500 stories by "Rob Weinert-Kendt"
Nilaja Sun in "No Child..."
Two times I week, I update the American Theatre Facebook page with a production photo from a different TCG member theater. Today I happened to upload this photo…
The administration's 2026 budget comes at a time when the future of NEA staff and grant programs remains in doubt.
Seventeen years after he first appeared in "Yellow Face," the veteran actor Francis Jue has returned with a nuanced performance as a blustery patriarch.
Elvis Costello and Sarah Ruhl's musical adaptation of the 1957 film, a satire about a hustler turned power-hungry TV personality, hits the London stage.
Catherine Zeta Jones in "A Little Night Music." (Photo by Joan Marcus)
I'm not sure any Stephen Sondheim show is really underrated anymore"there are passionate partisans for every one, fro…
The seats of the Elysian Theatre on Riverside Dr., which in my time in L.A. was the home of the Colony Studio Theatre (later Knightsbridge). It was also the theater closest to my home in Ech…
photo by Gary Leonard
When I was starting up Back Stage West back in late 1993/early 1994, I remember someone suggesting that we do something like Interview magazine"i.e., have one celeb…
Orville Mendoza as Sweeney at the 2014 Sondheimas celebration. (Photo by David Gordon)
When Stephen Sondheim died last year, I reflected that he is probably the single artist I've written t…
Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford and a starry creative team are hoping there's an appetite for Broadway's first full-scale revival of Sondheim's Grand Guignol masterpiece in 43 years.
One of the privileges of my theatergoing in L.A. back in the day was seeing talented actors like David Dukes do some of the best work of their careers in venues both big and small. I also go…
It wasn't a one-on-one, alas, but I well remember the day I was ushered into a South Coast Rep rehearsal room for a sort of four-way interview: myself, another reporter, the press rep (Crist…
Note: Sam Jackson is wearing a hat for the Birmingham Black Barons, a Negro League team that played 1920-1960.Â
Tonight I'm headed to the TCG "Our Stories" Gala honoring Samuel L. Jackso…
Larry Gilliard Jr. and Harold Perrineau in "Topdog/Underdog" at Center Theatre Group in 2004.
It's been a very Suzan-Lori Parks week for me; a few days ago I published my lively Q&A wi…
On her new album, the singer fuses Stephen Sondheim's emo register with a familiar coffeehouse folk sound.
Lileana Blain-Cruz, a "master of curating chaos," is making her Broadway directing debut with a revival of Thornton Wilder's comedy of human survival, "The Skin of Our Teeth."
photo by Gary Leonard
As I mentioned last week, going through old copies of Back Stage West, the actor's trade I ran from 1993 to 2003, I stumbled across this rollicking chat between two ve…
In shows like "Caroline, or Change" and "Kimberly Akimbo," the composer excels at translating her astute insights about characters into music.
photo by Gary Leonard
I happened to have recently been going through old copies of Back Stage West, the actor's trade I ran from 1993 to 2003. This far-ranging and fascinating piece was …
It's hardly an exaggeration to say that Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 was a formative work for me"indeed, one of a series of groundbreaking works that Gordon Davidson's Mark Taper Forum staged…
At American Theatre I've often (though not often enough) had the pleasure of assigning and publishing pieces by my brilliant friend and colleague Isaac Butler. But there was a time when h…
The passing of humorist Mort Sahl has occasioned no better piece than Jason Zinoman's in the Times. You should go read that now. For a chaser, you might check out this Interview-style dia…
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Kenna Ramsey, Tracy Nicole Chapman and Marva Hicks personify a radio in Caroline, or Change. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
I was fortunate last night to catch the new Broadway revival of Car…
Major Matt Mason.
In July of 2012, my friend and fellow blogger Isaac Butler asked me write a piece about Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth for an "Adolescence Issue" of his blog Parabas…
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In 2014, L.A.'s Center Theatre Group hosted a run of the Barry Manilow/Bruce Sussman musical Harmony, a historical musical about the Comedian Harmonists, a real-life musical group…
Karen Olivo and cast of the 2009 revival. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
Is West Side Story really all that? I've always been much more smitten with the score than with any other aspect of the show…
