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Jordan Tannahill's Prince Faggot, directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, just made its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons, starring Rachel Crowl, K. Todd Freeman, David Greenspan, Mihir Kumar, John McCrea, and N’yomi Allure Stewart. In this meta-theatrical satire, an ensemble of queer, trans, and nonbinary performers reckon with how the forces of power, privilege, and colonization play upon their lives as the playwright offers a central provocation: what if queer people dared to imagine a future monarch having a life that resembled their own? Check out what the critics are saying about the new play... Jesse Green, New York Times: That’s a lot of story to cram into two hours, and in some ways I’ve barely scratched the hot surface of...

Over the past 10 years Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar has batted a thousand at the Tony Awards. Both of his past Broadway outings — “Disgraced” in 2014 and “Junk” in 2017 — were nominated for Best Play, making him one of only three dozen writers in the history of the Tonys to have two noms for the top honor. His newest drama, “McNeal,” opened in September and stars Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr., who is making his Broadway debut in the role of a troubled, irascible, and extremely successful novelist.

With the incredibly popular Downey at the helm, fresh off his awards-sweeping “Oppenheimer” performance plus an Emmy for his lifestyle program “Downey’s Dream Cars,” “McNeal” will try to accomplish something no other Akhtar play has done before by earning a Tony acting nomination.

Akhtar’s Broadway bow with “Disgraced,” for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2013, starred a quintet of actors...

Last month playwright Jez Butterworth brought his latest work, “The Hills of California,” to Broadway. The haunting family drama explores the relationships between four sisters and their dying mother in their creaky seaside home, seamlessly moving back and forth in time between 1976 and 1955. The play previously bowed in London earlier this year, and before coming stateside it earned two Olivier Award nominations for Best New Play and Best Actress for Laura Donnelly, who reprises her performance in New York.

Since his Broadway debut only 13 years ago, Butterworth has quickly established himself as one of the theater’s most accomplished contemporary playwrights. He has two Tony nominations to his name, for New York debut “Jerusalem” in 2011 and for his Tony-winning epic “The Ferryman” in 2019. Those nominations alone already tie him with theater royalty including Ayad Akhtar, Tony Kushner, Tracy Letts, David Mamet, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, and Wendy Wasserstein — all...

Nicole Scherzinger has brought her Olivier-winning performance in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” to Broadway. And rave reviews for her performance as the silent movie queen Norma Desmond staging a comeback could well win her a Tony Award next June. While some reviewers expressed reservations about the overall effect of Jamie Lloyd‘s restaging of this 1995 Best Musical Tony champ, they all heaped praise on its leading lady. Scroll down for just a sampling of these notices.

The original edition of “Sunset Boulevard” dominated the 1995 Tonys, taking home a lucky seven trophies. This radical remounting replicated that haul at the recent Olivier Awards. It was that success which propelled this production across the pond.

This revival looks vastly different than the original, which painstakingly recreated the 1950 Oscar-winning film. Its bare set and minimal costumes aren’t likely to register with the Tony Awards nominating committee. However Jack Knowles and Adam Fisher,...

The Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder‘s “Our Town” opened Oct. 10 to rave reviews. This imaginative restaging of this American classic by Tony-winning director Kenny Leon (“A Raisin in the Sun”) is sure to be a strong contender at the Tony Awards next June. The 1988 remounting of this Pulitzer Prize winner won Best Revival while the 2002 version earned Paul Newman his only Tony nomination,

Newman was the Stage Manager, the narrator of this tale of small-town folk at the turn of the 20th century, played in this production by four-time Emmy champ Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”). Parsons was a Tony contender last season for his featured turn in Paula Vogel‘s “Mother Play.” He was singled out by many critics for his role as ringmaster. And many of the reviews made special mention of the set design by two-time Tony winner Beowulf Boritt and lighting by four-time Tony nominee Allen Lee Hughes.

This article contains spoilers about the 2024 Broadway production of “An Enemy of the People.”

There will likely be few scenes this Broadway season more harrowing than the climax of Sam Gold’s “An Enemy of the People,” in which a town hall meeting called by Dr. Thomas Stockmann devolves into verbal and physical assault. In the aftermath of the scene’s brutality against the Norwegian doctor, who warns his community that their waters are contaminated, actor Jeremy Strong emerges from a crouched position on the stage floor in the Circle in the Square Theatre, where he has huddled and shrunk his body down to withstand a torrent of blows. It is a visceral moment of live theatre, one that the actor commits to wholeheartedly and that the Tony Awards should nominate.

What leads up to that frightening display of ignorance and animus is made all the richer by Strong’s performance.

In the penultimate song in Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Sunday in the Park with George,” Dot implores the artist George to “give us more to see.” The late maestro has done so himself one last time with the world premiere of his final musical, “Here We Are,” which opened Off-Broadway at The Shed on Oct. 22. Written with dramatist David Ives, the musical takes inspiration from two Luis Buñuel films – “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel” – that it marries with one set of characters.

Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello played an integral role in the show’s development and directs its first production. He has assembled an unrivaled ensemble to take on the roles of the unimaginably affluent characters who spend the first act trying to find a restaurant in which to have brunch, and who in the second act find themselves unable to leave after their meal.

In 2022, Marianne Elliott won the Tony Award for directing a revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Company.” In her speech, she thanked the late composer for trusting her to put a “woman front and center” in her gender-bent production. Indeed, her victory was a major milestone for female directors. She became the first woman to win three times for directing. It was also the first time a woman took home a Tony for helming a Sondheim musical, and just the fifth instance of a woman winning for directing a tuner.

At the upcoming 2024 Tonys, Maria Friedman could accomplish those latter two feats, too. She is the visionary performer-turned-director who has achieved what would have been unfathomable to theatergoers back in 1981 — making the Sondheim and George Furth musical “Merrily We Roll Along” a hit on Broadway. But she definitely has a “good thing going” with her production of the notorious flop,...

What a difference 40 years makes. After opening to pans and a run of only 16 official performances in 1981, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical “Merrily We Roll Along” has been remounted on Broadway for the very first time. Maria Friedman has stepped into the director role once occupied by Sondheim’s frequent collaborator Hal Prince — “Merrily” was their first flop after an impressive string of successful shows in the 70s. The revival opened on Oct. 10 at the Hudson Theatre for a run slated to end in March.

“Merrily” boasts marquee names Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe. The trio play Franklin Shepard, Mary Flynn, and Charley Kringas, respectively, the three creatives at the heart of the musical that’s told in reverse over the course of 20+ years. It begins in a moment of personal and professional disillusionment and estrangement and unspools to a simpler, earlier time when their friendships...

Henrik Ibsen’s world-(in)famous play “A Doll’s House” has not been seen on Broadway in over 25 years, when Janet McTeer led a production under the direction of Anthony Page. Now, into the shoes of legendary character Nora Helmer steps Oscar winner Jessica Chastain, starring in a work adapted by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Amy Herzog and directed by Tony Award nominee Jamie Lloyd. “A Doll’s House” opened March 9 at the Hudson Theatre and will play through June 10, just one day before the Tonys.

Joining Chastain in Ibsen’s form-defining domestic drama about the oppressive gender politics of the so-called private sphere in nineteenth-century Norway are Emmy nominee Arian Moayed as her husband Torvald, Okieriete Onaodowan as the opportunistic Nils Krogstad, Michael Patrick Thornton as the sympathetic Dr. Rank, Jesmille Darbouze as Nora’s old friend Kristine Linde, and Tasha Lawrence as the Helmers’ nanny.

See 2023 Tony Awards nominations prediction center is active!

One of the world’s greatest living playwrights has returned to Broadway. Over a decade since his last effort, Tom Stoppard has come back with epic play “Leopoldstadt,” a sprawling family drama based in part on his own family’s history during the early-twentieth century. The drama opened at the Longacre Theatre on Oct. 2.

Unspooling over five decades, the play follows the Jewish Merz family and their many relations as the antisemitism of the Holocaust penetrates their bourgeois home in Vienna. Directed by two-time Tony nominee Patrick Marber, “Leopoldstadt” boasts a cast of nearly three dozen, led by David Krumholtz, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz.

Stoppard’s latest received near-universal raves from critics. In his Critic’s Pick review, Jesse Green (New York Times) calls the play “harrowing” and says it features the dramatist’s “trademark bravura” and “kaleidoscopic technique.” Commending the entire ensemble, he writes, “The acting is excellent across the board,...

Cinema Eye Honors, the organization that recognizes outstanding artistic achievement in nonfiction and documentary films & series, announced the first round of their 2023 awards and nominations at its annual Cinema Eye Fall Lunch held in Los Angeles.

In the five Broadcast categories, HBO film “Four Hours at the Capitol,” an inside look at the January 6th riot, led with three nominations: Broadcast Film, Broadcast Editing and Broadcast Cinematography. Other projects like the Disney+ docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back” and Showtime’s “We Need to Talk About Cosby” also received more than one nomination.

Other announcements at the event include the annual Shorts List, which spotlights 10 of the year’s top documentary short films, and the recipient of the Legacy Award this year, Terry Zwigoff’s 1995 film “Crumb.”

“I’m glad to find out you don’t have to be dead to receive this award,” Zwigoff said in a written statement. “I...

“Four Hours at the Capitol,” “The Beatles: Get Back,” “Playing With Sharks,” “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” and “How To With John Wilson” are among the nonfiction television programs that have been nominated in the Cinema Eye Honors broadcast categories, Cinema Eye Honors announced at the organization’s annual fall lunch in Los Angeles on Thursday.

“Four Hours at the Capitol,” Jamie Roberts’ HBO film about the Jan. 6 insurrection, received three nominations to lead all programs. “Get Back,” “Cosby,” “Stanley Tucci,” “John Wilson” and “Playing With Sharks” each received two nominations.

Along with “Four Hours at the Capitol” and “Playing With Sharks,” broadcast film nominees were “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes,” “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” and “George Carlin’s American Dream.” Nonfiction series nominees were “Get Back,” “Cosby,” “Black and Missing,” “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey,” “LuLaRich” and “Mind Over Murder.” Nominated anthology series...

Seventeen years after its Broadway debut, musical “Caroline, or Change” has returned in what critics describe as an “electrifying” production. The show is set in 1960s Louisiana and centers on its title character Caroline Thibodeaux (Sharon D Clarke), who works for a Jewish family and cares for their son Noah, who inadvertently changes the course of her life with pocket change. This Roundabout Theatre Company production opened at Studio 54 on Oct. 27.

The musical boasts a book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”) and music by Tony-winner Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”). The original production starred Tony-winner Tonya Pinkins (“Jelly’s Last Jam”) in the title role and featured direction by Tony-winner George C. Wolfe. This revival is directed by Michael Longhurst, who previously directed the play “Constellations” on Broadway.

See ‘Girl From the North Country’ reopens on Broadway: ‘Ravishing’ Bob Dylan musical eligible for 2022 Tony Awards

“Caroline,...

The long-awaited reopening of Broadway has just welcomed one of its most unique offerings of the season with the debut of new drama “Is This a Room.” One of a duo of transcript plays to bow this fall, “Is This a Room” uses the verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation of Reality Winner – an Nsa employee incarcerated for leaking classified information about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election to the press – as the basis for this spartan and experimental play. “Is This a Room” opened at the Lyceum Theatre on Oct. 11.

Conceived and directed by Tina Satter, “Is This a Room” stars a quartet of actors who reenact the June 3, 2017 interrogation and arrest of Winner, played by Emily Davis in her Broadway debut. Pete Simpson and Will Cobbs play FBI agents, and Becca Blackwell rounds out the cast. “This Is a Room” has had two prior incarnations in 2019 at...

Ten years after making his Broadway debut as an actor in “The Book of Mormon,” Douglas Lyons just took his first bow as a playwright with “Chicken & Biscuits,” which opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Oct. 10. The comedy centers on the funeral of a pastor, which brings together two at-odds sisters and raises a whole host of family foibles.

Directed by Zhailon Levingston, “Chicken & Biscuits” features an eight-person ensemble, with the majority of the cast making their Broadway debuts. Cleo King and Ebony Marshall-Oliver play sisters Baneatta and Beverly, respectively, and are joined by Broadway stalwarts Norm Lewis, Michael Urie and NaTasha Yvette Williams.

See ‘Lackawanna Blues’: Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s ‘vibrant’ play and performance are a ‘master class’

In a rave review, Ayanna Prescod (Variety) calls the play “a portrait of Black joy, love and laughter” that features “a brilliant script that’s fresh, relatable and laugh-out-loud funny.

When Broadway’s King Kong opened earlier this month, critics did their best to one-up Beauty on how to kill a Beast. Big, hairy gloom might have settled over the cast following the show’s Nov. 8 opening, particularly after the publication of a New York Times pan that was unorthodox, if not downright bizarre. In place of a traditional review, Times critics Ben Brantley and Jesse Green published their back and forth conversation, taking turns lobbing brickbats. (“Ugh,” said Green; “aaaaaaaaargh,” responded Brantley)

Escaping the crossfire was Eric William Morris, the talented and appealing actor who plays Carl Denham, the 1930s-era New York movie director who heads off to Skull Island, along with unknown actress Ann Darrow (Christiani Pitts) in search of the legendary gorilla. Morris turns in a fine performance as Denham, playfully manipulating audience perceptions. Is he a hero? A scoundrel? Or worse?

Familiar to theater-goers and TV watchers alike,...