4,063 stories from theaterlife
By David Sheward
October 16, 2025: Ragtime has been never been more relevant and Lear deBessonet's epic production for Lincoln Center Theater where she has recently been installed as artist…
By Paulanne Simmons
October 16, 2025: When Ragtime made its world premiere in Toronto in 1996, it seemed that E.L. Doctorow's vision of an inclusive America might not be that far from reali…
By Samuel L. Leiter
October 16, 2025: Lear deBessonet makes a stunning debut as the Kewsong Lee Artistic Director at Lincoln Center with her magnificent revival of the musical Ragtime (1996…
By Paulanne Simmons
October 15, 2025: Four of the greatest female jazz vocalists are Lena Horne, Sarah Vaugn, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. If you like jazz, they are probably high …
By David Sheward
October 12, 2025: "I didn't think it made any sense to build an oral history of a three-way conflict that only spoke to two of the sides," says Emily, an American of Irish …
By Isa Goldberg
October 9, 2025: The 2025 republication of Crooked Cross, Sally Carson's1934 novel predicting the rise of Nazism, is a literary event of some significance, especially in our…
By Samuel L. Leiter
October 9, 2025: Early this year, Jonathan Bank, artistic director of the Mint Theatre"famous for reviving forgotten plays"learned of Crooked Cross, a 1934novel by Brit…
By David Sheward
October 7, 2025: Preston Max Allen's perceptive, keenly observant, and ultimately moving play Caroline begins ordinarily enough. A mother and daughter are ordering mac and …
By Paulanne Simmons
October 7, 2025: Murdoch: The Final Interview begins with William Butler Yeats's poem, "The Second Coming" and ends with references to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Consi…
"EVERYDAY THE CHOICE IS YOURS"
By Alix Cohen
October 6, 2025: The near? future. Population growth is bleeding earth's resources. With AI rampant, employment is an issue. People haven't be…
By Alix Cohen
October 6, 2025: Every play does not have to be life changing. A One Act with limited production budget can offer as much value as theater with publicity and stars.
Lost and…
By Samuel L. Leiter
October 2, 2025: A small rash of serious playwrights better known as star actors has broken out recently in New York, with the recent openings of John Leguizamo's The Ot…
By David Sheward
September 30, 2025: It's going to be very difficult to resist the obvious praise for Punch, James Graham's hard-hitting British import presented by Manhattan Theater Club …
By Isa Goldberg
September 30, 2025: Justice is not about revenge. Therein lies the ontological premise of Punch, an action-packed docudrama set in The Meadows, a social rented housing comp…
By Samuel L. Leiter
September 28, 2025: It's been a long time since I've sat in a Broadway theatre"or a theatre anywhere"and felt my eyes and nose swell with so much moisture I had to dig …
By David Sheward
September 28, 2025: The biggest box-office hit of the new, startlingly sparse Broadway fall season is, surprisingly, a revival of Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett's classi…
By Samuel L. Leiter
September 25, 2025: John Leguizamo, popular standup comic, monologist, movie star, filmmaker, and, among many other accomplishments, leading advocate for Latino America…
By David Sheward
September 24, 2025: While it feels a bit like an Afterschool TV Special, Saturday Church, the new Off-Broadway musical celebrating LGBTQ youth, is fun, infectious, and liv…
By Samuel L. Leiter
September 20, 2025: Saturday Church, a raucously upbeat new musical, with a score by pop star Sia, celebrates life in the LGBTQ community. Based by writers Damon Cardas…
By Alix Cohen
September 19, 2025: Mira (Tora Nogami Alexander), a biracial, Korean American, classical violinist, and her boyfriend Beckett (Morgan Morse) are in South Carolina on a trip t…
By David Sheward
September 19, 2025: On our way out of the Music Box Theater where the revival of Yasmina Reza's Art is currently playing, my female theatergoing companion remarked, "It wa…
By David Sheward
September 17, 2025. The worlds of camp and opera collide deliriously in the revival of Charles Ludlam's 1983 Galas in a spectacularly silly outdoor production at Little Isl…
A METRPOLITIAN OPERA PREVIEW
By Alix Cohen
September 17, 2025: Tonight's glimpse into The Metropolitan Opera's upcoming production of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay feature…
By David Sheward
September 15, 2025: The Wild Duck (1884) is the red-headed step-child among Henrik Ibsen's classic plays. It seems every time a high-powered actress best known for her film…
By Samuel L. Leiter
September 14, 2025: Revivals of Henrik Ibsen are common enough, though A Doll's House tends to dominate. Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People appear regular…
