producers of the recently canceled mega-tour of Jesus Christ Superstar disco…
Wow. Just wow. I went into the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fully expecting to enjoy myself. What I didn't expect was that I would be so blown away, both by the power of the…
If I had to sum up musical-theater history in just one word, that word would be "integration," which I define for my Boston Conservatory students as the extent to which a song or dance contr…
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If I were producing a musical version of the darkly comedic film "Heathers," there are two guys I would have turned to in a New York minute to write the show: Laurence O'Keefe (of Bat Boy an…
OK, grades are in. Let the catch-up begin. I saw quite a few shows this spring, both on Broadway and off, but so far have only had a chance to blog about a handful of them. Now that school i…
Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed that things have been slightly awry with this blog for the past few weeks. (Or, as my dear friend Esther might say, things have been slightly &…
I've seen a lot of boxing puns in the reviews of the new Broadway musical Rocky, based on the 1976 film of the same name. Rocky is a "contender," some contend. Others say Rocky &qu…