Adam Feldman

Alright: time to get physical and also musical. Contrary to what the very ripped personal trainer at the gym keeps screaming at you, sometimes the best motivation for working up a sweat isn’t the grunting encouragement of a stranger clutching a protein shake. Often, you just need the right song to get your blood pumping, your body moving and you mind in the zone. The perfect workout song is, to some extent, an elusive beast that heavily depends on what type of music you’re into: presumably there are people out there who work out to showtunes, and good for them. The unifying factor is enough energy to power the national grid, and a decently fast beat to help you keep the pace up. Beyond that, all bets are off,  To help you on your fitness journey, we tapped our stable of music geeks – some of which are in much better shape than others – to scour their knowledge of hip-hop, pop, classic rock and for 55 high-energy motivators. Some may seem like pretty leftfield choices, but all of them should get your pulse racing. Strap on the sweatband and get ready to move.  Written by Kristen Zwicker, Marley Lynch, Hank Shteamer, Gabrielle Bruney, Brent DiCrescenzo, Sophie Harris, Andy Kryza, Andrew Frisicano, Nick Leftley, Tim Lowery, Carla Sosenko, Kate Wertheimer, Steve Smith and Andrzej Łukowski. RECOMMENDED:🏃 The best running songs💪 The best motivational songs🤩 The best inspirational songs🎸 The best classic rock songs⚡️ The best songs about power

Seeing a show on Broadway can require a little planning in advance—and sometimes a leap of faith. You can wait until the shows have opened and try to see only the very best Broadway shows, but at that point, it is often harder to get tickets and good seats. So it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the shows that will be opening on Broadway down the line, be they original musicals, promising new plays or revivals of time-tested classics. This fall, the lineup includes several shows that won acclaim in previous Off Broadway runs, two musical-theater adaptations of beloved films, an epic by the great Tom Stoppard and revivals of no fewer than five Pulitzer Prize–winning dramas. Here, in order of when they start, are all the productions that have been confirmed so far to open on Broadway in 2022. 

We all need a bit of magic in our lives, and New York offers plenty to choose from beyond Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Some of the city's best magic shows are proudly in the old presentational tradition of men in tuxedos with tricks up their sleeves; others are more like Off Broadway shows or immersive theater experiences. When performed well, they welcome you to suspend disbelief in a special zone where skills honed over the course of years meet the element of surprise. Why not allow yourself a few illusions?

For dance lovers, New York City always offers good reasons to get moving. If your taste runs to classical ballet, you can get your fill from New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre at Lincoln Center. For more modern fare, visit the Joyce Theatre, New York Live Arts, New York City Center, BAM or the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Looking for avant-garde work? You'll find it at the Skirball Center, the Chocolate Factory or Abrons Arts Center—and that's not to mention hip hop dance, international pageants, dance theater, Broadway musicals, experimental performance art and much more. Here are some of the best dance shows to check out in the next few months. RECOMMENDED: The top New York attractions

New York theater ranges far beyond the 41 large midtown houses that we call Broadway. Many of the city's most innovative and engaging new plays and musicals can be found Off Broadway, in venues that seat between 100 and 499 people. (Those that seat fewer than 100 people usually fall into the Off-Off Broadway category.) These more intimate spaces present work in a wide range of styles, from new pieces by major artists at the Public Theater or Playwrights Horizons to revivals at the Signature Theatre and crowd-pleasing commercial fare at New World Stages. And even the best Off Broadway shows usually cost less than their cousins on the Great White Way—even if you score cheap Broadway tickets. Use our listings to find reviews, prices, ticket links, curtain times and more for current and upcoming Off Broadway shows. RECOMMENDED: Full list of Broadway and Off Broadway musicals in New York

When it comes to theater, who says you have to just sit and watch? Immersive theater in New York City puts you right in the middle of the action, and often draws you in to participate. Whereas most Broadway shows still follow the traditional proscenium-arch model, immersive Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions tend break down the barriers between actors and spectators, letting you follow your own paths through unconventional spaces. To help you navigate the maze of options, here is our list of the city's best immersive and interactive shows. RECOMMENDED: Best Broadway shows

Broadway musicals are the beating heart of New York City. These days, your options are more diverse than ever: cultural game-changers like Hamilton and raucous comedies like The Book of Mormon are just down the street from moving dramas like Dear Evan Hansen, sweeping operettas like The Phantom of the Opera and family classics like The Lion King. Whether you're looking for classic Broadway songs, spectacular sets and costumes, star turns by Broadway divas or dance numbers performed by the hottest chorus boys and girls, there is always plenty to choose from. Here is our list of all the Broadway musicals that are currently running or on their way, followed by a list of those in smaller Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway venues. RECOMMENDED: The best Broadway shows

Public spaces come alive with free outdoor theater in New York City in the summer, and especially with the plays of William Shakespeare. The top destination, of course, is the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park presents excellent productions that among New York's best things to do in the summer. But you can also enjoy plays by Shakespeare and other classical masters elsewhere in the city: in Harlem,  Brooklyn, at Riverside Park, even in a Lower East Side parking lot. You might be surprised by the magic that can come from wonderful words, inventive actors and a mild summer breeze. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to things to do outside in NYC

The best Broadway shows attract millions of people to enjoy the pinnacle of live entertainment in New York City. Every season brings new Broadway musicals, plays and revivals, some of which go on to glory at the Tony Awards. Along with star-driven dramas and family-oriented blockbusters, you can still find the kind of artistically ambitious and original offerings that are more common to the smaller venues of Off Broadway. All Broadway productions were closed in March 2020, but most of them are now sheduled to return in the fall or spring, and you can buy tickets for them now. Here are our theater critics' top choices among the shows that are currently playing on the Great White Way.  RECOMMENDED: Complete A–Z listings of Broadway shows in NYC

Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2022 tickets will get you the full experience of Christmas in New York. This show has it all: a flying Santa, an incredibly ornate nativity scene and a new finale that uses drone technology. And don’t forget about the Rockettes in Wooden Soldier costumes and kick lines! It's one of the can't-miss NYC events in November and December, so here’s everything you need to know about snagging tickets to the most festive show of the season. (And don’t forget to take a photo under the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree afterward.) RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular When is the Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2022? This year's Radio City Christmas Spectacular, officially known as Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes, runs from November 18, 2022 through January 2, 2023. The show is performed from two to five times a day, with rotating companies of performers. When is the Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2022? The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is at Radio City Music Hall at Rockefeller Center. Take the B, D, F or M to 47th-50th Sts–Rockefeller Center or the 1 to 50th St. How do you get Radio City Christmas Spectacular tickets in 2022? Tickets are available for purchase on the Rockettes website. You can also buy tickets directly at the box office of Radio City Music Hall. How much are Radio City Christmas Spectacular tickets in 2022? Ticket prices vary widely depending on date, time and location. The curren

There's no business like show business, and there's no place better for shows than New York City. The sheer range of Off Broadway show for kids proves just that. Each of these theater productions offers something unique, including blue men from another world, wild percussion, a man-eating plant and—much to kids' delight—more bubbles than you've probably ever seen before. (Of course, there are plenty of great Broadway shows for kids as well.)  Note that proof of vaccination is currently required for anyone over 12 and a negative COVID test is required for kids who are younger than that. Masks must also be worn inside the theater. Be sure to check out the specific requirements for any show you plan to attend before going. RECOMMENDED: More theater for kids in NYC Have you already checked out these cool Off Broadway shows for kids? New York has plenty of other fun activities up its sleeve. Visit these family attractions with your crew, grab a bite to eat after the show at one of these fun restaurants or try to check the 101 things to do with kids in NYC off your list. 

Broadway and Off Broadway productions get most of the attention, but to get a true sense of the range and diversity of New York theater, you need to look to the smaller productions collectively known as Off-Off Broadway. There are about 200 Off-Off Broadway spaces in New York, mostly with fewer than 99 seats. Experimental plays thrive in New York's best Off-Off Broadway venues; that's where you'll find many of the city's most challenging and original works. But Off-Off is more than just the weird stuff: It also includes everything from magic shows to revivals of rarely seen classics, and it's a good place to get early looks at major rising talents. What's more, it tends to be affordable; while cheap Broadway tickets can be hard to find, most Off-Off Broadway shows are in the $15–$25 range. Here are some of the current shows that hold the most promise. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to Off Broadway shows in NYC 

The free annual Battery Dance Festival, formerly known as the Downtown Dance Festival, takes place outdoors at Robert F. Wagner Park, in front of the sparkling New York Harbor. For its 41st edition this year, it is offering both in-person and streaming options. The lineup includes multiple U.S. or world premieres, and the participating companies include visiting groups from Singapore, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada. The first seven shows are general admission, but reservations are required for the 6pm finale on August 20 (which is held indoors at the Schimmel Center). Here is a full schedule of the artists and companies that will be performing. Visit the festival's website for additional details. Saturday, August 13 (Young Voices in Dance):Sydney Burtis, The DifferenceZachary Seto, Nostalgic Beings of SynesthesiaCamryn and Courtney Spero, DistanceKate Louissaint, Bird’s EyeLerato Ragontse, In Between ChangeAnya Susan, In ConversationMyles King, The Last FoundryShannon Harkins, Dreams and Nightmares of a Mutant People Sunday, August 14:Dancing Wheels Company, Unconquered WarriorsBallet Nepantla, Let Down and Huasteca SuiteLinotip, Diagonal & CainGaudanse, nanibuPeridance Contemporary Dance Company, Just Above the SurfaceThe Vanaver Caravan, Vanaver Caravan Retrospective Dancing Wheels | Photograph: Courtesy Steven Pisano Monday, August 15 (India Independence Day):Lineup to be announced Tuesday, August 16: Christina Carminucci, The Solidarity Series IV: Free Spirit

Five of New York City's leading dance companies—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispánico, Dance Theatre of Harlem and New York City Ballet—perform together in the second annual edition of the BAAND Festival, sharing an outdoor stage at Lincoln Center in a run that consists of five free shows. Each lineup is slightly different, but they all include a performance of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's One for All, a world-premiere commission that features dancers from all five troupes. Admission is free and mostly first-come-first-served, but a limited number of advance reservations are available; the window for making them starts at noon on Monday, August 8. Find out more about advance reservations here. In addition to the evening performances in Damrosch Park, the companies offer educational afternoon workshops throughout the festival, by general admission on a first-come-first-served basis. New York City Ballet: Allegro Brillante | Photograph: Courtesy ​Erin Baiano​ Here is a full list of the works that are scheduled for  each night of the BAAND Festival:Tuesday, August 9:One for All by Annabelle Lopez OchoaAlvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Cry by Alvin AileyBallet Hispánico: Con Brazos Abiertos by Michelle ManzanalesDance Theatre of Harlem: When Love by Helen PickettAmerican Ballet Theatre: Children's Songs Dance by Jessica LangNew York City Ballet: Red Angels by Ulysses Dove Wednesday, August 10:One for All by Annabelle Lopez OchoaBallet Hispáni

You’ll get a kick out of this holiday stalwart, which still features Santa, wooden soldiers and the dazzling Rockettes. In recent years, new music, more eye-catching costumes and advanced technology have been introduced to bring audience members closer to the performance. Whatever faults one may find with this awesomely lavish annual pageant (it's basically a celebration of the virtues of shopping), this show has legs. And what legs! In the signature kick line that finds its way into most of the big dance numbers, the Rockettes’ 36 flawless pairs of gams rise and fall like the batting of an eyelash, their perfect unison a testament to the disciplined human form. This is precision dancing on a massive scale—a Busby Berkeley number come to glorious life—and it takes your breath away. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular

Sixteen is not sweet for the deceptively youthful heroine of this lovely new musical by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori: Played by the sixtysomething Victoria Clark, she has a disease that makes her age at a superfast rate. But two agents of disruption shake up her perspective: her aunt Debra (the unstoppable Bonnie Milligan), a hilarious gale force of chaos, and Seth (Justin Cooley), an anagram-loving classmate. Clever, touching and idiosyncratic, Kimberly Akimbo was the best new musical of 2021, when it opened at the Atlantic; now it moves to Broadway, directed once again by Jessica Stone, with an ace supporting ast that includes Steven Boyer and Alli Mauzey. 

Broadway review by Adam Feldman Part of the magic of fairy tales is how they gain in repetition: Often though we’ve heard them, we still can thrill to each new telling, each variation on their familiar themes. So it is with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s dazzlingly fractured 1987 musical Into the Woods, which combines the stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood and more into a witty tragicomic farce that—instead of some tidy moral—ends with a complex look at morality itself. In the past decade alone, New York audiences have been treated to revivals of Into the Woods in Central Park and Off Broadway as well as a live-action Disney film adaptation. Now, after a smash spring engagement at City Center’s Encores! series, the show returns for a limited Broadway run in a focused, funny and thoroughly satisfying staging by director Lear deBessonet.  True to its semi-concert roots, this production is low on spectacle. The trees of David Rockwell’s ghostly set are tall, pale, mottled tubes suspended from the ceiling over an onstage orchestra conducted with flair by Rob Berman. The choreography, by Lorin Latarro, is simple and well-judged. The costumes are a weak spot—even dialed up to Skittles brightness for the Broadway transfer, they are mostly dull and sometimes perversely indifferent to their function—but it hardly matters. The emphasis is on Sondheim’s twisting, punning, verbose score and on the easy charisma of the performers, who seem to be hav

Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s fizzy crowd-pleaser, in which a sassy-yet-dignified drag queen kicks an English shoe factory into gear, feels familiar at every step. But it has been manufactured with solid craftsmanship and care, and the overall effect is nigh irresistible. Three years after the end of its long run on Broadway, the show now returns for an Off Broadway run, with Callum Francis and Christian Douglas in the leading roles. 

In the helter-skelter of summer theater, the cool curatorial heads of the New Ohio's Ice Factory always provide a welcome breeze. Each production in the fest's 29th annual edition runs for a single week, but the Thursday performance of each show is live-streamed and remains viewable on demand until the end of the festival. See below for details about this year's shows.  July 6–9: Trash Body Monkey FestJenn Pitt's tragic comedy, inspired by traditions of clown work and dance theater, uses a drunken group-suicide pact among Molière and his friends as the jumping-off point for a look at the riddles of life, death and humor. The piece was devised with its all-female cast.    July 13–16: The Weaver (part II) ParadigmTÉA Artistry's devised piece, the second in its series of works about the nuances of racism, looks at the aftershocks of a heated outburst by a young hospital patient. Vieve Radha Price and Chuk Obasi are the director-creators; the script is by cast members Tara Amber and Nalini Sharma.  July 20–23: IslaHit the Lights! Theater Co.'s multimedia piece, inspired by the family history of cast member Samatha Blain, fuses documentary theater with magical realism, Cuban mythology and Miyazaki movies in telling the story of three sisters who escape from a war-scarred island and work to build new senses of home.  July 27–30: Acheron: The River of TragedyAline Lemus Bernal and Cinthia Pérez Navarro perform a new work by Xavier Villanova that applies mythopoetic techniques to

Broadway review by Adam Feldman Broadway’s 2021-22 comeback season goes out with a shrug in Sam Gold’s production of Macbeth, the kind of passive-aggressive theater party that invites two big stars to attend—Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga as the regicidal title couple—and then makes a point of ignoring them. Short, eloquent, violent and packed with sensational business (murder! witches! madness! ghosts! a decapitated head!), Macbeth is usually one of Shakespeare’s most exciting plays. Not so here: Deliberately murky, this anemic modern-dress production creeps at a petty pace from scene to scene, to the last syllable of the tragedy’s verse and beyond into a wistful folk-song coda. The show begins with an annotative curtain speech by cast member Michael Patrick Thornton, who provides wry background on the vilification of witches in the early 17th century and then naughtily urges audience members to violate the taboo against saying the play’s name offstage in a theater. If you’re superstitious by nature, the two and a half hours that follow might thus be chalked up to bad luck. But it’s clear that Gold has done everything on purpose, however vague that purpose sometimes seems. As in the director's disappointing 2019 King Lear, dramaturgy usurps pride of place over staging; even if you know Macbeth quite well, the plot is strangely hard to track, and you may find yourself confused by the skeletal mise-en-scène and the doubling and tripling of roles. In keeping with its introduction,

Broadway review by Adam Feldman Billy Crystal talks loudly and carries a big shtick in Mr. Saturday Night, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. In this musical adaptation of his 1992 film, Crystal stars as a dried-up nightclub comic named Buddy Young Jr.—an ironic name, since he’s far from young, and he’s never been anybody's buddy. He’s a tough cut of brisket, and decades after a career-ending tirade on live TV in the 1950s, he’s been reduced to grouchy gigs on the Jewish retirement-home circuit. (“Don’t get me started!” is his starting line.) But when his face mistakenly pops up in an awards-show In Memoriam sequence, Young gets a chance to revive his career from the dead. Can he seize it? Or will he be his own schlemiel yet again? Thirty years ago, Crystal wore aging makeup to play this role on film. He doesn’t need it anymore, but he never really did: He has Buddy in his bones. Crystal has been playing this alter kocker alter ego since at least Saturday Night Live in 1985, and Buddy's type of Catskills-and-Friars-Club cut-up is embedded in his comic style: He has deep affection and respect for the generation of comedians that Buddy represents, and he keeps their spirit alive in his timing, his rhythms, his soulful aggression. (“Happy anniversary. Forty-five years!” Buddy tells his wife. “Eleven of the best years of my life.”) In Mr. Saturday Night he honors their history with a sweet, slight, nostalgic musical comedy. Mr. Saturday Night | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew M

Broadway review by Adam Feldman POTUS begins with a four-letter c-word, and that word isn’t can’t. The running joke of Selina Fillinger’s lightly feminist political farce—which bears the annotational subtitle Or, Behind Every Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive—is that the women who populate it are all highly capable in different ways, yet they’re stuck in the orbit of an incompetent and morally bankrupt oaf who is the world’s most powerful man. Why aren’t they in charge instead? Well: “That’s the eternal question, isn’t it?” as two characters ruefully ask. (Maybe Hillary Clinton has an answer.) Mostly, the jokes in POTUS are less pointed. The White House setting is an excuse for a broad, zany, old-school comedy, which is a rarity on Broadway nowadays—especially in the form of a world premiere by a twentysomething woman. You can feel how hungry the spectators are to laugh together, and they get to do it often in this silly, fast-paced lark. It helps enormously that the production, directed by Susan Stroman (The Producers), is so well-cast. This ensemble makes an implicit argument of its own for female accomplishment: Even when their characters are floundering hopelessly, these ladies are pros. POTUS | Photograph: Courtesy Paul Kolnik The great Julie White, stage queen of the slow build, plays the Chief of Staff, a pressure cooker with her release valve rattling. Vanessa Williams—in the best performance I’ve seen her give onstage—is the poised, overqualified, und

Broadway review by Adam Feldman A Strange Loop is a wild ride. In a Broadway landscape dominated by shows that often seem designed by corporations for audiences of focus groups, Michael R. Jackson’s musical is the defiant product of a single and singular authorial vision. This wide-ranging intravaganza takes a deep dive, often barely coming up for breath, into a whirlpool of ambition and frustration as Jackson's seeming alter ego—a queer, Black writer-composer named Usher (Jaquel Spivey)—struggles to define himself amid traps of sex, race, family, body image, religion and entertainment. It’s screamingly funny and howlingly hurt, and it’s unmissable.   Smartly directed by Stephen Brackett, the show caused a sensation in 2019 when it premiered at Playwrights Horizons; now, after multiple top-ten lists and an armful of honors (including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award), it has reached Broadway without compromising its conflicted, challenging, sometimes actively family-unfriendly content. The songs are welcomingly tuneful and clever, but as Usher warns us in the opening number: “A Strange Loop will have Black shit! And white shit! It’ll give you uptown and downtown! With truth-telling and butt-fucking!”  All of that is true—including, graphically, the last part—but it barely begins to describe the show’s discombobulating melange of anger, joy, neurosis and honesty. In this very meta musical, Usher is the only real character: the unstable “I

Broadway review by Adam Feldman Antrobuses! Meet the Antrobuses! They’re a modern Stone Age family of sorts in the first act of The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder’s still-outré 1942 parable about, well, just about everything. Mr. Antrobus (James Vincent Meredith) enjoys modest renown as the inventor of the wheel; now he lives with Mrs. Antrobus (Roslyn Ruff) and their two children, Henry (Julian Robertson) and Gladys (Paige Gilbert), in a comfortable 1950s suburban New Jersey home that also accomodates a mammoth and a brachiosaur, whose adorable puppet head is set atop a long articulated neck. It’s all going swimmingly for this “typical American family”—except, of course, for the giant wall of ice that has descended from the North and now looms over their yard. Wilder’s unwieldy epic, which is being revived at Lincoln Center in an eye-popping production directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, telescopes human experience into a transhistorical study of cycles of destruction and survival through the ages. In the second act, the action inexplicably moves to Atlantic City in the 1920s, where hedonism runs rampant—there’s a giant slide in the background, and actors sometimes go zooming down it—and a fortune teller (Priscilla Lopez) warns of an impending flood that will wipe the world clean. The third act, again with no explanation, takes place in the ruins of a devastating war, with father and son on opposing sides; in this production, they are dressed in the blue and grey uniforms of

The dance world tends to take some time off in the summer, as major companies ramp up for their upcoming fall seasons, but that doesn’t mean that fans of gorgeous human movement have nowhere to turn in August. On the contrary: Dance is more accessible to everyday New Yorkers than ever this month, thanks to free dance festivals in scenic outdoor locations around the city. Here is a quick guide to some of what you can see in the weeks ahead. (Click on the links for full details.) BAAND Together Dance Festival (Lincoln Center, August 9–August 13 at 7:30pm):Five of New York City's most prestigious dance companies—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispánico, Dance Theatre of Harlem and New York City Ballet—perform together at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park in five free shows. Each lineup is slightly different, but they all include a performance of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's One for All, which features dancers from all five troupes. Admission is mostly first-come-first-served, but advance reservations are available; the window for making them starts at noon on Monday, August 8. Battery Dance Festival (Robert F. Wagner Park, August 13–20 at 7pm):This beloved annual fest takes place way downtown at Robert F. Wagner Park, in front of the sparkling New York Harbor. The 41st edition's lineup includes multiple U.S. or world premieres, and the participating companies include visiting groups from Singapore, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada. The firs

Just don't call her Audrey II. Lena Hall, the thrilling-voiced actor-singer who won a 2014 Tony Award for playing Yitzhak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, will take over the pivotal role of Audrey in the hit Off Broadway revival of the musical Little Shop of Horrors in early September, Time Out has learned. Audrey, a hard-knocked but lovable gutter flower and florist, was first incarnated on stage and screen by Ellen Greene, and is currently played by Tammy Blanchard. Hall will step into her teetering high heels on September 6, 2022. In addition to her Broadway credits, which include the original cast of Kinky Boots, Hall has brought her rangy rock belt to many concert engagements, from downtown clubs to the Josh Groban concert circuit. She seems certain to electrify in Audrey's signature numbers, "Somewhere That's Green" and "Suddenly Seymour."  Also joining the Little Shop company will be the charming Andrew Call in the multicharacter comic track—currently played by Christian Borle, who is leaving to star in Some Like It Hot—that includes Audrey's abusive dentist-biker boyfriend, Orin Scrivello. A veteran of six Broadway shows, including Groundhog Day and the short-lived Glory Days, Call will begin his engagement on August 30. Both Blanchard and Borle have been with the production since 2019, when they opened it opposite Jonathan Groff as the show's morally weak-willed hero, Seymour, who unwittingly cultivates a man-eating plant (which he names, yes, Audrey II). Numerous act

Everyone who ever met Elaine Stritch—hell, anyone who ever saw her perform—has a Stritch story. She often told stories about herself, most memorably in her 2002 solo play Elaine Stritch at Liberty. Brilliantly sardonic, inspirational and self-eviscerating, it was the acme (amid valleys and long plateaus) of one of the great theater careers of our time, which came to an end with her death today in her home state of Michigan, at the age of 89. Stritch gained new fans in recent years through her Emmy-winning role as the irascible Colleen Donaghy on NBC’s 30 Rock. But she was a theater woman to her bones, on stage and off. Her legendary Broadway run spanned 65 years, from her debut in the 1946 comedy Loco to her 2011 turn as the weary ex-courtesan Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. Her performance of Stephen Sondheim’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” in the era-defining 1970 musical Company is on everyone’s top-ten list of eleven-o’clock numbers, down to its furious final command to join her in a toast: “Everybody rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!” I have had occasion to write about the tough-talking, hard-living Stritch many times, including here (about her cabaret shows at the Carlyle Hotel, where she also lived) and here (about Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, the 2013 film documentary about her). As a performer, there was no one quite like her. But it’s about the stories. In that spirit, here’s mine. Elaine Stritch was my trial by fire: the first big star I ever int

It's been no secret that the vultures have been swirling around the troubled Broadway production of the musical Funny Girl. The birds are now feasting with today's official news that  Lea Michele—the erstwhile star of TV's Glee and Broadway's Spring Awakening—will take over the show's leading role of Fanny Brice starting September 6, 2022. Inspired by the history of the early-20th-century Ziegfeld Follies singer-comedian and radio star Fanny Brice, Funny Girl helped make Barbra Streisand a megastar in 1964, but its current revival—the show's first on Broadway—has proved far less salubrious for its young star, Beanie Feldstein. Many of us had high hopes that Feldstein, a talented comic actor, would find a successful new spin on the role, but her reviews were mostly brutal, and she has gone on to miss many performances, whether because of illness or pre-scheduled absences. Meanwhile, her standby for those performances, Julie Benko, has been the subject of excited buzz and praise throughout the process, which can't have made things easier for the beleaguered Beanie. Last month, the production announced that Feldstein and costar Jane Lynch would leave the production on September 25, considerably earlier than planned; unconfirmed rumors swirled that Michele, who has made no secret of her interest in playing Fanny, would be her replacement. The situation got more dramatic yesterday when Feldstein posted a cryptic message to her instagram account, revealing that she would be leaving

Broadway's sometimes unsteady, often inspiring 2021–22 comeback season comes to an official end on Sunday, June 12, when the 2022 Tony Awards are handed out at Radio City Music Hall. The nominations have been made, the reactions have been had, the predictions have been lodged. Now there's nothing left but the awarding—and, of course, the singing and dancing. In addition to performances by eight of this year's musical contenders—A Strange Loop, Company, Girl From the North Country, MJ, Mr. Saturday Night, The Music Man, Paradise Square and Six—the evening will feature musical turns by Bernadette Peters, Billy Porter, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and the original cast of Spring Awakening. Ariana DeBose will host the main part of the event, which will be broadcast nationally on CBS.  Here are five tips for watching the Tony Awards this year. 1. For the first time, the Tony Awards will air live from coast to coast Theater is all about the thrill of the live moment, but in past years viewers who weren't in the Eastern Time Zone watched the Tony telecast hours after happened. In the age of social media, that delay has seemed increasingly old-fashioned. So this year, CBS will be broadcasting the three-hour main portion of the awards ceremony live and simultaneously from coast to coast: 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 6pm MT and 5pm PT. (If you're recording it on DVR to watch later, remember that the telecast sometimes runs long.) 2. The Tonys will be in two parts—and the first hour will not b

The 2022 Tony nominations have finally been announced, six days later than originally scheduled, and for the most part I think they represent solid choices—which is to say, they mostly accord with the nominees that I would have chosen myself if I had been the nominating committee. Over the next few weeks, before the voting window closes on June 10, we can expect a lot of jockeying for position in some of the closer races, and if history is any guide there will probably be an upset or two when the awards are actually given out on Sunday, June 12. Meanwhile, here are a few of my first reactions to this year's crop of nominations. RECOMMENDED: A Full guide to the 2022 Tony Awards 1. The Big Picture After two years in limbo, including an endlessly deferred and muted Tony Awards for the incomplete 2019–20 season, it's a joy to see a full year's slate of nominees again, with so many potentially competitive races. And with six candidates for Best Musical instead of five, thanks to a quirk in the voting laws, the Tony telecast promises to be heavy on entertainment this year. 2. The Encouraging Signs The big story last fall was the predominance of shows by and/or about Black people, and the centrality of Black work in this year's Broadway season is reflected to some extent in the Tony nominations: Most of this year's six Best Musical nominees feature Black stories centrally, as do two of the play nominees—Skeleton Crew and Clyde's—and many of the nominated revivals. And actors of colo

The nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards were announced this morning, honoring productions from Broadway's first full season since the COVID shutdown two years ago. The awards are given out annually by the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing to salute outstanding achievements in 26 categories of Broadway artistry. Actors Adrienne Warren and Joshua Henry revealed the nominees live on YouTube at 9am today. Among the 2021-22 Broadway productions earning the most nominations were the new musicals A Strange Loop (11), MJ (10), Paradise Square (10), Six (9) and Girl from the North Country (7); the new plays The Lehman Trilogy (9), Clyde's (5) and Hangmen (5); and the revivals Company (9), for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (7), The Music Man (6) and The Skin of Our Teeth (6).   RECOMMENDED: A full guide to the 2022 Tony Awards The Tony Awards ceremony will be held at Radio City Music Hall on June 12, 2022, and televised live throughout the country on CBS starting at 8pm ET. Some awards will be given out during the previous hour on the streaming service Paramount+. A Special Tony will be awarded to outgoing New York Theatre Workshop artistic director James C. Nicola, and the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award will be presented to Shubert Organization president Robert E. Wankel. As previously announced, the Tonys will also award five Honors for Excellence in the Theatre. Here is a complete list of the official nominations for the 2022 Tony Aw

April is always crunch time on Broadway, as shows rush to open in time to qualify for the Tony Awards in June. But this year, the density of Broadway openings is especially crushing: When the smoke clears on April 28, the last official date for Tonys eligibility, 15 news shows will have opened in April, including 10 shows in the last 12-day stretch alone. To put that in perspective: These 15 shows represent an unprecedented 44% of the entire 2021-22 Broadway season, in which 34 new productions will have opened. Broadway seasons have been getting markedly more bottom-heavy for decades now, as we analyzed at some length in 2015. And this year's season has been squeezed toward the finish line for reasons that are partly beyond its control: The Omicron variant this winter, among other factors, caused several productions to move back their starting and opening dates. But one late entry—the comedy POTUS—did the opposite, moving its dates forward; the unusual result is a Wednesday with one opening in the afternoon and another in the evening. As we wrote in 2015: "This may not seem very important to anyone but theater critics. Who else, after all, will be seeing all these shows? But that’s part of the problem: Virtually no one can keep up with what’s happening on Broadway when the field is so crowded. There's not enough room for everyone. Shows that could get a decent amount of press and publicity any other time of year are bound to get lost in the process." So here, dear readers, i

叫ぶ用意はいいだろうか。Kポップガールズグループ、f(x)の元メンバーのルナが、今秋ニューヨークのブロードウェイで初演されるミュージカル『KPOP』に主演することが、制作側から発表された。劇場はCircle on the Squareで、プレビューは2022年10月13日（木）にスタート。本公演の開幕日は11月20日（日）の予定だ。 『KPOP』は元々、2017年にArs Novaが制作した、没入型のオフブロードウェイ作品。​​グループに分かれた観客が、A.R.T./New York Theatres内での「ヒット工場見学ツアー」へ導かれるという内容だった。 ブロードウェイでの上映に当たり、一般的な演出に変更されるが、ブロードウェイで唯一非伝統的な座席構成を持つCircle on the Squareの上演されるという事実は、オリジナルの没入感的要素が残っている可能性を示唆している。オフブロードウェイ公演と同様に、演出はテディ・バーグマンが再び手がけ、振付をジェニファー・ウェーバーが担当する。 Woodshed Collectiveとジェイソン・キムが企画し、キムが脚本を、ヘレン・パークとマックス・ヴェノンがスコアを担当したこの作品は、架空のエンターテインメントレーベルでスターが育成される過程を描く。 タイムアウトでは、2017年のオフブロードウェイ公演について、次のようにレビュー。 「観客を『バブル』のような現代韓国音楽の世界に引き込むことを狙った脚本で、文字通りそういった作品に仕上がっている。まさに周囲で小さな快楽の泡が次々と立ち上がり、パン、パンと弾けていくようだ。作品の中で、パフォーマーが綿密に作り上げたイメージの中には汚さや汗が見えるが、アクセントなどの韓国民族性の痕跡は消し去られている」 f(x)での活動後、ソロでも成功を収めているルナを、ミュージカル界で知らない者はいないだろう。彼女はこれまで、韓国で上演された『レガリー・ブロンド』『イン・ザ・ハイツ』『マンマ・ミーア！』などに出演してきた。 ルナは今作への出演に当たり、次のように意気込みを語っている。 「私のキャリアを知っている人なら誰でも、ミュージカルが常に私の情熱の源であることを知っています。ブロードウェイは、私の職業における達成の頂点。ここにショーを見るために世界中から集まってくる人たちに、私の文化である韓国の芸術を提供できることは、名誉なことです」 この秋のブロードウェイは、『KPOP』のほかにも、話題作がめじろ押し。2021年のミュージカル『Kimberly Akimbo』のオフブロードウェイからの移籍公演、アーロン・ソーキンによるリンカーン・センターが制作するラーナー＆ロウの戯曲『Camelot』の改作、サミュエル・L・ジャクソン主演のオーガスト・ウィルソン原作『The Piano Lesson』のリバイバル公演などに注目したい。 原文はこちら 関連記事 『韓国が4月1日からワクチン接種完了した旅行者に隔離を免除』 『パスポート不要、韓国をテーマとしたエンタメスポットが自由が丘に誕生』 『屋台が並ぶ夜市を再現、新大久保韓国横丁がオープン』 『三河島、プチ韓国旅行ガイド』 『新大久保、韓国を感じる最新スポット』 東京の最新情報をタイムアウト東京のメールマガジンでチェックしよう。登録はこちら 

Start screaming now: The real-life Korean pop star Luna, a former member of the chart-topping K-pop girl group f(x), will star in the original musical KPOP when it makes its Broadway debut this fall, the production announced today. The show will begin previews at Circle on the Square on October 13, 2022, and will officially open on November 20. KPOP premiered in New York in 2017 in Ars Nova's immersive Off Broadway production, in which the audience was split into groups and led through a music-factory tour of multiple spaces in the A.R.T./New York Theatres complex. The show will be reworked for a more conventional staging in its Broadway run, but the fact that it will be at Circle in the Square—Broadway's only space with a non-traditional seating plan, where in-the-round stagings are common—suggests that elements of the original immersive quality may remain. Teddy Bergman will once again direct, and Jennifer Weber will choreograph. RECOMMENDED: Complete A-Z list of Broadway musicals and Off Broadway musicals in NYC right now Conceived by Woodshed Collective and Jason Kim, with a book by Kim and a score by Helen Park and Max Vernon, KPOP takes an inside look at the molding of stars at a fictional entertainment label. "The script says it aims to plunge us into the world of contemporary Korean music 'like a bubble bath,' and that’s exactly what it does. Tiny bubbles of pleasure keep floating up and bursting all around us. Pop! Pop! Pop!," we wrote in our review of KPOP's 2017 pr

New York is up and dancing again. In venues around the city, dance companies that have been forced into restless quiescence are leaping back into action. And New York City Center is leading the charge this month with its first-ever City Center Dance Festival, a three-week feast of movement that features four of the country's most esteemed companies: two modern dance standard-bearers, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Martha Graham Dance Company, and two venerable ballet troupes, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Ballet Hispánico.  The inaugural City Center Dance Festival, which runs from March 24 through April 10, will mark the first time that three of these four major companies have performed indoors in New York City since the start of the pandemic shutdown in 2020—Martha Graham made its return at the Joyce in the fall—so emotions are sure to run high. Tickets for all performances can be purchased on the City Center website. See below for details about the lineup. And while you're at it, check out our listings of the best dance shows in NYC this month. There's plenty to choose from: March and April are packed with engagements by companies including Armitage Gone!, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Ailey II, Noche Flamenca, Limón Dance Company and, of course, New York City Ballet.   City Center Dance Festival 2022  March 24–27, 29–31:Paul Taylor Dance Company Modern-dance legend Paul Taylor died in 2018, but his work lives on through the company he founded. In its first indoor performances in

The Shubert Organization announced today that Broadway's Cort Theatre, which has been closed for renovations throughout the pandemic shutdown, will have a new name when it reopens its doors this summer: The James Earl Jones Theatre, named in honor of the great star of stage and screen. Now 91 years old, Jones has appeared in 21 Broadway productions in a career that spans back 65 years. His first official Broadway role was at the Cort, in the 1958 FDR bioplay Sunrise at Campobello. He won Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play in 1969 for The Great White Hope and again in 1987 for Fences. (He also received a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2017.) Other credits include leading roles in Paul Robeson and revivals of Othello, The Iceman Cometh and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  “For me standing in this very building sixty-four years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today,” said Jones of the renaming. “Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.” In addition to his stage work, Jones has starred in films including The Great White Hope, Claudine, Coming to America, Field of Dreams and The Hunt for Red October, and has loaned his sonorous authority to The Lion King and multiple films in the Star Wars franchise, in which he provided the voice of Darth Vader. Jones received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2002 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2011; he has won two Emmys and a Grammy for his work i