Posted in New York Theater, New York Theater Weekly Summary

Behold The Ides of March. Week in New York Theater

   Published Date: March 15, 2017  Leave a Comment on Behold The Ides of March. Week in New York Theater

It’s never a great day for Julius Caesar, thanks to Shakespeare, but March 15th is looking ok on Broadway, with the theatrically named blizzard Stella turning out to be less dramatic than expected (no Broadway shows closed yesterday nor will today);   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visiting the Canadian-bred Broadway musical, Come From Away; the fifth Broadway “Hello, Dolly” having its first preview starring the 15th Broadway Dolly Levi Gallagher, Bette Midler, And the recent announcement that the original king will return to Hamilton.

Below, performance artist and composer Laurie Anderson becomes a Broadway critic –and not a kind one — while one of the nation’s most famous theater critics becomes a TV star.

Week in New York Theater Reviews

Come from Away

“Come From Away” tells the story of the 9,000 residents of Gander, Newfoundland who took care of some 7,000 passengers and crew of 38 airplanes that were forced to land at the local airport because of the September 11, 2001 attacks…. focuses on the kindness of strangers, and how they ease the fear and inconvenience of the “plane people,” some 1,500 miles away from any real danger….This is not really a 9/11 musical, then…The question thus arises: Are we so battered by the trauma of actual events that the only stage depictions we welcome about them are feel-good entertainment? The answer seems to be yes,  judging by the enthusiastic embrace of this musical.  And Come From Away is certainly feel-good – also rhythmic, well staged, often funny.

The Glass Menagerie

Sam Gold, the innovative director who won a Tony for Fun Home, has cast Sally Field in a new Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie that doesn’t include a glass menagerie! And that’s among the least intrusive of Gold’s directorial choices, which theatergoers weaned on Williams must struggle to reconcile with the playwright’s beloved text….Sally Field is an angry, bitter and no-nonsense Amanda.

The Outer Space

Lipton narrates the funny, pointed, and strange story of the unnamed married couple who decide they’ve had it with Earth; they buy an old jalopy of a rocket ship and live in a space colony that orbits the planet Mercury, where 3,100 people live, work and shop in some 450 vessels, including a “one-dollar ship.” Half science fiction, half Moth-like shaggy dog tale involving a midlife crisis, half social satire, half a revue of unrelated songs in a mix of genres, “The Outer Space” doesn’t quite add up to a musical. But it does count as an almost unique entertainment..

Theater Book Review:

The Great Comet: The Journey of A New Musical To Broadway

Great Comet Giveaway Contest

Week in New York Theater News

 

The first theater critic to become a TV star? (surely the first who’s 8)
Iain Armitage, who became one of the best known theater critics in the country when he began at age 5 to post his reviews on YouTube, will star in a TV series that’s a prequel to the Big Bang Theory, entitled “Young Sheldon.”

Eugene O’Neill’s 6-hour tragedy comes to ‪Target Margin Theater in Brooklyn

 

 

It’s boom time for older actors but how realistic are their roles?

 

40 under 40 connected to Broadway

Author: New York Theater

Jonathan Mandell is a 3rd generation NYC journalist, who sees shows, reads plays, writes reviews and sometimes talks with people.

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