Sending a Message: From The Band’s Visit to Jerry Springer: The Opera         By Barbara & Scott Siegel   There is a famous quote, usually attributed to the famous Hollywood film director Frank Capra, who said, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”...

Let’s talk about Money and SpongeBob Squarepants     By Barbara & Scott Siegel   If talent is the lifeblood of the theater, then money is at the heart of it all, because cash is what pumps talent into a show. What prompts this particular discussion is the rather surprising...

    by: Matt Smith   As we all know, the late, great Irving Berlin once wrote, “There’s no business like show business.” While it may be  argued that no one knows that statement better than him, there’s certainly no doubt Scott Siegel comes in a close...

Songbook Summit, Charolais, Van Gogh’s Ear, and Prince of Broadway       By Barbara & Scott Siegel     In a new season that is, so far, more noteworthy for what is closing rather than for what is opening, we look to the mostly rare and unusual shows that have...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel     In recent years it seemed that the Summer was no less frantic in terms of theatrical openings than any other time of the year except right before the Tony cut-off. This season, however, it appears to have slowed down quite a bit. Some...

Some Tony Talk Plus A Look at The Inspector General   Come From Away (Jenn Colella) Photo: Matthew Murphy   By Barbara & Scott Siegel     The last thing you want to read is yet another column of Tony predictions by people who are no better at guessing than you are. So,...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel       We’re now in that time period when it seems like almost everyone is obsessed with all the new Broadway shows that opened just in time to get in under the wire for the Tony cut-off date. But in the mad scramble for attention,...

  By Barbara & Scott Siegel   This Season’s Breakout Star Discovery…   Not every season boasts a breakout star, but when it happens, there is never any doubt about it. Watching Christy Altomare, who plays the title character in the big budget Broadway musical, Anastasia,...

A Welcome New Trend on Broadway: Homegrown Stars!       By Barbara & Scott Siegel     It wasn’t long ago when it was much remarked upon that the musical Memphis had become a hit Broadway show without using either TV or movie stars as its leads. When the show...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel   At the elegantly produced Lortel Awards on Sunday night, it was noted that two of the four Broadway musicals competing for Outstanding Musical Tony Awards this season, and three of the four Broadway plays competing for Outstanding Play Tony...

  By Barbara & Scott Siegel   Some Things You Should Know About This Theater Award Season…   The crazy theater awards game of who was snubbed and what was over-praised is now in full swing after the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony Awards have announced their...

      By Elizabeth Ahlfors   Those of us who remember going to a Broadway musical back in the good old days know that singers like John Raitt and Patricia Morison performed without amplification.  Their pure voices reached the back of the house.  Scott Siegel’s annual...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel In 1964 Fiddler on the Roof opened the floodgates for Jewish related fare on Broadway. It’s not that there weren’t Jewish plays and musicals on Broadway before – consider shows as specific as Bagels & Yox (1951) and Milk and Honey (1961), but...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel   Theatrical Elite: Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole, John Leguizamo, Harvey Fierstein, Kevin Kline…They’re Back!   As we head toward the end of the 2016-17 theater season, never quite knowing if the waterfall of openings both on and Off...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel   The power of expectations: Church & State and The Glass Menagerie   The way we react to a play depends a great deal upon our expectations. Lower the bar enough and a show can seem great compared to what you expected when the curtain...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel   The Most Talented and Consistently Innovative, and Entertaining Director Working Off-Broadway: Jack Cummings, III   Play after play, and season after season, when you step back and look at the Off Broadway shows that receive critical...

  By Barbara & Scott Siegel   Sweat Might Give The Public Theater the Tony Trifecta   Back in the day, The Public Theater earned its place in the theatrical mainstream when, in 1968, Hair made its way from its downtown stage to Broadway. That could’ve been considered a...

When Truth Enhances Fiction: Theater Based on True Stories…     By Barbara & Scott Siegel     If the true story upon which the new Broadway musical Come From Away had been made up out of whole cloth, it would be consigned to the category of pure, wish-fulfilling...

Death in the Theater: Everybody & Wakey, Wakey         By Barbara & Scott Siegel     With the recent passing of the Signature Theatre’s James Houghton, the company he founded – and some of the people he left behind – have turned their artistic efforts...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel       For all its awards, glowing reviews, and standing ovations at night, the secret truth about The Object Lesson at New York Theatre Workshop is that it is slow, tedious, and boring. At 100 minutes, it feels like an endless,...

    by Matt Smith     Scott Siegel has done it again! Last Saturday, the indefatigable host-with-the-most delivered his latest incarnation of Broadway Originals, his monthly bash wherein a variety of Broadway performers sing the hit songs they first made memorable, either...

By Barbara & Scott Siegel   The British called their working class theater “Kitchen Sink Drama.” One is tempted to call the new American play created by the Neo-Futurists, “Everything Except The Kitchen Sink Drama” because in a brisk 90 minutes of playful, often-times tongue-in-cheek...

      By Barbara & Scott Siegel   Sutton Foster: Musical Theater’s Most Versatile Star!   First, let’s get this out of the way at the start: despite having gone to the West Coast to star on TV (most recently in the hit series, “Younger”), Sutton Foster has not...

  The Responsibility of Theater in the Age of Trump     By Barbara & Scott Siegel     There is a long history of political theater here in New York. Think back to the 1930’s with commercial Broadway shows with political agendas (Of Thee I Sing), or 1940’s (South...

    By Barbara & Scott Siegel     She has a famous last name, courtesy of her grandfather, director Elia Kazan, but she is fast becoming famous in her own right because she is, without doubt, among her generation’s most talented young actresses. So far, she has...