God, that's good! How I fell for my favorite musical --- In a youth almost entirely unblemished by voluntary physical exertion, I remember one particular sprint quite vividly. The objective …
The irony is almost too neat: a college student plans a program of songs from musicals that have faced censorship " and with less than two days' notice, her university informs her she has to…
Conventional wisdom is difficult to alter, but here goes: contrary to what has been widely written, Jesus Christ Superstar was not the first concept recording of a musical to spawn a w…
First Responder, 1 train, September 2021 (photo © Howard Sherman) Perhaps because I am hyperverbal " in person, in my writing, in my consumption of information, in my choice of entertainm…
Take careful note of the quotation marks, because the headline above doesn't nod to theatre tickets or the wholesale embrace of casual fornication. The reference, sorry to disappoint you, re…
Two different plays stand the test of time. The post Two Plays Compared & Why Each Works appeared first on Dramatics Magazine Online.
Given the disastrous reduction in live theatre that has marked the pandemic since March of 2020, one might assume that incidences of high school shows canceled over content concerns would ha…
Kaki Marshall and Howard Sherman, on their last in-person visit, December 2019 Today, my book is published. This is the realization of a dream that I had given up on long ago. But my most ov…
The Pulitzer-winning drama, set in the small town of Grover's Corners, has a beating heart that will resonate through the years It is frequently called the quintessential American play, but …
Taking extreme care during the pandemic, particularly when New York was the first and hardest hit in the earliest days, my journeys beyond my apartment and the immediate surroundings put sig…
"So friends, this is the way we were in our growing up and in our marrying and in our doctoring and in our living and in our dying." Pull out a copy of Thornton Wilder's Our Town and, …
If there's one positive to find among the destruction of the coronavirus outbreak, it is the way in which previously private or
The ongoing litany of delays, postponements and cancellations in the US' not-for-profit theatres is not unique, as venues and countless performing companies
Broadway shows rarely close in previews nowadays. Aficionados speak of Bobbi Boland, starring Farrah Fawcett, which ran for seven performances in 2003
The old showbusiness adage, 'The show must go on', has gone right out the window. Indeed, the show 'going on' would be seen
There's still a long way to go, but the former US presidential candidate sees plenty to cheer in the theatre world, writes
Over the past year or two, an exciting number of new works from black writers have appeared on New York's stages. These
School matinees get a bad rap. After all, if distracted audiences are frustrating, imagine a theatre filled with teens gossiping, quarrelling, texting,
The Vertical 2.25 Hours. 1/12th of a Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Only A Little Night Music. These are not,
In the wake of the botched Iowa caucuses, and in advance of the Super Tuesday primaries on March 3, there's something emotionally
In her seven-decade career, the veteran actor has worked with everyone from James Dean to Steppenwolf Theatre Company. She tells Howard Sherman
While the Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater in New York is billed as "a premier launching pad for new
The New York Musical Festival, which launched in 2004, announced last week that it was bankrupt and has closed its doors. As
The end of 2019 brought a double whammy of cultural 'best of' lists: not just best-of-the-year rundowns, but also assessments of the
The Broadway musical Beetlejuice's press release issued last week with the headline 'a strange and unusual announcement' " echoing a line of