by Brian Scott Lipton   Let’s be real: heading to City Center this weekend may be your only chance to ever take a bite out of The Golden Apple, John Latouche and Jerome Moross’ extremely ambitious and wildly uneven musical retelling of The Iliad (transplanted...

    MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala, held at the Hammerstein Ballroom, has become one of the hottest tickets of the theatrical season. The reason: audiences get the chance to see of Broadway’s biggest stars take on roles and songs they’d never be offered in real life. This year’s...

            by Brian Scott Lipton   Not since Henry Higgins turned cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle into a proper Englishwoman has so much attention be lavished on a diamond in the rough. Alas, although the gang at City Center Encores! has given Cole...

    By Brian Scott Lipton     He was the first composer to win three Academy Awards; the first to receive the coveted “gold record” for selling one million copies; he worked for almost every movie studio, including Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, and MGM; and he wasn’t even...

        by Brian Scott Lipton   Both a celebration of her newest CD and a glorious retrospective of 30-plus year performing career in cabaret, Karen Mason’s It’s About Time showed, once again, why she is one of this singular art form’s greatest practitioners.  ...

  by Brian Scott Lipton     In his brilliant, if divisive, first play Bad Jews, Joshua Harmon created a neurotic, lonely, but ultimately sympathetic, lead character—one that also provided a bravura showcase for a talented performer. Well, lightning has struck twice in Harmon’s...

        by Brian Scott Lipton   Is there anything to really be learned from a 15th century Dutch morality play, possibly adapted from a Buddhist fable, and updated to the present-day by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, one of the 21st century’s most provocative and acclaimed...

    by Brian Scott Lipton   For veteran theatergoers considering seeing City Center Encores’ current production of “Big River,” the question on their minds may be: can the third time be as charming? After all, they most likely saw the original Broadway production in 1985 (which...

    By Brian Scott Lipton     2016 was a tough year for music lovers, as some of its greatest artists ascended into the eternal pantheon. But probably no two deaths were more deeply felt than those of English glam rocker David Bowie and American R&B superstar Prince....

  Here they are! Take a look at the Best Five of the 2016 Season in Theater and Cabaret. It’s the end of 2016 . . . hard to believe it raced by so quickly with all its turbulence. Theater Pizzazz writers, in both theater and cabaret, were extremely busy seeing many, many shows. Each one...

    by Brian Scott Lipton   There are stories within stories with stories in Richard Greenberg’s complex and somewhat unconventional The Babylon Line—which is perhaps only apropos for a work set in a Levittown, Long Island adult education writing class in 1967. A master...

    By Brian Scott Lipton   In many ways, the quirky new musical Ride the Cyclone — about six dead Canadian teenagers killed on a roller coaster who end up in purgatory pleading for a chance at redemption — lives up to its namesake amusement park ride: it has twists...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   Appropriately enough, there are lights blazing everywhere at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre, where theatergoers can be enchanted nightly by Dave Malloy’s innovative musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is a remarkably moving and highly...

      By Brian Scott Lipton     Strong of voice, fleet of foot, warm of heart, these words have applied to Chita Rivera for more than 60 years – and they still fit the performer to a T. So why did it take her 83 years to get to Carnegie Hall? Lord knows, she didn’t...

  Interview by Brian Scott Lipton Photos/Video by Magda Katz   A Broadway season without Kristin Chenoweth is, as the old saying goes, a day without sunshine. Fortunately, the Tony (and Emmy) Award-winning star is making a return, albeit a brief one, in her concert show, “My Love...

      by Brian Scott Lipton     Sarah Jones’ chameleonic ability to switch personae and accents on a dime—a skill which makes her good pal Meryl Streep look like a mere talent-show contestant—first came to many people’s attention over a decade ago with her...

    By Brian Scott Lipton     What do you need for a good party? An entertaining, affable host, dynamite guests, and a welcoming environment. And no one knows that better than cabaret legend Jamie deRoy, who provided all of the following at the latest edition of “Jamie...

    By Brian Scott Lipton     It’s not just because comedian Lisa Lampanelli’s debut play, Stuffed, is more lean cuisine than a three-course meal that you shouldn’t walk in hungry to the McGinn/Cazale Theater; it’s the exhaustive (and almost exhausting) amount of food...

  By Brian Scott Lipton   For long-time admirers of the late, great Horton Foote, the revival of his lesser-known 1955 work The Roads to Home, being presented by Primary Stages at The Cherry Lane, is like a welcome helping of comfort food, with its many references to Foote’s...

  By Brian Scott Lipton     It’s been over 20 years since My Fair Lady has had a Broadway run, and if any question remained that the show’s brilliant score by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner deserves to be heard nightly, 54 Sings My Fair Lady delivered a resounding answer...

  By Brian Scott Lipton     Upon first reflection, “The Encounter” sounds like the kind of show you’d encounter at BAM or St. Ann’s Warehouse, not Broadway’s Golden Theatre: a one-person (multi-character) monologue, running about two hours without intermission, that you hear...

  by Brian Scott Lipton   “What is the weight of a lie?” These initially puzzling and undeniably provocative words, the first ones spoken by one Mrs. Johnson in “All The Ways to Say I Love You,” should be even a novice theatergoer’s first clue that the teacher we see before us...

  by Brian Scott Lipton     New York City is full of great art exhibitions and play readings. In its own very special way, spending time at Tony Award winner Betty Buckley’s new cabaret show, “Story Songs,” at Joe’s Pub is like merging those special cultural experiences into...

            by Brian Scott Lipton   Most singers celebrating their golden anniversary in show business would be eligible for Medicare and have possibly lost a little of their on-stage flair. But most performers aren’t Julie Budd, who celebrated her 50th year in...

      By Brian Scott Lipton     Did a song from a film make a big impression on you? Did it not mean much to you originally, but later speak directly to your life? Or did you just think it might be fun to sing? All of these reasons help explain the extremely eclectic...