All stories by Charles McNulty on BroadwayStars

Monday, May 15, 2017

And you thought your contractor was bad. Meet 'The Monster Builder' at South Coast Rep by Charles McNulty

Comedy of the crowd-pleasing variety is making a comeback on our stages this season. The Geffen Playhouse notched a hit with Matthew Lopez's "The Legend of Georgia McBride," a giggly romp ab…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:45PM[SHARE]
Monday, May 8, 2017

Rajiv Joseph's 'Archduke' at the Taper is an ambitious mix of history, comedy and tragedy by Charles McNulty

"Archduke," the title of Rajiv Joseph's new play, sounds like the answer to a high school social studies quiz on 20th century European history. As I hope all of you remember, the assassinati…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:10PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 2, 2017

A critic's take on the Tony nominations: Kudos for rewarding inventive shows that take risks by Charles McNulty

What a difference a year makes. When the 2016 Tony nominations were announced, the suspense was over how many "Hamilton" would get. The show was a lock in most of the major categories, shift…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:25PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 18, 2017

With a heroic performance by its injured star, 'Groundhog Day' limps through opening night by Charles McNulty

Andy Karl, the star of the new Broadway musical "Groundhog Day," reported for duty on Monday night at the August Wilson Theatre for the production's official New York opening. It was uncerta…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:35PM[SHARE]
Sunday, April 16, 2017

Ibsen's radical 1879 play about women's equality gets a 2017 sequel: Lucas Hnath's 'A Doll's House, Part 2' by Charles McNulty

A door dominates the backdrop of Lucas Hnath's "A Doll's House, Part 2," which picks up the story 15 years after Henrik Ibsen's landmark drama ends. This is the door that Nora slammed (famou…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:25PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 13, 2017

Column: Tony Awards need a role for Hillary Clinton by Charles McNulty

Since the presidential election, private citizen Hillary Clinton has permitted herself two main types of recreation: hiking in the woods outside her Westchester County home and attending Bro…

SOURCE: St. Louis Today at 09:18PM[SHARE]
Monday, April 10, 2017

Why Hillary Clinton's Next Big Stage Should Be the Tony Awards by Charles McNulty

Draft Hillary Clinton to make a pro-NEA statement at the Tony Awards

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:21PM[SHARE]

Why Hillary Clinton's next big stage should be at the Tony Awards by Charles McNulty

Since the presidential election, private citizen Hillary Clinton has permitted herself two main types of recreation: hiking in the woods outside her Westchester County home and attending Bro…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:15PM[SHARE]
Friday, April 7, 2017

Stripped-down staging brings clever moments in this long, long journey 'Into the Woods' by Charles McNulty

The trees are ropes resembling piano strings. The birds are folded sheets of stationery. The princes ride on stick horses. And the wolf stalking Little Red Ridinghood is mounted like a hunti…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 11:55AM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 6, 2017

She's stepping down from A.C.T., but Carey Perloff continues the fight for women's stories by Charles McNulty

The moment I turned on my phone after landing in San Francisco for the opening of "Hamilton," I was greeted with momentous local news: Carey Perloff, the artistic director of the American Co…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AM[SHARE]
Saturday, April 1, 2017

A backstage, meditative adventure with 'The Encounter's' Simon McBurney by Charles McNulty

A conversation with British actor, writer and director Simon McBurney is a meditative adventure not unlike one of his genre-blurring theatrical collages created with his London-based interna…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 11:00AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 31, 2017

Amy Brenneman as a damsel in distress? 'Rules of Seconds' has some surprises up its sleeve by Charles McNulty

The characters in "Rules of Seconds," a new play by John Pollono at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, are a lively anachronistic mix. Their boots and pistols suggest the drama's 1855 Boston se…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:05PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 30, 2017

Lisa Loomer's 'Roe': An abortion drama that settles nothing by Charles McNulty

It has been 44 years since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision decriminalized abortion, but the debate has hardly been settled. The rhetoric has only grown more inflammatory, a…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 24, 2017

When feminist debate turns into an ideological free-for-all: It's the Wooster Group's 'Town Hall Affair' by Charles McNulty

The Wooster Group, venerable purveyor of postmodern performance collages, has come upon a gender-politics gold mine in the company's latest adventure in cockeyed cultural excavation. "The To…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 11:15AM[SHARE]
Saturday, March 11, 2017

Deaf West sets out to tame 'Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo' by Charles McNulty

Deaf West Theatre is back at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts after the company's heralded revival of "Spring Awakening," which catapulted itself to Broadway after its Bev…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 11:15PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 27, 2017

After all the crazy Oscar drama live onstage, one idea endures: the power of empathy by Charles McNulty

And the winner actually is … The final-act confusion over the best picture award that had movie moguls staggering out of the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood after Sunday's Academy Awards was…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:40PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 24, 2017

This 'Fun Home' weaves tragedy and comedy into a wholly original American musical by Charles McNulty

A musical with all the dramatic richness of a memorable play opened at the Ahmanson Theatre on Wednesday " a rare sighting that could induce a theater critic to genuflect if not erupt in a c…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:35AM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 23, 2017

Casey versus Denzel: Oscar's lead actor race is a dramatic study in contrasts by Charles McNulty

On the surface, Lee Chandler, the protagonist of "Manchester by the Sea," and Troy Maxson, the central character of "Fences," wouldn't seem to have much in common. Sprung from different play…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 16, 2017

'Come From Away,' 'Amélie' and the long, bumpy road from West Coast to Broadway by Charles McNulty

"New musicals are never finished, only abandoned," director Christopher Ashley quipped by phone a few days before flying to New York for the start of rehearsals for "Come From Away," the mus…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:00PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 13, 2017

'Zoot Suit' at the Taper: An L.A. revival, perfectly timed by Charles McNulty

"Zoot Suit," the landmark 1978 play by Luis Valdez that put the struggles of Mexican Americans front and center, is back where it originated at the Mark Taper Forum in an exhilarating reviva…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:00AM[SHARE]
Sunday, February 12, 2017

'946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips': All's bouncy on the home front by Charles McNulty

Kneehigh, the seriously playful British theater company that turned the classic film "Brief Encounter" into a charmingly inventive multimedia stage play, is back at the Wallis Annenberg Cent…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:05PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 10, 2017

Alfred Molina, Jane Kaczmarek and the slow burn of a 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' by Charles McNulty

America's widespread opioid crisis has sadly made a crucial part of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" more relatable.  Mary, the strung-out mother in the play's alcoholic …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:15PM[SHARE]
Sunday, February 5, 2017

'Every Brilliant Thing' approaches suicide with touching comic sincerity by Charles McNulty

Something miraculous happens in "Every Brilliant Thing." Something you might want to include on your own list of life-enhancing pleasures should you follow the lead of the protagonist, who i…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:35PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 31, 2017

'Beckett 5' at the Odyssey: five plays, two hours, one sinister ending by Charles McNulty

Just as the short stories in collections by Anton Chekhov, Flannery O'Connor, Grace Paley and Alice Munro are meant to be savored one small masterpiece at a time and not gobbled up indiscrim…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:40PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 30, 2017

At South Coast Rep, a stunning, gravity-defying stab at 'Moby Dick' by Charles McNulty

There's no avoiding politics these days. Not even a thrilling stage adaptation of the great American novel set on the high seas can offer complete escape. At Saturday's matinee of "Moby Dick…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:10PM[SHARE]
Thursday, January 19, 2017

In 'Adler & Gibb,' the business of art - painted with familiar brushstrokes by Charles McNulty

Last week an artistic leader greeted an opening-night audience with a spiel about why supporting theater is more important now than ever. She was referring to the new political reality, and …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:00PM[SHARE]
Friday, January 13, 2017

The love of her life, and the lies that came with him: Singing '13 Things About Ed Carpolotti' by Charles McNulty

Penny Fuller plays a well-coiffed widow in "13 Things About Ed Carpolotti," a charming cabaret-scale one-act musical in which her character finds out that the husband she's mourning had been…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:50PM[SHARE]
Monday, December 19, 2016

Notes on a truly Shakespearean year: An enlightened boldness brings out the best in the Bard by Charles McNulty

For better or worse, 2016 has been a truly Shakespearean year. It has also been the year of Donald Trump, a figure who could no doubt hold his own in one of Shakespeare's ruthless history pl…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:00PM[SHARE]
Saturday, December 17, 2016

The off-kilter charms of 'Amelie,' made musical at the Ahmanson by Charles McNulty

"Amélie, A New Musical," which began at Berkeley Repertory Theatre last year, has brought its whimsical magic to the Ahmanson Theatre, where a retooled production starring Phillipa Soo (lat…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 03:00PM[SHARE]
Sunday, December 11, 2016

Hotel Room Theater: Richard Maxwell's 'Showcase' at the Millennium Biltmore by Charles McNulty

I'm not sure how you spent your Saturday night but I spent part of mine in a hotel room with a bunch of strangers looking at a naked man sprawled out on his bed like T.S. Eliot's "patient et…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00PM[SHARE]
Saturday, December 10, 2016

London theater forecast after Brexit and Trump: Overcast skies with a chance of apocalypse by Charles McNulty

"Is this the promised end?" Kent mournfully asks as King Lear carries Cordelia's corpse on stage at the close of Shakespeare's most harrowing tragedy. "Or image of that horror?" Edgar, more …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AM[SHARE]

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