News Ticker

Still Open

These are the shows that – to the best of our information – we think are still open to see.

Garry Starr: Classic Penguins

September 13, 2026

Don’t believe all you hear: Damien Warren-Smith appearing as his alter ego Garry Starr in Classic Penguins is entirely in the nude. However, all the ads say he covers all 1,000+ Penguin paperbacks, when in fact he uses about 50. This inimitable Australian comic is one of the funniest men on the planet and makes this hilarious and at times gross show a madcap and fast review of literature. You do not need to have read the books to enjoy the jokes as in most cases the titles tell it all. When he first appears in a leather armchair, Garry is dressed in an Elizabethan ruff, a top hat, a black tail coat, orange flippers and nothing else, but he quickly loses the coat and hat. The nudity eventually becomes commonplace like the undressed bathers on the beach – you get used it - but he reminds us periodically of his nudity by his antics. The point of the show is to save great literature. Some books get more time than others. There is a great deal of audience participation, always voluntary, and mainly from the first row. The orange and white Penguin paperbacks are revealed by a camera hookup (on top of a small bookcase) which projects each title on to a huge screen above his head. Beginning with Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, he works his way through to R.C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End in 65 minutes. [more]

Becoming Hamlet

September 11, 2026

Damon Horowitz as Hamlet Guide with Truman Gaudoin as Guildenkranz, Desirée Baxter as Gertrude, [more]

Public Record (Public Works)

September 8, 2026

This year’s Public Works’ production of "Public Record" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park is a tribute and celebration to New York and the people who live in all five boroughs, with 100 cast members singing, dancing and recounting their lives. Originally created by Dan Canham and Emily Lim for the National Theatre, Sunderland, in the United Kingdom, it has now been revised and rewritten to represent New York by Lisa Sanaye Dring. The NY version incorporates the stories of many of its performers, including that of guest artists Louis Cato, Maya Margarita, DJ Papi Juice, Arun Ramamurthy and music supervisor and orchestrator Michael Thurber. At each of the five performances from September 4 - 8, the evening is recorded live and will be preserved by the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts. [more]

Safe House

September 7, 2026

Not only is L. B. Browne’s play "Safe House" a very accomplished dramatic work, it also manages to be a play for our time including many of the themes of our daily life. Director Benjamin Viertel’s cast of seven brings the play vividly to life so that one recognizes these modern people. If you are interested in the state of new American drama or are just interested in an engrossing night out at the live theater, this is a play not to be missed. [more]

To Have and To Hold

September 4, 2026

There is something wonderfully perverse about naming two sisters Kate and Bianca after the heroines of Shakespeare’s "The Taming of the Shrew" and then setting them loose in the 21st century, where the old machinery of courtship has become at once more liberated, more commercial, and considerably more bewildering. In Laura Lapidus’ "To Have and To Hold," directed by Zoë Adams, and now playing at Chashama’s 154 Theater, Shakespeare’s notoriously troublesome romantic comedy becomes the occasion for a much more contemporary inquiry: What happens when the stories we inherit about love, marriage, womanhood, and ourselves collide with the stories we have painstakingly written on our own? The result is a buoyant, intelligent, unexpectedly tender comedy that knows its Shakespeare but refuses to be imprisoned by him. [more]

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Smoking Mirror Theatre Company)

September 3, 2026

At A.R.T./New York Theatres, Smoking Mirror Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," running through September 13th, offers the kind of theatrical escape that the play itself promises: a passage from the ordinary world into a place where logic loosens its grip, desire becomes unstable, and the boundary between comedy and nightmare grows deliciously thin. Co-directors John Gordon and Ruby Rich gift us a faithful restaging that conveys the fun and magic of Shakespeare’s original text while adding just enough distinctive flourishes to make a familiar work feel freshly discovered. [more]

Paranormal Activity

September 2, 2026

The ability to see all five rooms in the house is par of the fun as you will find yourself constantly looking around to see where the next shock will occur from illusions designer Chris Fisher: the bathroom shower curtain, the dimly lit bedroom, the creepy room designated as the nursery, etc. Of course, lighting designer Anna Watson and sound designer Gareth Fry have a good deal to do with the events that occur: lights go on and off or blackout altogether, unaccountable sounds are heard like the knocks at the door but no one is there. Lights pass through the windows: is it a car or something creepier? [more]

The Real Ivanov (Initiative Productions)

August 30, 2026

Currently to be seen at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater, adaptor/director Laura Strausfeld has renamed her production "The Real Ivanov," a streamlined version which “preserves almost every line and all of the major characters.” This riveting version performed without intermission reduces the three hour play (with breaks between the acts) to a fast 100 minutes in which the audience sits on all four sides of the playing area, putting us in the arena with Chekhov’s characters. Much of this is due to Jiyoun Chang’s scenic design which uses one item in each of the four acts to set the stage for the different scenes allowing for instant transformations: a bench in Act I, a rug in Act II, a desk and chair for Act III, and a red carpet signifying a hallway for the wedding scene in Act IV. As we have gotten used to a great deal of realistic scenery in recent years, it is amazing how unnecessary it appears to be if the actors create the ambiance and the milieu. [more]

Broad Strokes

August 14, 2026

At first mention, a young woman suffering a stroke does not sound like a promising premise for a comedy, much less a musical comedy. It suggests frantic texts to a medically literate friend, and the sort of midnight internet search that convinces you that a headache is an aneurysm. Yet Catherine Cohen, whose comic persona has always depended upon turning private neuroses into public spectacle, has discovered in "Broad Strokes" an almost perversely fertile subject: the surreal experience of having a stroke at thirty, discovering that it was caused by a congenital hole in her heart, and then finding herself grateful, in a sense, to have been proved right about all the things she had spent her life worrying about. Under Alex Timbers’ brisk and extravagantly theatrical direction, Cohen turns a medical emergency into a fantasia of vanity, anxiety, pop culture, and self-invention. The result is a compact, highly polished Off-Broadway debut that is considerably more inventive—and considerably funnier—than its premise has any right to be. [more]

An American Daughter

August 12, 2026

In "An American Daughter," Wendy Wasserstein approaches a topic still relevant: how American women in public life are expected to be perfect in all things while the men are given a pass for similar behavior. Notice that 29 years after this play appeared on Broadway, the United States has still not had a woman president. Unfortunately, the play is too schematic to be convincing and without enough humor to carry the story to its logical ending. While this production does not make a strong case for this as one of Wasserstein’s better plays, it is still possible that a future staging with a different cast might solve the current problems in this one. [more]

ON THE TOWN WITH CHIP DEFFAA…. AT “A WALK ON THE MOON”

July 13, 2026

Pamela Gray--an insightful writer with a terrific ear for dialogue--has turned her 1999 motion picture, "A Walk on the Moon," into a new musical with a knockout cast. The score is uneven, but the show is so abundantly filled with life--and such strong performers--I want to see it again. [more]

ON THE TOWN WITH CHIP DEFFAA… CELEBRATING “BROADWAY BEFORE BEDTIME”

June 2, 2026

There are plenty of podcasts dealing with theater and pop culture.  (I’ve been a guest on my share of them.)   The podcast “Broadway Before Bedtime”—presenting new episodes every week--features two theater pros interviewing other theater pros. What makes this podcast unique is that its gifted co-creators/co-hosts—Yair Keydar and Remi Madden Tuckman--are just 13 years old! They first gained attention when they alternated, playing a key character, “Brendan,” in the 2024-25 Off-Broadway musical, Drag.  I wrote in these pages back then—and I choose my words with great care--that they were the most talented child actors on stage in New York that season, and about as impressive as any child actor I’d seen in years. [more]

Schmigadoon!

May 25, 2026

Sara Chase, McKenzie Kurtz, Brad Oscar, Alex Brightman and the company of Cinco Paul’s new [more]

REX REED: A REMEMBRANCE

May 16, 2026

I'm sorry to note the passing of Rex Reed. He was 87. And it's startling for me to write that he was 87, because to me he was always the handsome, dashing young man about town whom I first met decades ago. (That's why I'm posting a couple of publicity photos of him when he was younger, as well as one from more recent years, along with a snapshot of Rex, taken a few years ago, with several cabaret stars he liked very much: KT Sullivan, Joyce Breach, and Jeff Harnar.) I liked Rex. Oh, he could be quite acerbic in reviews, if he didn't like a film or a concert, or a cabaret show. And he cultivated a public image of being a curmudgeon. But if he liked you--and we always got along great--he was a pussycat. [more]

The Rocky Horror Show

May 6, 2026

As Frank-N-Furter, Luke Evans amply fills the towering platform heels of Tim Curry, who originated the role on stage and, much more indelibly, that supreme silver screen. To put it as delicately as possible, Evans owns a distinct advantage in bodily charms over a 1970s Curry, which costume designer David I. Reynoso maximally emphasizes. But the sizable difference between the two fellas doesn't make Evans any less emotionally vulnerable in the later numbers "I'm Going Home" and "Floorshow/Rose Tint My World." Despite Frank-N-Furter's deeply problematic take on love, Evans sentimentally honors his character's need for a very peculiar and lonely form of it. [more]

The Lost Boys

May 1, 2026

Despite the revisions—1980s’ Republicans become a dull running joke—"The Lost Boys" is, like its source, a banal, comic‑book‑level depiction of family dysfunction and B‑movie vampire‑thriller shallowness. Amped up to supersonic levels with loud, uninspired rock music by The Rescues, whose lyrics are often indecipherable, it seems even more inane in its new guise. Even the ballads can’t resist morphing into tear‑the‑house‑down anthems, no matter their underlying emotional simplicity, as in Lucy’s paean to her son, “Michael.” [more]

Titaníque

April 26, 2026

Some shows are better Off Broadway either because the smaller theater helps the ambiance or the smaller budget inspires greater imagination or there is a “let’s put on a show” vibe that enhances the fun. "Titaníque," the Off Broadway hit musical which has traveled from The Asylum NYC to the Daryl Roth Theatre to ultimately Broadway’s St. James Theatre, is one of those shows. Not that is it not still an entertaining musical, but the feeling of spontaneity with props that looked like found objects is now missing. The cast is mainly the same but for some superstar additions particularly Emmy Award-winner Jim Parsons as a mugging Ruth DeWitt Bukater and Grammy Award winner Deborah Cox as the unsinkable Molly Brown. [more]

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

February 5, 2026

Not quite as old as its title suggests, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" premiered off and then on Broadway in 2005. The Tony Award-winning musical wears that age well in a revival that director and choreographer Danny Mefford smartly doesn't exploit as an opportunity for stark reinvention. Yes, there are thoughtful updates, including a much-needed revision to one character's backstory and some pointed criticism of disturbing developments at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which launched the revival in October 2024. But, as always, the show's heart remains its six endearingly awkward middle-school spellers, each competing for a trophy that masks a much deeper and more elusive desire for connection. [more]

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

November 22, 2025

With its big, if economical, imagination, "Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)" also seemingly contains a metropolis of non-digital humanity, thanks, in particular, to Tony Gayle's robust and amusingly familiar sound design ("stand clear of the closing doors, please"). But Robin and Dougal are the only people ever actually present onstage, which is enough. As they repeatedly scale the twin mounds of literal baggage on Soutra Gilmour's circular treadmill of a set--rotating away from and towards each other--the metaphoric intent is obvious. Still, it's the promptly endearing Pitts and Tutty who must translate that visual meaning into a palpable bond, so that the audience cares deeply when it is eventually threatened by both past and future complications. [more]

Amaze

August 31, 2025

British illusionist Jamie Allan has brought his aptly named magic show "Amaze" to New World Stages and it is truly awesome. His act is so low key that one doesn’t at first realize how remarkable his tricks are taking many familiar and famous magic acts one step further – like the card trick with a deck of blank cards. He also uses his show to build the theory that children are more susceptible to magic and illusion and that we all need to return to our childhood memories and imaginations. [more]

Heathers the Musical

July 18, 2025

Andy Fickman’s polished production with its highly effective choreography by Gary Lloyd (additional choreography by Stephanie Klemons) is a Broadway-style production in a smaller house. If "Heathers the Musical" seemed too cynical in 2014 when it also played at New World Stages, time or events have caught up with it and it now seems a reflection of the life we live. With Broadway stars Lorna Courtney and Casey Likes leading the high-powered cast, "Heathers the Musical" should be a hit of the summer and beyond – and not just for teens and twenty-somethings who were in full evidence at the performance under review. [more]

Just in Time

May 9, 2025

Groff is simply sensational in both his roles, charming as himself and astonishing in his revelatory Darin.  He confesses to being “a wet man.”  He proves it with his near aerobically paced performance, which included much singing and dancing and even a touch of beefcake.  (Well, if you got it—and Groff got it—flaunt it!) [more]

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

April 30, 2025

"Stranger Things: The First Shadow" concludes with a Netflix joke that, besides being pretty funny, also represents a bit of chest-thumping for the play's outsized number of developers who manage to successfully blur the line between theater and television. Whether that's a good thing is a matter of taste, or a lack of it, but there's no denying that "Stranger Things: The First Shadow," which has journeyed from the West End to Broadway, is exactly the type of experience it wants to be: immersive; scary; and, even if you've never seen an episode of the streaming series from whence it comes, familiar. That's because, imaginatively befitting its source material, the play is a storytelling stew of cultural callbacks that owes a debt--presumably unpaid-- to Stephen King, Wes Craven, and other unsettling shapers of Gen-X childhoods. [more]

Operation Mincemeat

March 31, 2025

The new musical attempts to out Monty Python "Monty Python" by creating a full-length show and story in their style, although its origins also go back to British Music Hall where there is also much cross-dressing (i.e. men playing women and women playing men). Those who love Monty Python will have a great time; those who don’t may find the two hour and 30 minute show heavy going. The show is also Very British and a great many of the jokes and gags don’t land for American audiences. However, the hard working cast is impressive playing many roles each and Robert Hastie’s fast paced direction doesn’t give a lot of time to think about the antics on stage. [more]

Maybe Happy Ending

November 20, 2024

Helen J Shen and Darren Criss in a scene from the new musical “Maybe Happy Ending” at the [more]

Music City

November 17, 2024

By all outward appearances, the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on West 86th Street is an unlikely location for a performance space, but deeply nestled into its 2nd floor can be found the West End Theatre, current home of the new country-western musical "Music City," featuring songs and lyrics by successful songwriter J.T. Harding. Harding’s songs have been sung by the likes of Kenny Chesney, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and others, but they are a perfect fit for this small musical with a big heart. [more]

The Great Gatsby: A New Musical

May 2, 2024

As for previous theatrical takes on the classic Jazz Age novel--and a few cinematic ones, too--the understandable allure of Fitzgerald's breathtaking sentences has represented a deathly siren's song for those tempted to dramatically interpret Fitzgerald by emulating him. Adopting a much smarter tack, book writer Kait Kerrigan avoids crashing into the tony shores of Long Island, where the story is mostly set, by remembering that imitation is not only the sincerest form of flattery but also usually very boring. Kerrigan still dutifully opens ("In my younger and more vulnerable years...") and closes ("So we beat on, boats against the current...") with the literary hits, also leaving in place the unhappy character arc of the novel's Midwestern narrator Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts), but she lets the transplanted naif enjoy a friskier journey arriving at the disillusionment that he eventually feels from witnessing the cruel machinations of the East Coast elite. [more]

The Outsiders: A New Musical

April 22, 2024

The cast of "The Outsiders: A New Musica"l bring their own substantial charisma to the stage, but it's been dramaturgically constrained by Adam Rapp and Justin Levine's book, which sacrifices poetry for explanation. That unfortunate choice is abetted by a score from Levine, Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance (the latter two comprising the folk duo Jamestown Revival) that, influenced by "Oklahoma!" instead of pure sentiment, is far too Rodgers and Hammerstein, when it should have aimed for Rodgers and Hart. [more]

Oh, Mary!

April 9, 2024

No one should be sacrosanct or above satirical treatment, not even our heroes.  Everyone has feet of clay.  Cole Escola in their huge hit "Oh, Mary!" at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village certainly believes this.  Their over-the-top, irreverent take on Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth is so scurrilously sexual that it is difficult to avoid guffawing at their magnificent awfulness helped by Escola’s constant silly shtick and blatant playing to the audience, all of whom seemed to be having fun. [more]

Singfeld! A Musical Parody About Nothing!

June 15, 2023

Picking the easiest possible creative path, a decision the effort-averse George would no doubt admire, the McSmiths forgo imaginative risk-taking in favor of simply copying their source material, shaping "Singfeld!" as a parody musical about writing a parody musical. In other words, "Singfeld!" is also about nothing, which makes the entire endeavor feel, at times, akin to a Sartrean spiral or, as Jerry's archnemesis Newman (Jacob Millman) more bluntly puts it, "hackey." That's not to say there aren't some funny moments during "Singfeld!," but when humor is largely based on "remember when?," the comedic ceiling is right above your head. [more]

On the Town with Chip Deffaa: At the Museum of Broadway

December 13, 2022

Everyone who loves theater owes a debt of gratitude to Julie Boardman and Diane Nicoletti.  About five years ago, they got the idea of creating a museum in the theater district, dedicated to Broadway.  They would raise the funds themselves, hoping to create a self-sustaining operation.  The museum they have co-founded has now opened.  And it’s a winner! Oh, I’m not saying it’s perfect. Nothing in this world is quite perfect.  And like all new ventures, the museum is experiencing some growing pains.  (Later in this piece, I’ll suggest some ways that the museum could be made even better.) But what they’ve achieved thus far is mighty impressive.  There are a few kinks to be ironed out, but this is a major addition to the theater district. [more]

& Juliet

November 30, 2022

The cast is a combination of New York stage favorites (Stark Sands, "Kinky Boots," and Betsy Wolfe, "Waitress," "Falsettos" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"), new faces (Lorna Courtney, Ben Jackson Walker, Justin David Sullivan) and older veterans (opera baritone Paolo Szot and London stage star Melanie La Barrie making her Broadway debut.) The clever book is by writer David West Read previously seen in New York with "The Performers" and "The Dream of the Burning Boy" as well as the long running television series Schitt’s Creek. The show seems to have been influenced by "Something Rotten"(parody of Elizabethan times), "Six "(its updated 16th century costumes by Paloma Young), "Head Over Heels" (reboot of a classic tale wedded to a pop-rock score) and "Moulin Rouge" (the over-the-top staging by director Luke Sheppard and choreographer Jennifer Weber) – but is actually more fun than all of those shows. At times it resembles "Saturday Night Live" skits but knows enough to keep them short and not let any of them go on too long before introducing the next complication. [more]

MJ

February 10, 2022

Wheeldon and Pulitzer Award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage make every effort to hide the fact that MJ is a jukebox musical, despite the fact that the first notes of every song elicited loud shouts and applause (part of the reason the show runs two and a half hours). Nottage has invented a plodding framework for the show.  It is 1992 in Los Angeles. TV reporter, Rachel (a down-to-earth Whitney Bashor who acts as the play’s Greek chorus) and her hyperactive assistant, Alejandro (a charming Gabriel Ruiz) corral a reluctant Jackson to have his rehearsals for his huge upcoming 'Dangerous" tour documented. [more]

Six: The Musical

October 10, 2021

More concert than musical, the 80-minute show's libretto adds little to its cast album, with the lyrics of each queen's autobiographical song also pruning their individual histories to a point even a Wikipedia writer might consider reductive. The English nursery rhyme "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived," which the women recite at the beginning of the sing-off, pretty much sums up writers Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow's level of interest in the lives of Catherine of Aragon (Adrianna Hicks), Anne Boleyn (Andrea Macasaet), Jane Seymour (Abby Mueller), Anna of Cleves (Brittney Mack), Katherine Howard (understudy Courtney Mack in the performance I saw), and Catherine Parr (Anna Uzele). In between the songs, the women disparage one another's suffering, all in an attempt to snipe their way to the grand prize: leader of the group and, with it, the audience's adulation. [more]

Friends! The Musical Parody

July 28, 2021

The problem with the show now at The Jerry Orbach Theater is director Tim Drucker’s frenetic, over-the-top staging and the artificially broad presentational style of the acting, similar to - but beyond - what he did in his 2019 production of "Love Actually? The Unauthorized Musical Parody" at the same theater. It is as though he does not trust the material. Matthew Fischer’s sound design for the taped score by composer Assaf Gleizner (to Gleizner’s orchestrations) is overly loud and fast, overpowering the clever lyrics which are well worth hearing for their stinging barbs at the television series. It also makes all of the songs sound the same, except for some short, slower folk ballads set to guitar accompaniment which are mostly oddball numbers for Phoebe to play in her gig as a folksinger. [more]

Little Shop of Horrors

November 5, 2019

In a counterintuitive casting coup, handsome Jonathan Groff stars as the nebbish Seymour Krelborn who works at Mushnik’s (a funny, kvetchy Tom Alan Robbins) failing flower shop on Skid Row.  Seymour discovers an odd potted plant in Chinatown after an eclipse, a plant that leads to great success for both Mushnik and Seymour. Although it is difficult to forget Groff’s physical attributes (well-hidden under Tom Broecker’s costumes), he delivers a brilliantly realized sad sack Seymour. Poor Seymour is in love with the much put upon Audrey played with ditzy perfection by Tammy Blanchard.  Two-time Tony Award winner Christian Borle chews the scenery as Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend, Orin Scrivello plus several other characters such as a William Morris agent and an NBC TV executive. [more]

Hadestown

April 29, 2019

The dazzling Broadway production of Anais Mitchell’s musical "Hadestown" proves director/developer Rachel Chavkin to be a creative genius. If you had not known it after she fitted her theater-in-the round production of "Natasha and Pierre and the Comet of 1812" into a Broadway theater, it is even more obvious now. This time she has turned her 2016 New York Theatre Workshop staging in the round into a production suitable for Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre with its proscenium stage without losing the sense that the musical takes place in many different places. Along with gripping choreography and movement from David Neumann and an onstage jazz band of six, the show simply takes your breath away, telling the joint stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone. [more]

The Play That Goes Wrong

April 12, 2017

While the non-stop buffoonery is reminiscent of Charles Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company, this British import (produced by London’s Mischief Theater, no less) immediately evokes inevitable comparisons with "Noises Off," Michael Frayn’s divine and (admittedly, more) sophisticated farce about a community theater company putting on a play--perhaps the most hilarious, theatrical farce that has ever been devised by a playwright. But the present offering also has less of an agenda, settling for the sheer mayhem of putting together a group of people on a stage, during an ongoing performance, when absolutely everything that can possibly go wrong, does. It’s a surefire setup for the comic and rewarding chaos that ensues. In the end, and basically throughout, "The Play that Goes Wrong" has gone very right, indeed. [more]

Hamilton

August 21, 2015

The Broadway transfer of the acclaimed Off Broadway musical "Hamilton" has finally taken place and the show looks and sounds even more comfortable on the larger stage of the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Alexander Hamilton may have been the unsung hero among the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution but this new musical has changed all that. "Hamilton," now safely ensconced on Broadway, blows the dust off history and turns his story into the most exciting stage show in town. Inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography, triple-threat creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer, librettist and star of the show playing the title role, has had the terrific idea to write Hamilton as a through-composed hip-hop, r & b, rap musical which gives the 200-year-old story a tremendous shot of adrenalin. This may well be the first hip-hop musical to reach Broadway but also pays homage to the styles that preceded it. [more]

Copyright Jack Quinn, 2001-2026