Vladimir Putin was working as a taxi driver when he visited one of the richest and most powerful men in Russia to ask for a favor.  The previous month, Putin had lost his job as the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, and he wanted help in getting back into politics. “I am interested in liberalizing Russia. For too long we have defined ourselves as enemies of the West. We need to become close to the West.” That, anyway, is what Will Keen as Vladimir Putin says in “Patriots.” The play by Peter Morgan, the British writer probably best-known for “The Crown,” had a successful run in Lo ..read more

Below are the nominations for the 90th annual Drama League Awards, announced this morning (video below) by Vanessa Williams and Bebe Neuwirth. The awards will be held at The Ziegfeld Ballroom on Friday, May 17, 2024 at 12:00PM Don’t know the difference between the awards of the Drama League and the Drama Desk and the New York Drama Critics Circle? Read my New York Theater Awards 2024 Calendar and Guide OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A PLAY THE COMEUPPANCE  Signature Theatre  The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Directed by Eric T ..read more

Four musicals and a play that has a lot of original music in it, opened on Broadway this past week, and two plays opened Off Broadway. By the end of the day Thursday, which marks the official end of the Broadway season, SEVEN more Broadway shows will have opened. The Week in New York Theater Reviews Broadway openings, in order of my preference: Suffs   “Suffs,”  a show about the final seven-year push to win American women the right to vote, has been changed a lot since its Off-Broadway production two years ago. The show is more streamlined, more focused. At the sa ..read more

Orlando (Taylor Mac) has already been living an unusual life as a nobleman in Queen Elizabeth’s court when he suddenly becomes a woman. “Let biologists and psychologists argue. It is enough for us to state the simple fact: Orlando was a man till the age of thirty, when she became a woman and has remained so ever since.” So say members of the chorus in “Orlando,”  a stage adaptation by Sarah Ruhl of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, which is now being revived at Signature Theater, in what feels like the exact right time by the exact right cast. But the production doesn’t wind up feel ..read more

If so much of it weren’t so out of balance, this fourth Broadway revival of “Cabaret” would be impressive in its complete transformation of  Kander and Ebb’s great musical – physically, visually, and, in one respect, morally.  Much of the credit or blame  goes to Tom Scutt, who is the costume designer, scenic designer, and theater designer of the production, which was a hot ticket in London, and is opening tonight with a different cast except for Eddie Redmayne as the Master of Ceremonies. As costume designer, Scutt drapes Redmayne in a series of clownish outfits so ..read more

Alicia Keys’ lively, tuneful musical “Hell’s Kitchen” opens tonight at Broadway’s Shubert Theater, with the same principal cast and creative team as its brief sold-out run Off-Broadway at the Public Theater, which ended in January. There have been a few changes in the transfer, but it’s similar enough for me to resurrect my review from November, adding new photographs from the Broadway production, new videos and new information about venue, prices, and so forth: Shoshana Bean as Jersey and Maleah Joi Moon as her rebellious daughter Ali “Hell’s Kitchen” is not a musical biography of Alici ..read more

“Stereophonic,” which opens at Broadway’s John Golden Theater tonight,  chronicles a year of recording studio sessions by the members of a popular 1970s rock band (never named, fictional) as they put together their latest album and have their ups and downs with one another.  It ran briefly at Playwrights Horizons Off Broadway last year to general critical acclaim with the same cast and creative team. There have been a few script changes in the transfer, but it’s similar enough for me to resurrect my review from last October, adding new photographs from the Broadway production, a ..read more

 Inez Milholland, glamorous bohemian and radical lawyer, rode atop a white steed to lead the unprecedented 1913 March on Washington for women’s suffrage down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.   Doris Stevens, another leading suffragist, met an aide to President Wilson, Dudley Malone, and so convinced him of her cause that he quit the Wilson Administration in protest of the president’s lack of support for women’s rights – and wound up marrying Doris Stevens. Phoebe Burn sent her son Harry a letter arguing why he should support women’s suffrag ..read more

In “The Wiz,” the all-Black version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” that debuted on Broadway in the 1970s,  Dorothy never sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” nor wore ruby red slippers,  but we got used to that, and there were compensations, especially  a Tony- and Grammy-winning score featuring gospel, soul, funk and the R&B hits “Ease on Down the Road” and “Home.” The music was just one part of a fresh and welcome nod to African American culture and experience. But the new revival of “The Wiz,” opening at Broadway’s Marquis Theater tonight aft ..read more

Thomas Jefferson was in his forties when he began having sex with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, who was 14.  Had they fallen in love? The question is absurd. But did they eventually fall in love? That’s one of the several intriguing questions that Suzan-Lori Parks explores in “Sally & Tom,” her play about a present-day theater troupe that is putting together an original play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, which they’ve entitled “The Pursuit of Happiness.” The play-within-the play is led by an interracial couple: Mike (Gabriel Ebert) is the director and portrays Tom; L ..read more