Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

Tony Award Nominations and Honorees The Tony Award nominations were announced on Tuesday. See the full list of nominees , check out my Culturalists ( Best Nominations and Worst Snubs ) and then head to Pinterest for Tony photos throughout the season. Also announced on Tuesday: The hosts of the Tony Awards. This year, Tony winners Kristin Chenoweth (a nominee this year for On the Twentieth Century ) and Alan Cumming ( Cabaret ) will be our guides. (Visit Broadway.com for more about their hosting gig.) In addition to the competitive Tony Awards, some special, non-competitive awards will be handed out on June 7: John Cameron Mitchell will receive the 2015 Special Tony Award , recognizing his artistry and his journey with Hedwig and the Angry Inch . (In addition to co-creating the show in the 90s, Mitchell just returned to the role, playing on Broadway for the last few months.)  Stephen Schwartz will receive the Isabelle Stevenson Award , the Tonys' humanitarian award....

She Loves Me Returns The Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick musical, She Loves Me , will return to Broadway next season, in spring 2016. The revival will be part of Roundabout's 50th anniversary season. (The theatre company held a benefit, one-night-only concert of the show in 2011.) But that's not all: Tony winner Laura Benanti ( Gypsy , Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown ) and Josh Radnor ( Disgraced , How I Met Your Mother ) will star in the production, to be directed by Scott Ellis ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood , You Can't Take it With You ). In addition to the Bock and Harnick score, She Loves Me features a book by Joe Masteroff ( Cabaret ); the musical is based on the novel, The Shop Around the Corner , which is also the source material for the Tom Hanks–Meg Ryan flick, You've Got Mail . Specific dates for the production have not been announced, and it is not confirmed whether She Loves Me will play at the American Airlines Theatre or Studio 54. The ...

The US has a black president. We supposedly live in a post-racial society. If you're paying attention, though, you know that's not the case. On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher , Ben Affleck ( Argo , Gone Girl ) got into a heated argument with author Sam Harris and the show's host. They were debating religion, its effects on society and its adherents, and whether one religion was better or worse (or more damaging) than another. (They were talking, in particular, about Islam.) Just a couple of weeks later, professional bloviator Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly got in the ring (on The Daily Show ) with Jon Stewart, and the two "discussed" the issue of white privilege . Stewart, being the sensible one, argued that, of course, it exists. Clearly, we're not in a post-racial or post-religious society (the latter will never happen). There are still racists and prejudicial people by the score, many of them with a microphone. Yet we tend to sw...