167 stories by "Hilton Als"
In a new staging, the director uses Shakespeare's words as a launching pad from which to explore his own theatrical concerns, Hilton Als writes.
Hilton Als reviews Suzan-Lori Parks's new work, "White Noise," which enters a terrible emotional landscape but doesn't explore it.
Hilton Als reviews the new musicals "Kiss Me, Kate" and "Be More Chill," which explore their protagonists' longing and belonging.
Young Jean Lee's first Broadway play not only lacks the humor, recklessness, and passion of her earlier works; it refutes those things, writes Hilton Als.
Hilton Als looks at class, colonialism, and self-creation in Bartlett Sher's production of "My Fair Lady," starring Lauren Ambrose and Harry Hadden-Paton.
The new staging of the musical is an intimate extravaganza, packed with ideas about the body, gender roles, and fear of closeness.
Hilton Als on "Jerry Springer: The Opera" and "Black Light."
Hilton Als writes that in the playwright's latest work, his slick cynicism threatens to overtake his real gifts.Â
The director and playwright is back, with "Paradiso," a work that explores his interest in myth and the mundane.
Jocelyn Bioh's play comments on our fascinating era, in which so much debate centers on the female body.
As the rock icon sang, it became clear that the show allowed him to understand not only himself but what goes into the making of a self.Â
Bette Midler is such an incredible self-creation"an artist like no other"that finding roles that can harness her enormous energy while allowing room for her wit and her extraordinary skill a…
Arthur Miller's "The Price" (in revival at the American Airlines, under the direction of Terry Kinney) premièred on Broadway in 1968, four years after Miller's other mid-career plays "After…
When "Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" opened on Broadway, in 1968, it featured one of the best young casts ever to appear in an American musical. Diane Keaton, Melba Moore, and …
When Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, and Moss Hart put together the musical "Lady in the Dark," in 1940, Freud was big. The great man's thinking had yet to come under wide attack, and psychoanalys…
Throughout his career, James Baldwin had a hankering to work in show business. Like Henry James, one of his early heroes, Baldwin loved the footlights; early on, with his friend and editor S…
Writing that gets under your skin, in your bones, will play in your head and memory like nothing else. While painting, photography, and movies can come at you with a very particular force"an…
While it's always a treat to see amazing ensembles working together as they tear a play apart, the better to expose its meaning, it's thrilling in a different way to watch performers who sta…
Here we go again, back to that terrible summer house in New England, which is yet another depressed character in Eugene O'Neill's unsurpassable "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (now in a Roun…
In 1962, Lillian and Helen Ross published "The Player," a wonderful collection of interviews with actors, ranging from Maureen Stapleton to Sidney Poitier, many of which originated in this m…
I have so many complicated responses to David Harrower's 2005 play, "Blackbird" (at the Belasco), that trying to separate what I feel about the subject tangentially and what Harrower achieve…
All this talk about diversity"in newspapers, on college campuses, at the Oscars"can be hard on a liberal white guy. How's a sensitive Caucasian man"no Trumpite"supposed to deal with so much …
I'm always somewhat surprised to discover how many of the writers and thinkers I've admired over the years grew up reading Eugene O'Neill with a passion equal to my own. For years, I thought…
Directors who have an interest in style are not prevalent in the American theatre. Mostly, directors are there to serve the play and keep the bodies moving in space as clearly, effectively, …
It was always exciting to see, around town, those lovely posters by Paul Davis announcing a new production at the Public Theatre""our" theatre, over on Lafayette Street, a place that promote…
