‘Summer’ Fever: An Interview with Tony-Nominated Triple Threat Ariana DeBose
Putting the sizzle in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, Ariana DeBose charts her own course to Broadway stardom.
Theatre
Stage to Comics Page: George O’Connor’s Adaptation of Adam Rapp’s Dystopic Play, ‘Ball Peen Hammer’
Adam Rapp's characters have to kill and bag children to earn their keep. How does one depict that on stage and on page?
The Dusk in Angelica Liddell: The Transgressive Post-Hardcore Theater of ‘Esta Breve Tragedia de la Carne’
Spanish avant-garde theater-maker Liddell and veteran metalcore band Converge try to make sense of the brief tragedy of the flesh.
Tribeca 2018: ‘Netizens’ and ‘Every Act of Life’
These important documentaries about online abuse and the works of Terrence McNally attempt to illuminate empathy and social awareness at a time when it is being woefully ignored.
Ready for Her Cue: An Interview with Soul Legend Valerie Simpson
With dazzle, flair, and "all that jazz", Songwriters Hall of Fame legend Valerie Simpson makes her Broadway debut as Matron "Mama" Morton in Chicago: The Musical.
Ian Buruma’s ‘A Tokyo Romance’ Is a Timeless Commentary on Cross-cultural Engagement
There's something deeply personal and universalistic about Ian Buruma's writing. He acknowledges the multiplicity of possible perspectives without sliding into the rudderless waters of postmodernism.
Why Arthur Miller and Saul Bellow’s Doomed American Heroes Are Timeless
Perpetual "losers" Willy Loman and Tommy Wilhelm bitterly struggle to survive amidst the same economic and social forces that continue to challenge their real-world counterparts today.
‘Improv Nation’ and the Birth of Saturday Night Live
Improv Nation tells the long and astonishing history of the spur-of-the-moment stuff that makes audiences laugh.
‘Soul of a Nation’ and ‘The Wall of Respect’ Prompt New Looks at Cutting-edge Black Art
No matter where you are on the wokeness spectrum, the Black Power era has yet to stop informing.
Back to Bond Street: An Interview with West End Legend Ray Shell
Forty years after Ray Shell left New York for London, the original Rusty in Starlight Express finds his way home to the East Village.
’The Ferryman’: Ephemeral Ideas, Eternal Tragedies
Staggeringly multi-layered, dangerously fast-paced and rich in characterizations, dialogue and context, Jez Butterworth's new hit about a family during the time of Ireland's the Troubles leaves the audience breathless, sweaty and tearful, in a nightmarish, dry-heaving haze.
The Understudy: Theatre Historian Charles Duff on His Memoir, ‘Charley’s Woods’
An unexpurgated account of an extraordinary life could, in lesser hands, have been a misery memoir. But Duff created a delightful literary work throughout which, even when revisiting the darkness of his past, he sprinkles gaiety and humour.