All stories by Howard Miller on BroadwayStars

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Tammy Faye" 11/14/24 by Howard Miller

Sometimes it's difficult to understand the underlying intent of a theatrical production, which, perhaps, is the underlying problem with Tammy Faye, the intermittently rewarding musical that …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Maybe Happy Ending" 11/12/24 by Howard Miller

Thanks to some very cleverly arranged design elements, Maybe Happy Ending, the quirky/charming futuristic musical opening today at the Belasco Theatre, is the theatrical equivalent of what c…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 02:13PM[SHARE]
Monday, November 11, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical" 11/11/24 by Howard Miller

"When You're Smiling," a song written just ahead of the Great Depression, was not conceived by its composers with Louis Armstrong in mind. Yet while it is just one song among 30 that are per…

SOURCE: talkinbroadway.com at 09:02PM[SHARE]
Monday, November 4, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Devil's Disciple" - 11/3/24 by Howard Miller

George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple is a melodrama. Or, wait, it's a comedy. No, it's an antiwar satire with political overtones. Anyway, you get my drift. It is difficult to pin down…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:04AM[SHARE]
Friday, November 1, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Ragtime" - 11/1/24 by Howard Miller

To misquote Norma Desmond, "Broadway is big. It's the musicals that got small." Though not in 1997-1998. That was a banner time for big musicals with big companies. The Lion King, Titanic, a…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:49PM[SHARE]
Monday, October 28, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Bad Krey�l " - 10/28/24 by Howard Miller

There is an expression among Caribbean islanders that goes something like this: "Come see me is not the same as come live with me." That is a pretty good description of the situation that se…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:30PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 24, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Romeo + Juliet" 10/24/24 by Howard Miller

Director Sam Gold and William Shakespeare. Always expect the unexpected when these two pair up. For instance, when Gold, in his most avant-garde mode, tackled Hamlet in 2017 and, five years …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:26PM[SHARE]

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Left on Tenth" 10/23/24 by Howard Miller

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it does not necessarily make for a compelling theatrical experience. And when the truth that is being depicted is based on autobiography, the biggest …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:32AM[SHARE]
Monday, October 21, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Sunset Boulevard" 10/20/24 by Howard Miller

Ach du lieber!!! Holy Moly!!! Or even WTF!!! Feel free to quote me once you exit (or stagger out of) the St. James Theatre, where director/mad scientist Jamie Lloyd has unleashed his latest …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:40AM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 17, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Hold On to Me Darling" - 10/16/24 by Howard Miller

A psychoanalyst would surely have a field day with Clarence McCrane, known to all the world as megastar country and western singer and movie actor Strings McCrane, the irresistibly appealing…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:20AM[SHARE]
Saturday, October 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Sump'n Like Wings" - 10/12/24 by Howard Miller

Sump'n Like Wings, now on stage at Theatre Row, is the latest entry from the always intriguing Mint Theater Company, whose aim it is to uncover, dust off, and produce lost or forgotten plays…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:17AM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 10, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Our Town" 10/10/24 by Howard Miller

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is one American play that feels as though it belongs to everyone. It is regularly read and performed in high schools and mounted by amateur theatre groups across t…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:05PM[SHARE]

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Deep History" - 10/10/24 by Howard Miller

"It's the end of the world as we know it." You may recall these lyrics to a jaunty song by the rock band R.E.M. from back in 1987. And while Deep History, opening tonight at the Public Theat…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:36PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 3, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Distant Thunder" - 10/3/24 by Howard Miller

"We are falling off the shoulders of our ancestors." These demoralizing words declaimed by an elder of the Blackfeet tribe comes late in the new musical Distant Thunder, opening tonight for …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:06PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Yellow Face" 10/91/24 by Howard Miller

One of the many pleasures to be experienced in David Henry Hwang's highly pleasurable Yellow Face, opening tonight at the Todd Haimes Theatre, lies in the splendid way he has of twisting fac…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:41PM[SHARE]
Monday, September 30, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "McNeal" 9/30/24 by Howard Miller

To be sure, there are many individual moments in which Robert Downey Jr. (making his Broadway debut) and the rest of the game and talented cast manage to grab our attention for entire disjoi…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:06PM[SHARE]

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "The Hills of California" 9/29/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Jez Butterworth has set a high bar for himself as a writer, with vastly varied works that include the bombastic Jerusalem, the fanciful The River, and the great crowd-pleaser The …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:38AM[SHARE]
Monday, September 23, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Blood of the Lamb" - 9/23/24 by Howard Miller

The political and the personal merge most keenly in Arlene Hutton's one-act Blood of the Lamb, opening today at 59E59 Theaters. It is a humdinger of a play, effectively and scathingly satiri…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:23PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Once Upon a Mattress" 8/12/24 by Howard Miller

I'm in love with a girl named Fred! And I venture to say you will be, too, at least as she is being portrayed in all her unabashed glory by Sutton Foster in the thoroughly irresistible Broad…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:00PM[SHARE]
Sunday, August 4, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Meeting: The Interpreter" - 8/4/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Catherine Gropper is here to offer us a break from any anxiety we might be feeling about the impending 2024 presidential election by taking us back in time to recall the anxiety w…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:05PM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 11, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Oh, Mary!" 7/11/24 by Howard Miller

Say you had managed to pull off a consummate fusion of talent and good fortune to become the darling of the 2023-24 Off-Broadway season with a queer-centric, campy, and raucous comedy that w…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:41PM[SHARE]
Friday, June 28, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "N/A" - 6/27/24 by Howard Miller

Tonight, even as the theatrical face-off between presidential candidates Joseph Biden and Donald Trump is unfolding on television, another political theatrical event is opening at an actual …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:02AM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 20, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Appraisal" - 6/20/24 by Howard Miller

They say that wonderful things sometimes come in small packages. Case in point: Appraisal, a thrilling and splendidly performed cat-and-mouse play opening tonight as part of the Brits Off Br…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:06PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Blizzard" - 6/19/24 by Howard Miller

Dottie and Dottie could not be less alike. He (let's call him Dottie 1) is a tight-assed neuroscientist whose life is pretty much wrapped up in his research. Not what you'd call a social but…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:16PM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 13, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Titanic" - 6/13/24 by Howard Miller

Titanic, the 1997 musical by Peter Stone (story and book) and Maury Yeston (music and lyrics), is about as massive a theatrical endeavor as you are likely to encounter. The cast alone number…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:07PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Welkin" - 6/12/24 by Howard Miller

British playwright Lucy Kirkwood has a propensity for writing big, bold works that draw from real-world events to tackle disturbing subjects in ways that make us consider the larger implicat…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:46PM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 6, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Home" 6/5/24 by Howard Miller

You might think of Home, a Tony nominee for Best Play in 1980 when it was originally performed on Broadway, as a folk tale with roots in the Black farming community. But it's also a romance …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:34AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Actors" - 5/8/24 by Howard Miller

Never judge a book by its cover, or, apparently, a playwright by his prior works. This certainly applies to playwright Ronnie Larsen, whose oeuvre includes such titles as An Evening with Joh…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:05PM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 2, 2024

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Message in a Bottle" - 4/2/24 by Howard Miller

When it comes to the art form known as dance theater, the spotlight is definitely shining on Illinoise, which just made a bold jeté from a near sold-out run at the Park Avenue Armory to bec…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:45PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 25, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Mother Play" 4/25/24 by Howard Miller

Playwright Paula Vogel's brother Carl, who died of AIDS in 1988 and whose story she related in her partly autobiographical 1992 play The Baltimore Waltz, is back on stage, one of the trio of…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:40PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Mary Jane" 4/24/24 by Howard Miller

How do we categorize Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov's play about family life on an estate and working farm in late nineteenth century rural Russia? Is it a comedy, a melodrama, an excursion into…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:04PM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off