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When you think of it, HAIRSPRAY will actually be celebrating two anniversaries this week. Twenty years have passed since the musical theater aficionados met the Turnblads of Baltimore. And aren’t we glad we did? In his 1988 film, John Waters gave us irrepressible teen Tracy Turnblad that songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman beautifully musicalized […]

Do psychiatrists really take off the entire month of August? Judith Rossner certainly substantiated this belief in her novel – called, naturally enough, AUGUST. However, a 2010 Wall Street Journal article said a psychiatrist’s skipping 31 consecutive midsummer days had become a thing of the past. That’s good news for our 21st-century musical theater characters, […]

As a certain Witch sings, “Don’t you know what’s out there in the world?” Sure! There’s a new production of INTO THE WOODS at Broadway’s St. James Theatre. Can it really be 35 years since composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and bookwriter James Lapine debuted their new musical (and eventually won Tonys for it)? That question came […]

It happened again this week. I met Marie, who lives in Alaska – Alaska, Pennsylvania – who’s been reading me since the days of THEATER WEEK. During lunch, my first question was, “So, how did you get interested in musicals?” Once again, the answer was one I receive from people who live in such places […]

In case you don’t know it, here’s your chance to be in the know about a unique Broadway composer. Twice a year, The Kurt Weill Foundation publishes a Kurt Weill Newsletter. Frankly, “Newsletter” is a misnomer; this is a mini-magazine of 24 pages that’s printed on decent paper stock whose pages are dotted with many […]