All stories by Gordon Cox on BroadwayStars

Monday, May 5, 2014

Off Broadway Review: 'The City of Conversation' by Gordon Cox

Two gripping political dramas in the same season? How positively civilized. Bryan Cranston’s rip-roaring portrayal of LBJ in “All the Way” epitomizes Washington power polit…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM[SHARE]

New York Drama Critics Circle Says Thumbs Up to Off Broadway's 'Fun Home' and 'Night Alive' by Gordon Cox

Conor McPherson play “The Night Alive” and Jeanine Tesori-Lisa Kron musical “Fun Home” took the 2013-14 awards for best play and musical, respectively, from the New Y…

SOURCE: Variety at 06:51PM[SHARE]

Broadway Box Office: Tony Nominations Move the Needle at 'Gentleman's Guide,' 'Hedwig' by Gordon Cox

Notching a beltful of Tony nominations doesn’t bring the same enduring sales spike as an award itself, but it helps: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” and R…

SOURCE: Variety at 04:48PM[SHARE]

CAA Signs Songwriting Duo Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman by Gordon Cox

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the “Hairspray” composers whose musical “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is currently playing on the West End, have signed with CAA…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:15PM[SHARE]
Sunday, May 4, 2014

Off Broadway's Lortel Awards Like 'Here Lies Love,' 'Fun Home' and 'The Open House' (COMPLETE LIST) by Gordon Cox

"Here Lies Love," the immersive staging of the David Byrne-Fatboy Slim tuner about Imelda Marcos, got up and walked away with five Lucille Lortel Awards, the New York legit industry's Off Br…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:24PM[SHARE]

Off Broadway Review: 'Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging!' by Gordon Cox

Anybody who got through this Broadway theater season alive deserves to see “Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging!” — the latest edition of the irreverent satirical revue t…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 1, 2014

Four Tony Nominations Can't Keep 'The Bridges of Madison County' From Closing by Gordon Cox

Broadway musical “The Bridges of Madison County” will shutter later this month, despite scoring four Tony noms earlier this week including one for Jason Robert Brown’s s…

SOURCE: Variety at 07:46PM[SHARE]

Two Musical Theater Creatives Score $100K Each from Kleban Foundation by Gordon Cox

Musical theater scribes Nathan Tysen (pictured above, right) and Arthur Perlman (above, left) have nabbed the 2014 Kleban Prize, the hefty annual award that comes with a $100,000 check fo…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:00PM[SHARE]

Q&A: Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman Talk 'Annapurna' by Gordon Cox

Married actors Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman are back onstage together for the New Group's Off Broadway run of "Annapurna," the two-character show in which they first appeared last year i…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 30, 2014

'After Midnight' Rides Tony Momentum with Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole by Gordon Cox

Broadway musical “After Midnight,” fresh off the publicity boost of its seven Tony nominations, aims to turn even more theatergoers’ heads with a trio of well-known musi…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:10AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Tony Nominations Fallout: 'Velocity of Autumn' Speeds to a Close by Gordon Cox

The Tony nominations have claimed their first victim: New play “The Velocity of Autumn” posted a closing notice for Sunday, after the struggling show came up short on love fro…

SOURCE: Variety at 04:00PM[SHARE]

Tony Nominations: No Special Treatment for Hollywood by Gordon Cox

Another year, another batch of Hollywood names who didn’t claim a spot in the Tony nominations. Daniel Radcliffe and Denzel Washington, giving highly praised performances in the rev…

SOURCE: Variety at 02:59PM[SHARE]

Tony Nominations: How the New Play Race Surprised With Five by Gordon Cox

It was going to be the new musical category that would be widened to five this year. Or maybe the play revival race. But five for new play? That wouldn't happen. That was the thinking, an…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:38PM[SHARE]

2014 Tony Nominations: 'Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder' Makes a Killing (FULL LIST) by Gordon Cox

In a Broadway season without obvious awards frontrunners, musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” led the pack of Tony Awards nominees with ten nods, includi…

SOURCE: Variety at 09:01AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 28, 2014

Broadway Box Office: 'Aladdin,' 'If/Then,' 'Beautiful' Hold Strong Ahead of Tony Hoopla by Gordon Cox

As all of Broadway holds its breath for the impending Tony nominations, new titles including "Aladdin," "Beautiful" and "If/Then" have already attained strong sales momentum even before awar…

SOURCE: Variety at 05:38PM[SHARE]

New York's Signature Theater Scores the 2014 Regional Theater Tony Award by Gordon Cox

Speaking of the Tony Awards: Off Broadway’s Signature Theater will receive the Tonys’ 2014 regional theater award, in the wake of a new rule initiated last year that made Gotham …

SOURCE: Variety at 12:41PM[SHARE]

Tony Awards Will Add New Educator Honor Starting in 2015 by Gordon Cox

The Tony Awards have teamed with Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University to inaugurate a new national honor for theater educators. The kudo, which will be awarded every year to one …

SOURCE: Variety at 12:04PM[SHARE]
Friday, April 25, 2014

Tony Nominations Eligibility: Don't Count Out 'Cabaret' by Gordon Cox

How about another wild card thrown into an anything-goes Tony race? The Tony Awards Administration committee, which meets periodically to decide eligibility questions regarding the season…

SOURCE: Variety at 04:22PM[SHARE]

Tony Award Nominations Are 'Like the Wild West' This Year by Gordon Cox

Four or five? That's the question everybody's asking about the upcoming Tony Award nominations now that the organizers of the theater world's highest-profile awards ceremony have decided tha…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PM[SHARE]

'Gentleman's Guide' Racks Up 12 Nominations for Drama Desk Awards by Gordon Cox

"A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" cleaned up in the nominations for the annual Drama Desk Awards, making off with an even dozen nods. Among the season's Broadway musicals, "Gentleman'…

SOURCE: Variety at 11:30AM[SHARE]

For Michelle Williams, Going to Work Every Day is a 'Cabaret' on Broadway by Gordon Cox

Alan Cumming, fresh off the April 24 opening night performance of the Broadway revival of “Cabaret,” emerged from backstage wearing plaid, brandishing a cigarette and eyeing the …

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 24, 2014

Broadway Review: 'Cabaret' Starring Michelle Williams and Alan Cumming by Gordon Cox

Alan Cumming owns the debauched role of the Emcee in this redux of the dazzling 1998 revival, but Michelle Williams falters in her early scenes as Sally Bowles.

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM[SHARE]

James Earl Jones Takes Back Broadway in 'You Can't Take It With You' by Gordon Cox

James Earl Jones will return to Broadway this fall in a revival of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s “You Can’t Take It With You.” Scott Ellis helms the comedy about …

SOURCE: Variety at 05:16PM[SHARE]

Sundance Theater Lab to Develop New Plays by Pulitzer Winners Annie Baker, Doug Wright by Gordon Cox

New plays by Pulitzer winners Annie Baker and Doug Wright are among the nine in-development stage projects tapped for the Sundance Institute's 2014 Theater Lab. Baker, who just picked up the…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:19AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Broadway Review: Harvey Fierstein's 'Casa Valentina' by Gordon Cox

The inspiration for Harvey Fierstein’s “Casa Valentina” was a discreet sanctuary in the Catskills where manly men (with wives and children and other baggage) could get thei…

SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM[SHARE]

London Theater Review: 'Privacy' at the Donmar Warehouse by Gordon Cox

Crackerjack comic timing was the last thing anyone expected from an alarming play about 21st-century concerns over data, secrecy and power. But it's all over James Graham's dazzler "Privacy.…

SOURCE: Variety at 01:24PM[SHARE]

Neil Patrick Harris Wanted the Heels Higher for Broadway's 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' by Gordon Cox

You could forgive John Cameron Mitchell for feeling a sense of ownership of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the 1998 musical he and Stephen Trask wrote. He also created the title…

SOURCE: Variety at 03:22AM[SHARE]

'An Act of God,' Based on a David Javerbaum Book, Gears Up for Broadway by Gordon Cox

Producer Jeffrey Finn (“Seminar,” “Scandalous,” “Dead Accounts”) will shepherd new play “An Act of God” to Broadway, where the show — ba…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:01AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Broadway Review: 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' Starring Neil Patrick Harris by Gordon Cox

Harris channels Iggy Pop and Lou Reed by way of the Ramones, not to mention his inner Rockette, in this spectacular revival of the 1998 musical.

SOURCE: Variety at 09:00PM[SHARE]

'The Book Of Mormon' Scores Top Honors at D.C.'s Helen Hayes Awards by Gordon Cox

A touring production of Broadway hit “The Book of Mormon” and local revivals of "Hello Dolly!" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" were each multiple winners April 21 at the Helen Hayes Aw…

SOURCE: Variety at 12:10PM[SHARE]
Monday, April 21, 2014

Meryl Streep Gets Serenaded and Called a Nun at the O'Neill Theater Center Gala by Gordon Cox

“We all think it’d be wonderful to be praised as much as Meryl Streep is, but actually I think it must be a nightmare.” So said “Angels in America” writer Tony …

SOURCE: Variety at 11:56PM[SHARE]

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