Despite its seemingly unsophisticated vibe, Shucked is an extremely polished, well-crafted musical. After all, the show is directed by Jack O’Brien (Hairspray, Full Monty, Porgy and Bess, Invention of Love.) Most importantly, it is loads of fun. Audi …Read more

I am a native New Yorker, and I honestly love NYC. Although I know the city has its many flaws, I will defend it against all comers. Yet I cringed at the rosy ‘melting-pot’ version of the city painted in the new musical “New York, New York” in the 19 …Read more

The last time I saw “Sweeney Todd,” it was as a barebones production of 10 performers, including Patty Lupone and Michael Cerveris. Each performer even played an instrument, and the show was wonderful. The most recent revival, featuring a 26 piece or …Read more

I had such high hopes for the revival of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot at Lincoln Center Theater this season. The music was a known quantity- glorious, lush and romantic. The title song had become a symbol of a young president JFK and the New Frontier h …Read more

photo by Julieta Cervantes Most musicals feature two or three impressive dance numbers, numbers that leave the audience breathless. However, often those dances are incidental to the story. Then there’s the revival of “Bob Fosse’s DANCIN” which begins …Read more

photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman The good news about “Bad Cinderella,” the new musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by David Zippel is that it’s not all that bad. The costumes are frothy, colorful and delightfully gaudy, alt …Read more

Photos by Julieta Cervantes Today most celebrities are on social media, so everything they do is shared with the public. It was quite different years ago when celebrities like Neil Diamond performed. If they chose to keep their lives private, they st …Read more

photo by Joan Marcus It’s hard to imagine a show by Stephen Sondheim that wasn’t an immediate hit; yet “Merrily We Roll Along,” first produced in 1981, left the critics and audiences unimpressed. It was not the success that previous collaborations by …Read more

photo by Matthew Murphy How would you define an old-fashioned musical? Maybe a show with non-stop singing and dancing, storylines that we accept even when implausible, a love story or two and a happy ending. Those of you who love shows like “Music Ma …Read more

Photo-by-Matthew-Murphy A show about rock music should be loud. So loud that you feel the music going through you! When the cast of “Almost Famous: The Musical ” took the stage and performed “Ramble On,” I felt the vibrations pounding through my ches …Read more