Paul Green Archives - TheaterScene.net

Paul Green

Mike & Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam

June 28, 2025

"Mike and Mindy’s Wild Weekend Jam," the musical returning Off Broadway in a bigger version than before, has a sophisticated score and unsophisticated book. The title is a bit of a misnomer as there is nothing “wild” about it and the “jam” part leads to unfilled expectations. However, the cast makes the most of the impressive musical portions of the show from Bucky Heard and Timothy D. Lee of the Righteous Brothers, salvaging Mark Corallo and Eileen Nelson’s book which resembles those Afterschool Specials of the past. [more]

Native Son

August 9, 2019

Kelley’s adaptation begins with the murder of Mary which avoids preparing us for the limited life of opportunity that Bigger leads in the Black Belt of Chicago. Told in a fragmentary form often with flashbacks within flashbacks, it is only possible to put the chronology together if one knows the novel. Kelley has also eliminated the powerful speech to the jury by Bigger’s lawyer which is one of the most famous of all statements on social racism and the constricted environmental influences on people living in the ghetto. [more]

Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage

February 15, 2017

One of the remarkable things about the theater songs of Kurt Weill is that like the later songs of Stephen Sondheim they are all really little one act plays which give the performers a great deal of latitude in how to perform them. As sung by Karl Josef Com, Rachel de Benedet, Michael Halling and Meghan Picerno and as narrated by Brian Charles Rooney, Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill is an extraordinary musical voyage through some of the greatest theater songs of all time written by among the best talents of the 20th century. [more]