In his review of the current Broadway revival of Jekyll & Hyde, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood referred to Frank Wildhorn musicals as "the crab grass of Broadway." Some people thought that was unprofessional or unnecessarily har...
There are some musicals that achieve cult status, despite - or perhaps because of - relatively short runs in their initial incarnations. Often these musicals live on through their cast recordings, as well as the occasional production by ...
Regular readers will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the Tony Awards, with all awards, in fact. On the one hand, I'm as interested and fascinated as the next showtune queen when the Tony nominations come out, which hap...
So, Motown: The Musical. OK, let's do this.
Yes, it's bad. But we knew that was going to be true. But the genuinely surprising thing about Motown is that it's not entirely disastrous. Sure, the show is the ultim...
Yeah, I don't get it.
I saw the new musical Here Lies Love recently at The Public Theater, and found it reasonably diverting, if shallow and repetitive. But the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, even ecstatic, and the show has ...
I don't often get the chance to see Broadway shows twice. By the end of the season, I'm lucky if I have time to see things once. But I recently had the opportunity to see the current Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein...
I don't know how my fellow critics feel about this, but I find it much harder to write a rave than to write a pan. I guess that says something about me as a person, but I think it's also sort of endemic to the critical process, a...
Let dreamers dream what worlds they please;
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.We're neither pure nor wise nor good;
We'll do the best we know;
We'll build o...
I've been a bit disheartened of late by crowds going full-tilt bug-nutty during, and at the end of, shows that, at least from my perspective, are seriously deficient in quality. It happened when I saw Pippin at the ART. (And will by ...
One of the hottest tickets in New York right now is the Classic Stage Company revival of Passion, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine. (The show has been extended through April 19th, although most of the ...
