Review: At ‘Summer,’ the disco ball has spun off its axis
Someone really did leave the damn cake out in the rain.
That’s my metaphorical summation of “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.” Fans will recognize...
Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ brings magic to Broadway
If massive success on Broadway could ever be a foregone conclusion, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” would indubitably be the show to bet...
Review: ‘My Fair Lady’ is a beautifully polished antique
Impeccable is the first word that springs to mind to describe the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady.” But...
Review: A layered ‘Carousel’ finds new depth
At the core of “Carousel,” which has been revived with breathtaking emotional intensity at the Imperial Theatre, is a dark fatalism that trails the...
Review: ‘Children of a Lesser God’ struggles to connect
The challenges that all of us must confront in order to achieve meaningful human connection is the central theme of Mark Medoff’s play “Children...
Review: ‘Mean Girls’ is funny, but not fresh
Does it make me a mean girl if I say that “Mean Girls,” the new Broadway musical based on — well, duh! — is,...
Review: ‘Three Tall Women’ looks at life head on
Unless you have a raging fever, an ice bath wouldn’t seem like a particularly pleasurable experience. And yet “Three Tall Women,” Edward Albee’s late-career...
Review: ‘Rocktopia’ feels like a Vegas act on Broadway
If only what happened in Budapest stayed in Budapest.
I have nothing in particular against the city, really. I quite enjoyed my one visit...
Review: ‘Lobby Hero’ is a small play about big ideas
Life is never simple. Nor is trying to figure out what kind of lives we aspire to lead. Even if we can decide what...
Review: ‘Angels in America’ is as resonant and urgent as ever
“The world only spins forward,” says Prior Walter, ravaged with AIDS but still enduring, in the culminating speech of “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s...
Review: ‘Frozen’ freezes up on stage
Should hell freeze over — and given global environmental trends, well, who knows? — it’s possible that “Frozen” will not be Disney’s next from-now-until-eternity...
Review: ‘Escape to Margaritaville’ provides fun for Buffett fans and the masses
Jimmy Buffett believers, also known as “Parrotheads,” are going to have a whale of a good time at “Escape to Margaritaville" which opened at...
Review: Bernadette Peters shimmers and delights in ‘Hello, Dolly!’
All those who declined to take out a second mortgage to buy a pair on the aisle for Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly!” can...
Review: John Lithgow hosts a fireside chat in ‘Stories By Heart’
John Lithgow is a mighty fine actor, and an all-around decent fellow judging from two hours spent in his company at his solo show,...
Review: In ‘Farinelli and the King,’ music soothes us all
“Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” So wrote 17th-century playwright William Congreve. With that...
Review: ‘The Children’ is an exquisite look at human life
The room is a very modestly furnished kitchen: mismatched chairs around a table, a miniature refrigerator, a scruffy but cozy-looking armchair, slightly out of...
Review: ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ is far from ‘a simple sponge’
A new kind of cockeyed optimist has arrived at the Palace Theatre in the form of SpongeBob SquarePants, the indefatigably cheery anthropomorphic hero of...
Review: A heartwarming breeze from ‘Once on This Island’
Continual waves of radiance, warming the blood and stirring the heart, flow forth from the sand-covered stage of the Circle in the Square Theatre,...
Review: ‘The Parisian Woman’ delves into current politics, but with little effect
Sleepy times, right? No drama emanating from our nation’s capital. Barely enough sensation to fill a single page of a broadsheet. Nary a shocking...
Review: ‘Meteor Shower’ misses the mark with its scattered plot
The stars supply most of the fireworks in “Meteor Shower,” a scattershot – and even scatterbrained – comedy of bad manners by Steve Martin...
Review: ‘Latin History for Morons’ gives us footnotes, not a lesson
In spite of significant limitations, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the ambitious aims and wide-ranging scope of “Latin History For Morons”, a...
Review: In ‘The Band’s Visit,’ small moments are made profound
The opening of “The Band’s Visit” at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, after a triumphant off-Broadway run last spring, is very good news for many...
Review: ‘Junk’ teaches a lesson in high finance
A business degree is not a prerequisite for an appreciation of “Junk,” a new play by Ayad Akhtar about the heady heights and ethical...
Review: ‘M. Butterfly’ never takes flight
That silk kimono hides a scandalous secret in “M. Butterfly,” David Henry Hwang’s 1988 Tony Award-winning drama about the romance between a French diplomat...
Review: Springsteen connects with his sensitive side in Broadway debut
“I’ll handle this myself,” said Bruce Springsteen with a wry smile on Wednesday night at the Walter Kerr Theatre, as his enraptured audience began...
Review: ‘Time and the Conways’ offers a graceful masterclass in time and failed dreams
The ineluctable force that touches all our lives – the day-to-day, year-to-year process by which the present becomes the past, and the future bears...
Review: ‘Prince of Broadway’
What’s the last word I thought I’d ever use to describe a show directed by Harold Prince? Bland.
And yet, sadly, that’s the overall effect of...
Review: ‘The Terms of My Surrender’
Michael Moore’s solo show, "The Terms of My Surrender," comes as close to being a campaign rally as anything you are likely to see...
Review: ‘Marvin’s Room’
Calamity comes in Costco-style jumbo packages for the fractured family in “Marvin’s Room,” Scott McPherson’s play about the beleaguering trials and little triumphs collectively known...
Review: ‘1984’
Summer entertainment options do not get more counterintuitive than the Broadway adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” that opened at the Hudson Theatre on Thursday,...
Review: ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
The frenetic Broadway spring comes to a thrilling conclusion with the lightning-bolt opening of Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” a new play so...
Review: ‘Bandstand’
The boys singing and swinging their hearts out in “Bandstand,” an exuberant new musical set in the days just after World War II, are...
Review: ‘Six Degrees of Separation’
Is it me, or have the follies of rich New Yorkers become less delightfully entertaining than they once were?
To wit: Some of the savor...
Review: ‘Anastasia’
“Anastasia,” (“The New Broadway Musical” in this case) is a fictional reimagining of the fate of the youngest daughter of the last Czar of...
Review: ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’
What a peculiar piece of confectionary is the new musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which opened at the Lunt-Fontanne...
Review: ‘Hello, Dolly!’
A lot of merchandise is for sale in the lobby of the Shubert Theatre, where Bette Midler stars in the highly anticipated, or, really, let’s make...
Review: ‘The Little Foxes’
It doesn’t take a refined intellect to separate the bad characters from the good in Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes.” The bad tend to be...
Review: ‘Indecent’
It is astonishing that the most recent opening at the Cort Theatre, “Indecent,” marks the Broadway debut of its Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Paula Vogel. A...
Review: ‘Groundhog Day’
The producers and creators of “Groundhog Day” must be uncomfortably aware by now that, despite the fantasy at the center of their show, every...
Review: ‘Oslo’
Leaving Lincoln Center on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon after a performance of “Oslo,” I was surprisingly engulfed by an uneasy disquiet. My reaction,...
Review: ‘War Paint’
You don’t have to go in search of a magnifying glass to discern the active ingredients in the new musical “War Paint,” at the...
Review: ‘Present Laughter’
An unruly cast of stylish denizens has arrived at the St. James Theatre just in time to relieve the torpor of all of us...
Review: ‘Amélie’
As the title character in the musical “Amélie,” a lonely young woman spreading warmth and doing good deeds even as she remains cocooned in...
Review: ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’
“Oh, Inspector! I can’t take it anymore!” wails one of the hapless characters, an amateur performer enacting a shambles of a mystery drama, in...