Tag: Theater

What to See, Eat and Do in New Haven, Conn.

The 75-foot-long brontosaurus at the newly reopened Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Conn., is the same dinosaur that the natural history museum has had on display since 1931. Yet it looks different. A fresh pose. New front ribs. The head is repositioned at a more inquisitive angle. The museum’s four-year renovation not only refreshed […]

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‘Player Kings’ Review: Ian McKellen’s Juicy Assignment as Falstaff

There are two shows for the price of one at “Player Kings,” in which the director Robert Icke has combined both of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” history plays into a self-contained whole. The production offers a compressed version of the royal accession story that, in this version, runs nearly four hours. It is an opportunity to […]

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The Playwright Who Fearlessly Reimagines America

When the playwright Suzan- Lori Parks was in high school,a teacher asked what she wanted to be as an adult. Parks already knew. She had been sitting under the family piano writing songs and plays since elementary school. “I was like, ‘I wanna be a writer,’” she recalled. The teacher’s response was not encouraging. “It […]

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Huey Lewis Lost His Hearing. That Didn’t Stop Him From Making a Musical.

After Huey Lewis learned that a syndrome of the inner ear called Ménière’s disease had caused him significant hearing loss and left him unable to play or hear music, he faced the difficult task of having to tell his friends and peers. Lewis, whose wry lyrics and rumbling vocals powered Reagan-era pop hits like “I […]

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With Clinton as a Producer, ‘Suffs’ Takes a Political Battle to Broadway

Shaina Taub was ready to watch Hillary Clinton win in November 2016. She had been at Harvard, doing research for an ambitious musical about the women’s suffrage movement, and was swept up in what felt like the inevitable: a woman elected president of the United States. Taub had traveled to New York City from Cambridge […]

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Berlin Was a Beacon of Artistic Freedom. Gaza Changed Everything.

When the musician Laurie Anderson was beginning her career in the early 1970s, an avant-garde artist who wanted to work at scale had to go abroad — to one place in particular. “I got my start in Germany, because of state-supported art,” recalled Anderson, who exhibited at its national museums and performed with its symphony […]

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With ‘Succession’ Complete, the Roys’ Next Takeover Is the Stage

There seems to be a secret ingredient to stage success this season: a stint on “Succession.” So many “Succession” alums are onstage in New York and London that the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, has been dashing from theater to theater, trying to catch the work of his colleagues. On a recent trip to New York, […]

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Christopher Durang, the Surrealist of Snark

Pickpocketing Chekhov for dramatic capital is almost a rite of passage among playwrights, but only Christopher Durang invested the loot in beefcake. In his play “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” Vanya and Sonia are more-or-less familiar transplants from the Russian hinterlands to Bucks County, Pa., dithering so much about the purpose of life […]

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Christopher Durang, Playwright Who Mixed High Art and Low Humor, Dies at 75

Christopher Durang, a Tony Award-winning playwright and a master satirist, died Tuesday night at his home in Pipersville, Pa., in Bucks County. He was 75. His agent, Patrick Herold, said the cause was complications of aphasia. In 2016, Mr. Durang was found to have a rare form of dementia, logopenic primary progressive aphasia. The diagnosis […]

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Barbara Rush, Award-Winning TV and Film Actress, Dies at 97

Barbara Rush, the supremely poised actress who rose to fame with supporting roles in 1950s films like “Magnificent Obsession” and “The Young Lions,” died on Sunday at her home in Westlake Village, Calif., in Los Angeles County. She was 97. The death, in a senior care facility, was confirmed by her daughter, Claudia Cowan. If […]

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Madonna and Barbra Are Fans. Broadway, Meet Lempicka.

The playwright Carson Kreitzer specializes in difficult women, disparaged women, women who should be better known. But 14 years ago, when a friend suggested the painter Tamara de Lempicka as a potential subject, Kreitzer wasn’t initially enthusiastic. The name meant nothing to her. Then in a used bookstore, a cover with Lempicka’s name caught her […]

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