Paula Vogel’s patchwork Civil War tale is epic in length but not scope The holiday season is often a time of reflection, but Paula Vogel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of How I Learned to Drive, has squinted back a bit further in time than most. Vogel’s new work, A Civil War Christmas, currently staged in 
One hates to write anything negative about a show like Giant. Book writer Sybille Pearson has maintained the progressive themes from Edna Ferber’s classic novel, and musician Michael John LaChiusa has, in typical fashion, crafted character-centric songs rather than hollow showstoppers. Michael Greif, a director known for leading rich musicals as varied as Rent and 
An ever-growing subgenre has emerged within the movie adaptation umbrella constantly covering Broadway: the holiday movie adaptation. In addition to Elf and White Christmas, both making return engagements this season, A Christmas Story, The Musical, the earnest adaptation of the cult film that grew into a yuletide tradition, has arrived for a limited engagement at 
Carolee Carmello gets the star treatment she deserves in an underwhelming new musical Life stories are a tricky business. Every individual weathers enough ups and downs to have their own experience merit the telling – but that doesn’t mean that all lives translate to cogent dramatic arcs. Aimee Semple McPherson, however, one of the more 
There is a difference between complicated and convoluted, though it can be tricky to adhere more toward the former than the trappings of the latter. One merely involves the involvement of multiple entities occurring beneath the surface at the same time, some of which having a direct effect on others. The other throws these variables 
Sandwiched in-between he monolith musicals that stormed their way from the West End to Broadway throughout the 1980s (Evita, Cats, Les Miserables, etc.) was a different kind of British import, one that was, in fact, given new life by an American. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a 1985 Public Theater production, was musicalized and adapted 
What is it with writers and whales? Ever since Herman Melville’s magnum opus, Moby-Dick, was published 160 years ago, cetaceans have provided an interesting allegory for man’s quest to defeat others and understand himself in literary forms. Just last year, Melvillean influence permeated Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, arguably the best novel of the year. 
For those people able to get out and around in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, here are a few worthy options to check out: The Other Josh Cohen This clever musical comedy, co-written by and co-starring performers David Rossmer and Steve Rosen, takes two differing looks at down-on-his luck New Yorker Josh Cohen. There is 
AN ‘ELIXIR’ WITHOUT FIZZ AND A MODEL ‘CARMINA BURANA’ The Metropolitan Opera opened its 2012-13 season with a new production of The Elixir of Love, Donizetti’s offbeat romantic comedy. For 20 years, the Met had a production by John Copley: goofy, whimsical, endearing—like The Elixir of Love. It looked like an old-fashioned Valentine’s Day card. At the 
