Broadway Baby By Alan Shapiro Algonquin Books, 272 Pages, $13.95 In his debut novel, “Broadway Baby,” Alan Shapiro, the author of nine volumes of poetry, gives the much-maligned 1950s-era Jewish Mother a chance to tell her story. It seems in the 50 years since the appearance of Philip Roth’s comic and overbearing archetype, the male…
One can’t help but experience a certain amount of culture shock after wading through the throngs of Occupy Wall Street protesters in Times Square en route to a seat in a Broadway theater. The consumerist impulse is nowhere more ritualized than on Broadway, where for $65 to $250 a seat, you can watch movie stars…
As the curtain fell after the fourth round of applause for the American Repertory Theater’s highly anticipated and highly controversial revival of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” which opened on August 31 in Cambridge, Mass., one couldn’t help but give thanks for George Gershwin and Audra McDonald, who played the female title role. Owing to…
Coming soon to an arena near you: the Torah! A big-budget adaptation of the Old Testament will tour the United States starting in late 2012 or early 2013, reports entertainment website Deadline Hollywood. The show, simply called “The Bible,” is being helmed by Philip William McKinley, the director who stepped in to save the massively…
Is Broadway ready for dancing girls in the Warsaw ghetto? Can an American musical high kick through the darkest moments of Jewish history and still avoid giving offense, or worse, falling into kitsch? “The People in the Picture,” a new musical playing at the Roundabout theater until June 19, raises this question, treading where even…
“The Normal Heart,” just revived on Broadway, is less a play than a sensory experience, likely to leave audiences feeling drained, exhilarated and perhaps a bit guilty. That the play is powerful is, given its subject matter, to be expected. That it is nuanced as well is a tribute to playwright Larry Kramer, a man…
Babs fans, how lucky can you get? (Funny Lady pun!) Not only has the Duck Sauce song, “Barbra Streisand,” crept over 44 million YouTube views, far outnumbering any video of Streisand herself, a customizable version of the song is now going viral at GoBarbra. The website allows viewers to type in their own names or…
Jerome A. Chanes goes to see The Living Theatre’s production of “Korach.” Curt Schleier tells the story of three Broadway producers. Jay Michaelson questions whether mysticism is real. Philologos is possessed. Laurence Zuckerman looks back at the life of Judah L. Magnes, one of 20th-century Jewry’s most important — and most overlooked — leaders. Glenn…
די ווילנער דאָקטוירים יעקבֿ וויגאָדסקי און צמח שאַבאַד זענען אויך געווען געזעלשאַפֿטלעכע טוער.
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