615 stories by "Jan Simpson"
Shows get revived for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they were under appreciated in the past. Or they may have something particularly relevant to say about current events. A director may have…
The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway. BEAUTY FREAK producti…
One of the things we theater obsessives love to do is argue about which is the greatest American play. I'm a Tennessee Williams stan and so I always try to get A Streetcar Named Desire into …
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "Seascape" by Edward Albee Seas…
Just about everyone"and here I mean most of the critics"seems to have something bad to say about Dog Day Afternoon, the new Stephen Adly Guirgis adaptation of the 1975 movie about a bank …
Most of the reviews for Cold War Choir Practice devote most of their word count to laying out its multi-pronged plot which includes Soviet spies, former Black Panthers, Regan-era conserva…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "Proof" by David Auburn Proof W…
Ever since Sophocles put the fall of the House of Oedipus onstage, the theatrical canon has been chock-a-block with unhappy families. And that makes sense because they make for good drama. B…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "The Gin Game"1978 Pulitzer winn…
Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and o…
Maybe it's the current dystopic state of the world but I had a hard time with Bug, the revival of Tracy Letts' 1996 play that opened this month at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Fried…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Photo credit: Library of Congress The Pulitzer Prize for Drama…
As usual, I'm late with a list of the shows I most enjoyed in 2025 but I'm going to share it anyway and since I am late, I'm also going to cut right to the chase. There were musicals I liked…
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 ...from me and some of our mutual friends:
Getting others to see the world in a certain way and then convincing them to do almost anything to preserve that point of view requires a toolbox of skills that include charisma and a ferven…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Hamilton"2016 Pulitzer winner "…
Photo by Edward T. Morris The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broad…
Happy Thanksgiving!Â
It's been a crazy month. An avalanche of shows have been opening both on and off Broadway. I've seen 20 of them over the past four weeks"some good, some just OK, a fe…
The only thing small about Kyoto, the latest import from Britain that opened this week at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse theater, is its one-word title. Everything else is outsized: the …
One-person shows are popping up everywhere. And it makes sense that they should. They're comparatively cheap to put on since by definitiion there's only one performer to pay and the cost…
All The Drama is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of deep dives into the plays that have won The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer Prize for Drama: "Water by the Spoonful"2012 Puli…
Every once in a while I see a show that is filled with smart ideas, and that is interestingly directed and well-performed and yet still leaves me cold. Over the past week or so I saw two …
Theater lovers have been celebrating the 10th anniversary of Hamilton this year, and well we should. Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical about the Founding Fathers made seeing musicals cool again, …
Once again I seem to be late to the party. Other bloggers, critics and influencers have been putting out lists of the things they most want to see in this new theater season since mid-August…
