theatre

New, Experimental West Side Story Is an Experiment that Goes Awry

by Bruce Chadwick

The play has lost its focus and sense of history.

A Tale of the Great Migration

by Bruce Chadwick

Blues for an Alabama Sky, a new play by Pearl Cleage, tells the story of a handful of those people. It is a deep, rich play in which their stories are carried out against the cultural backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance.

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are Back, and the Sexual Revolution with Them

by Bruce Chadwick

The late 1960s was the heyday of America’s sexual revolution and nowhere was it bigger than in California.

There’s Nothing Like a Good Ghost Story from the Past

by Bruce Chadwick

The terrifying and wondrous Woman in Black is an international hit. It's a play staged in 2020 that was written in 1987 about an event that took place in 1927.

A Play About Historical Reenactors Grapples With American Identity

by Bruce Chadwick

Talene Monahon’s new play, How to Load a Musket, takes a deep, hard look at the re-enactors of two wars, the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Depression Era Tenor Hits All the High Notes

by Bruce Chadwick

It is 1934, at the height of the Depression, and an opera company in Cleveland is trying to make enough money to stay in business.

Somewhere Over Their Rainbows - Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland

by Bruce Chadwick

In the late 1930s and 1940s, Deanna and Judy, just teenagers, were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Deanna was not only a superb actress, but as a singer had the voice of an angel.

A Concise History of Diets through Life and a Lot of Show Biz Spice

by Bruce Chadwick

The play is warm and loving. It is a memoir of sorts with her as the center. It is not a drama or high comedy or sprawling spectacle, either, but it is good.

How Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day Can Help Us Understand Our Political Moment

by Frank Palmeri

Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day is a rare bird—a revival (with a substantial re-write) that proves to be more timely and incisive than the original was.

Cinderella, Whose History Goes Back to the First Century, Is Still a Delight, Glass Slippers and All

by Bruce Chadwick

The tale seemed to have first appeared in Egypt around 100 A.D. That story featured a lost Greek girl who stumbled into a party hosted by the Pharaoh.

A Marvelous Christmas Carol

by Bruce Chadwick

This new A Christmas Carol, based on Charles Dickens’ novel, has a different look to it, a different musical score, a different Scrooge and different ghosts. But it is the same heart-warming story. 

England’s Richard III as Murderous, Royal Thug

by Bruce Chadwick

William Shakespeare’s bone-chilling play Richard III portrays England’s deformed monarch as a murderous thug, one of the great villains of world history.

The Brave Jewish D’Artagnan Who Fenced for Germany in the 1936 Olympics

by Bruce Chadwick

One of the reasons Games resonates today is that ever since those long-ago Olympics in 1936 Jews have faced constant discrimination and persecution, unfairly so, and face it today, too.

The Battle of Midway Movie is Mostly Terrific

by Bruce Chadwick

Despite its drawbacks, Midway is a rip-roaring military saga and a testament to the men who won it.

A Baseball Musical that Needs Some Relief Pitching

by Bruce Chadwick

Last Days of Summer, written by Steve Kluger and based on his 1998 novel, is the story about players from the New York Giants 1940 team, that toiled in New York along with the Yankees and Dodgers, and a little kid who loved the game.

1600s Verona: Romeo, Juliet, and A Romantic Tragedy for the Ages

by Bruce Chadwick

This Romeo and Juliet is a triumph.

Over the Rainbow to Oz Once Again with Judy

by Bruce Chadwick

The story of the film classic is told in a bright, cheerful new musical, Chasing Rainbows, the Road to Oz, that opened last week at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey,

Love in Post World War II Paris

by Bruce Chadwick

An American in Paris is a complicated story of a man who loves a woman.

A Chilling Play Grapples With How We Are All Connected to Slavery

by Bruce Chadwick

Can you shake off American history?

In The Great Society, We Get a Marvelous, If Painful, Look at LBJ and the War that Won’t Go Away

by Bruce Chadwick

This powerful play is a painful reminder of history lost, of all those brave Americans who fought so gallantly for their country in that war, and came home battered and defeated.