Broadway’s ‘The Lion King’ featured intricate puppets and costumes. Ensemble dancers marched across the stage with grass hats. Kellen Stancil operated a giraffe puppet on stilts. Aisha Mitchell’s large, wooden cheetah extended from her chest. The actors communicated a story about African ecosystems.
Unleash your inner kid with magic and spirits
Vineyard Theatre celebrated their 40th Anniversary with a red carpeted fundraising gala that honored Tony winning actor, Billy Crudup. Funds raised from the event, held in the Edison Ballroom in NYC on Feb. 13, will support the theatre’s upcoming season; including their Fair Pay Initiative and the “Good Neighbor” ticket program which offers free and affordable theatre tickets to thousands of local theatre goers.
The Roundabout Theatre Company’s newest production is stacked with an excellent cast, a beautiful set, and a heartfelt story.
Presented by Atlantic Theater Company, Elyria tells the story of two immigrant women, their families, and their interweaving lives. Staged in the round at the Linda Gross Theatre, the play begins at a festival where Vasanta (Nilanjana Bose) and Dhatta (Gulshan Mia) unexpectedly run into each other after. They exchange tense words in Gujarati, Swahili, and English with a slight British accent. Their conservation is stiff, there’s a two-decade-old secret these women share, and all will be revealed in an unlikely place: Elyria, Ohio in 1982.
From its hit songs taking over the early days of Tiktok, to its professional runs on Broadway, the West End, and international tours, Six the Musical has been delighting audiences from all over the world with its upbeat tale of finding your voice.
A powerful and emotional historical drama that tells the true story of Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter during World War II, and his efforts to bring the atrocities of the war to the attention of the Western world. It is a powerful and impactful film that highlights the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought against tyranny during the war.
Curtain up on Some Like It Hot, one of the hottest shows on Broadway this season. This fresh and exciting stage adaptation of the classic 1959 film is full of comedic perfection and strikes the right balance of pulling at the heartstrings.
Death of a Salesman has received a reinvention at the Hudson theater. Directed by Miranda Cromwell, the cast features an all black Lowman family. Wendell Price performs Willy Lowman to his depths, as an enthralling, pitiful, and honorable man. Sharon D. Clarke plays his wife and gave the show its most polished performance. She delivers her lines and sings her numbers with extreme clarity and timing. The unforgettable Andre De Shields plays Willy Lowmans mythical and wealthy older brother. Clad in all white with fake diamonds kickboxing the back of the room, there couldn’t be a more perfect charlatan.
Arthur Miller was accused of being a communist in his day. The play unfolds the emotional reality of capitalism, in the home, the bar, the workplace or the heart. Desire, insecurity, despair, and detachment, proceed cyclically and fatally. Neither the cycle nor the symptoms have changed since Arthur Miller day. Something about greed is as common as the cold and as infectious in the air.
The magic of Miranda’s production is how refreshing of an effect she achieved with so few changes. The success of the play hinged on how well it confronted race while hardly changing any original lines. Willy tells his son not to pick up a pen if it falls from his employer’s desk during his interview. It takes no expounding for a visceral recognition of a power struggle dating to 1619. When Willy turns to his white mistress and says there’s laws against this in Massachusetts, he doesn’t need to specify he’s not not talking about adultery. We watch Willy beg a white man for his job, inflaming our double consciousness. I felt thoroughly provoked.
A system that acts on our feelings will leave relatable imprints across all people who have had to bear the brunt its violence. Regardless of race, capitalism makes most of us feel the same. But a people who spent their first four hundred years chained to each other while building this system have a unique vulnerability. A unique vulnerability to belittlement, a unique vulnerability for disregard, and a unique level of despair. Without ever mentioning race Cromwell makes a micro study of this despair.
In 1982, a collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol was born, this is the story of that collaboration.