All stories by Jonathan Mandell on BroadwayStars

Monday, March 14, 2022

Broadway Springs Forward (Two Years Later) #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

The Tony Awards' new dates! Daniel Radcliffe in a Stephen Sondheim musical! Will Swenson in a new Neil Diamond musical! Pamela Anderson in her Broadway debut! The many exciting Broadway anno…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:47AM[SHARE]
Sunday, March 13, 2022

Tiananmen Requiem Review: A Gay Couple Struggles for Love and Democracy in China by Jonathan Mandell

A protesting art student who is on a hunger strike faces a soldier who is pointing a gun at him.  The student offers the soldier some food.  They are in Beijing's Tiananmen Squar…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:18PM[SHARE]
Friday, March 11, 2022

American Connected Theater Awards for Pandemic Year 2 by Jonathan Mandell

Below are the winners of the American Connected Theater Awards* for theatrical storytelling created and presented online during the year between March 2021 and March 2022. Much has happened …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:29PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 10, 2022

Coal Country Review: A Mining Tragedy with Songs and Echoes by Jonathan Mandell

Like a classic folk ballad, full of understated outrage and exquisite down-home music,  "Coal Country,"  in an encore presentation at the Cherry Lane, tells the devastating true …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:31PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 9, 2022

This Space Between Us Review. Trying to do good in a suffering world. by Jonathan Mandell

"I can't watch MSNBC and do nothing anymore," says Jamie in  "This Space Between Us."  Many of us surely have been feeling that way lately, especially in the past two weeks. Jami…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:34PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, March 8, 2022

The Chinese Lady Review: Immigrant as First Freak, Still Fresh by Jonathan Mandell

In "The Chinese Lady,"  playwright Lloyd Suh has created a gently amusing, lyrical, yet sharply pointed play based on the true story of the first known Chinese woman in the United States,…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:28PM[SHARE]
Monday, March 7, 2022

Pandemic Mandates Continue on Broadway. Russian Artists Shunned. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Starting today, New York City Mayor Eric Adams will no longer require indoor venues, including "entertainment spaces" to check for proof of vaccination. But Broadway theaters will still requ…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:35AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 4, 2022

I Was Better Last Night, Harvey Fierstein's Memoir by Jonathan Mandell

Among his many other talents, Harvey Fierstein is an experienced talk show guest. In his entertaining memoir, "I Was Better Last Night" (Knopf, 400 pages), he devotes one of his 59 short cha…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:01PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Broadway Theater Named After James Earl Jones 64 Years After His Debut There by Jonathan Mandell

The 110-year-old Cort Theater on Broadway will be renamed after the 91-year-old actor James Earl Jones, the Shubert organization announced today."That James deserves to have his name immorta…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:29PM[SHARE]

NYC Theater Openings Scheduled for March 2022 by Jonathan Mandell

Below is a day-by-day selection of theater openings scheduled for March organized by opening date*, featuring a single Broadway show ("Plaza Suite") at the end of the month " a  sparse…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:43AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Out of Time Review: 5 Aged Asian-American Stories by Jonathan Mandell

In the first and best in this uneven evening of five long monologues, all of them written by Asian-American playwrights and all of them featuring characters who are over the age of 60, a wom…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:43PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 28, 2022

6 Books to Understand the Russian Invasion of Ukraine by Jonathan Mandell

Below are six books that shed light on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a shocking event, which may seem inexplicable, but only to those of us who don't know the context. The titles …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 01:09PM[SHARE]

The Arts #StandWithUkraine. #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

Many are speaking out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an independent nation of 44 million people with its own language, history and culture, including more than 400 theaters. Over t…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 09:42AM[SHARE]
Sunday, February 27, 2022

Sandblasted Review: Black Women in a Beckett World by Jonathan Mandell

"Sandblasted" begins with a woman buried in the sand, and you immediately think: Beckett's "Happy Days." She doesn't remain buried, though,  and another woman pops up out of the sand n…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:35PM[SHARE]

NY Theater Quiz for Feb 2022 by Jonathan Mandell

Answer the ten questions below to find out how well you paid attention to New York theater in the month of February.     Loading…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:28PM[SHARE]
Saturday, February 26, 2022

What The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Gets Right About Broadway in Season 4 by Jonathan Mandell

Broadway figures in the fourth season of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," as it did in the third season in 2019, when I wrote about all the things that this TV series on Amazon Prime got wron…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:06PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 24, 2022

Theater in Ukraine by Jonathan Mandell

There are more than 400 theaters in Ukraine, a nation of 44 million people with its own language, history and culture " which is currently under attack by the Russian military. The Odessa Na…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 03:07PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 23, 2022

The Daughter-in-Law: DH Lawrence's First Play. Astrobuffos' Air Play. by Jonathan Mandell

While D.H. Lawrence was working on "Sons and Lovers," his most popular novel, he wrote "The Daughter-in-Law," the first of his eight plays, which (unlike his novels) was neither published no…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 06:14PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Should Theater Be Our Happy Meal? What Would Sondheim Say? #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

"What is wrong with you?" a theatergoer commented on my review of The Music Man. The show, she said, "is just what the doctor ordered…Listen, we've been cooped up for close to two years…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:46PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 21, 2022

Presidents on Broadway by Jonathan Mandell

How will Joe Biden be depicted on a Broadway stage? All we know is that it's likely to happen sooner or later. Nearly every past president has made it to Broadway over the last century, as t…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:11AM[SHARE]
Sunday, February 20, 2022

Grand Panorama Review. Frederick Douglass and the Political Power of Photography (and Puppetry) by Jonathan Mandell

Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became a famous writer, orator and crusader, was reportedly the most photographed man in the 19th century.  So it probably shouldn't be sur…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 02:15PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 18, 2022

The Music Man Review. Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster and an American con by Jonathan Mandell

It's no mystery why Meredith Willson's 1957 musical is so beloved: The songs are terrifically tuneful, the lyrics terribly clever.  But the story of a con artist who in 1912 seduces…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 05:06PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 17, 2022

Bringing Back Bert Williams, the First Black Superstar by Jonathan Mandell

Bert Williams was, according to his friend W.C. Fields, "the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew." Williams was probably the most popular African-American entertainer at …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 11:30PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Black No More Review by Jonathan Mandell

Everything about "Black No More" sounded promising " a new musical inspired by a 1931 satiric novel of the same name that imagines what America would be like if there were a machine th…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:08PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 14, 2022

The Stage Kiss is Back for Valentine's Day! Beetlejuice, Macbeth complete casts. The Lark lives on! #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

On Valentine's Day, when thoughts (at least) turn to kissing, it's a good time to note the return of the stage kiss. There may not be as much kissing at all in new in-person shows, and kisse…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:29PM[SHARE]
Friday, February 11, 2022

Arden Review. The Flea Theater returns, after trauma by Jonathan Mandell

"This place is fraught," Niegel Smith, the artistic director of The Flea, was saying at the beginning of "Arden," the first production by the Off-Off Broadway theater company after almost tw…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 07:03PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 10, 2022

Long Day's Journey into Night: Abridged and Updated by Jonathan Mandell

 James Tyrone (Bill Camp) is wearing a face mask and shorts, and bringing home Starbucks takeout, while Mary Tyrone (Elizabeth Marvel), in sweatpants, is doing yoga, near a pile of …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:15AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 8, 2022

94th annual Oscar nominations: West Side Story, Andrew Garfield, Troy Kotsur, Lin-Manuel Miranda. by Jonathan Mandell

BEST PICTUREBelfastCODADon't Look UpDrive My CarDuneKing RichardLicorice PizzaNightmare AlleyThe Power of the DogWest Side Story BEST DIRECTORPaul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)Kenneth Bra…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 08:17AM[SHARE]
Monday, February 7, 2022

Tambo & Bones Review. From Minstrel Clowns to Rap Stars by Jonathan Mandell

Both Tambo and Bones are dressed in the clownish rags of minstrel show performers, while Tambo is explaining to Bones how to get white people to give up their quarters: "You gotta deliver a …

SOURCE: New York Theater at 10:24PM[SHARE]

Funny Girl, Plaza Suite Complete Casts. Danai Gurira as Shakespearean Villain. 15 Broadway Openings in April! #Stageworthy News of the Week by Jonathan Mandell

It's been a busy week for New York theater. See the seven reviews below, from "MJ" on Broadway and "The Tap Dance Kid" to "Shhhh" and "The Hang" downtown; and not one but two shows adapted i…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 12:03PM[SHARE]
Saturday, February 5, 2022

Broadway Opening Night. What It Means. How It's Changed. 7 Facts to Clear Up The Confusion and Crystallize the Outrage. by Jonathan Mandell

When the publicists for the Broadway revival of "The Music Man" starring Hugh Jackman announced that theater critics had to see the show on opening night, the pushback might have baffled peo…

SOURCE: New York Theater at 04:31PM[SHARE]

All that Chat