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

Coming to Broadway Amelie —It's official: The new musical, Amelie , will be on Broadway this spring. Based on the [year] film, Amelie features a book by Craig Lucas ( An American in Paris ), and a score by Daniel Messe (music) and Nathan Tysen (lyrics), and is directed by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon ( Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ). Amelie will play the Walter Kerr Theatre, with previews beginning March 9, 2017. Opening night is set for April 3, and the cast will be led by Tony nominee Phillipa Soo ( Hamilton ) and Adam Chanler-Berat ( Next to Normal , The Fortress of Solitude ). The Play That Goes Wrong —The Olivier-winning play The Play That Goes Wrong will bow on Broadway this spring. Performances at the Lyceum Theatre begin March 9, 2017, with opening night set for April 2. Broadway.com has more. ( Broadway World reports that through November 23, you can purchase $25 orchestra and mezzanine seats—and $15 balcony seats—for preview performances.) Castin...

Grammy Nominations Grammy Award nominations were announced this week. You can view the full list of nominees on the Grammy website . Herein, some nominees of interest: Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album — Josh Groban , Stages ; Seth MacFarlane , No One Ever Tells You ; Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap , The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern ; Bob Dylan , Shadows in the Night ; and Barry Manilow , My Dream Duets Best Musical Theater Album — An American in Paris , Fun Home , Hamilton , The King and I , and Something Rotten Foo Fighters —Best Rock Performance, " Something from Nothing "; and Best Music Film, Sonic Highways Best Spoken Word Album —nominees include Dick Cavett , Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks ; Jimmy Carter , A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety ; and Amy Poehler , Yes Pelase Best Comedy Album —nominees include Wyatt Cenac , Brooklyn and Louis C.K. , Live at Madison Square Garden Best Score Soundtrack for Visu...

From the acclaimed director of the Tony-winning revival of Hair , Diane Paulus, comes a reworked classic: The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess . Paulus, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and musician Diedre L. Murray have cut, edited, added and changed George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin’s classic American opera about the folks living on Catfish Row, South Carolina, to make it more accessible as an American musical—something today’s Broadway audiences can easily digest. Much has been written about the changes , particularly before anyone had seen it! This production was developed at the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) in Boston, Massachusetts, where Paulus is the Artistic Director. While at A.R.T., Paulus and company did a lot of the cutting, editing, adding and changing, much to the chagrin of some of our most venerable musical theatre titans . But the team also made many changes post-A.R.T. and pre-Broadway. And it seems, after all the hoo...