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

Broadway Bites: Casting and New Shows Announced Lots of news this week about shows that are coming to Broadway in the 2013-2014 season. Casting : Additional casting has been announced for the upcoming repertory productions of Twelfth Night  and Richard III . Joining the all-male cast led by the incomparable Mark Rylance  are several members of the Shakespeare's Globe company. Visit Playbill for the full cast list. New show : After Midnight , a re-conception of  Cotton Club Parade and filled with the music  Duke Ellington , will play the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Previews begin October 18 and opening night is set for November 3.  Playbill  has details. Casting : Lead casting has been announced for the previously announced Broadway run of Jason Robert Brown 's stage adaptation of The Bridges of Madison County . The busy  Kelli O'Hara  and Steven Pasquale  will star in the production that begins previews in January 2014. The ta...

When my friend and I settled into our seats at Second Stage Theatre for a preview of Zach Braff’s All New People , I listened to the pre-show music and told my friend, “Finally, a Zach Braff project with music that doesn’t make me want to kill myself.” Unfortunately, the protagonist in All New People didn’t feel the same way. We meet Charlie (Justin Bartha) as he is about to off himself using a taunting orange extension cord strung up from the high ceiling of the Hamptons summer home in which he’s hiding out on a cold and snowy winter day. An absent minded real estate agent, Emma (Krysten Ritter), barges in, thinking the home is unoccupied and therefore ready to be shown. She helps Charlie down from the noose and calls her firefighter buddy Myron (a sharp David Wilson Barnes) to come assess the situation. Later on, the high-priced escort Kim (Anna Camp) arrives, courtesy of one of Charlie’s friend. This situation has the makings for either wonderfully absurd comedy or devas...

American Idiot I am deeply saddened to tell you, dear readers, that American Idiot is closing . (I'm thinking of starting a support group.) The beautiful, heart wrenching, important show that started as a Green Day rock opera and evolved into a full-fledged musical, enjoying an extended world premiere run at Berkeley Repertory Theatre before previewing (March 24th) and opening (April 20th) on Broadway will shutter its doors on April 24, 2011. Slumping sales, particularly when Green Day frontman and American Idiot writer Billie Joe Armstrong is not playing St Jimmy, have finally caused the Broadway run to come to end. American Idiot will be greatly missed but it will be launching a national tour this fall so this phenomenal show will still be around for folks to thrill over. (To inject a final boost into the box office, Billie Joe is returning for the final three weeks of performances.) When American Idiot closes on April 24, it will have played 27 previews and 421 regular pe...

  “Are they sick, or am I sick?” asked the older woman sitting next to me at Second Stage Theatre yesterday, as we broke for intermission during the world premiere of Paul Weitz’s Trust . You see, while Trust is about trust (and control and the imbalances within relationships) what sets off our protagonist, Harry, is a trip to an S&M dungeon where he meets a familiar dominatrix. The first act actually starts and ends there, and that clearly made my neighbor uncomfortable. I wasn’t so uncomfortable. (Which made me wonder if perhaps I was sick.) But I did start to think about why this play was working for me while Make Me , which ran at the Atlantic a couple years ago and had a similar setting, didn’t. At first I thought maybe it was the actors. Make Me had actors of varying ages, none of whom I was particularly fond of beforehand. Trust stars theatre favorite Sutton Foster (who simply nails everything she tackles) and TV and movie guy Zach Braff. (Bobby Cannavale and ...