Sandi Durell – Founder
Serving as editor and publisher up until her passing in 2024, Sandi founded TheaterPizzazz as a home for independent-minded theater and cabaret writers.
Sandi was a renowned voice in the NYC theater & cabaret community for over 30 years. She was a Voting Member of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards, the American Theatre Critics and other associations. Her producer credentials include: Broadway & Hollywood Live! Revues, Songwriter Showcase for the American Popular Song Society for 19 years; the benefit CD “Our Heart Sings;” Award winning film “Broadway the Golden Age” (with Rick McKay) and much more.
Eyal Solomon – Editor/Publisher
Eyal Solomon is the editor/publisher of Theater Pizzazz, taking over from founder Sandi Durell upon her passing.
Eyal is a trained and active musician in multiple genres, currently performing regularly with his funk-rock band, as well as an avid fan of jazz and cabaret. His professional background, as marketing consultant and content creator, combines both business and the arts, serving him in both is writing for and managing Theater Pizzazz. His inability to dance is world-renowned.
Ron Fassler
Ron Fassler is an actor and the author of the recent UP IN THE CHEAP SEATS: A HISTORICAL MEMOIR OF BROADWAY, which features the tales of his teenage theatregoing in the 1970s (“Well worth the price of admission,” quotes Nathan Lane). Ron is a voting member of the Drama Desk Awards. You can also read about many pivotal Broadway shows and the people behind them in his “Theatre Yesterday and Today” blog at www.ronfassler.org.
Andrew Poretz
Andrew Poretz – “The Boulevardier of Broadway” – is an entertainer (singer, guitarist, ukulele player and storyteller), producer, and a reviewer of jazz and cabaret shows. An early podcaster, his “Coaches’ Corner on BlogTalkRadio” segments are still available on iTunes. Andrew has performed in prominent venues throughout New York and the Bay Area. He is also a board member of The American Popular Song Society (APSS). His blog, “The Boulevardier,” can be found at www.andrewporetz.com.
JK Clarke
JK Clarke is Photo Editor an Assistant Editor at Theater Pizzazz, a Drama Desk Voter and a freelance writer living in NYC. He has ghost written one very successful novel (can’t tell you which one…hence the “ghost” part) and also contributes jokes pseudonymously to US Weekly and InTouch Magazine. He has previously written reviews and the iCanine pet column for other publications. JK also created the blog “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Ethical Dog Ownership.” He spent his formative years studying Shakespeare with The Great Books Society starting at the age of seven. JK grew up attending theater regularly at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon where he had studied the entire canon by his 18th birthday. He spends his daylight hours and pays his rent as a dog care expert and owner of a dog care service, The Leash We Can Do.
Brian Scott Lipton
Brian Scott Lipton is a nationally renowned journalist, specializing in celebrity interviews, entertainment and fashion. A graduate of Tufts University and the NYU School of Law, Brian is currently the chief theater critic for Cititour.com and is also a regular contributor to TheaterMania.com, London Jewelers Magazine, Connecticut Voice Magazine and TheaterPizzazz.com. Previously, Brian was Editor in Chief of TheaterMania.com and Resident Publications, as well as Managing Editor of the magazines DNR, MR, Accent and Encore. In addition, his byline has appeared in dozens of national and local publications including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, IN New York and the New York Post. He is a voter for The Tony, Outer Critics Circle and Dorian Awards.
Carol Rocamora
Carol Rocamora, PhD, is a critic, educator, playwright, translator and biographer. She has translated Chekhov’s complete dramatic works, published in three volumes by Smith & Kraus, and has written theatre biographies on Chekhov and Vaclav Havel. Her play “I take your hand in mine…” was originally directed by Peter Brook at his theatre in Paris, and has since been translated into 10 languages and performed all over the world. She teaches at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her new collection of adaptations – entitled Troika – will be published in 2016. She is a voting member of Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards.
Carole Di Tosti
Carole Di Tosti, Ph.D. is a published writer, a novelist and poet. She has been writing theater and film reviews and interviews for Blogcritics since June 2013. Blogcritics has a global readership of 1 1/2 million a month. She also writes articles on wine, food, cabaret shows and exhibits ( i.e. NYBG). She authors/manages three blogs: The Fat and the Skinny, All Along the NYC Skyline, A Christian Apologists’ Sonnets. As a free lance writer, she contributed articles for Technorati on various trending topics from August 2011 – June 2013. She has written for The Mobility Resource and New York Theatre Wire. As a free lance writer and blogger, she covers NYC trending events and writes articles promoting advocacy on health and wellness among others topics. Carole is a voting member of the Drama Desk Awards.
Stuart Miller
Stuart Miller has written about theater for thirty-five years, for publications like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, Time Magazine, American Theatre Magazine, Columbia Magazine, Harvard Magazine and numerous defunct theater publications (In Theater, Theater Week and some so long gone he has forgotten them).
Marilyn Lester
Marilyn Lester is a playwright, producer, scriptwriter, dialogue consultant, and dramaturge. Additionally, Marilyn is a communications specialist with experience in journalism, market research, advertising,public relations, new media, and publishing. In television, Marilyn worked in development with the late producer, Alvin Cooperman, and in film with Big Bear Films. She is a member of The League of Professional Theater Women, The New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media, the Dramatists Guild, The Actors Fund, The Episcopal Actors Guild, and The Authors Guild and Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project.
Samuel L. Leiter
Samuel L. Leiter, PhD is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. An award-winning author and editor, he has published twenty-six books, most recently Kabuki at the Crossroads: Years of Crisis, 1952-1965 and Rising from the Flames: The Rebirth of Theater in Occupied Japan, 1945-52. Among his other books are Ten Seasons: New York Theatre in the Seventies; the multivolume Encyclopedia of the New York Stage; The Great Stage Directors: 100 Distinguished Careers of the Theatre ; and the multivolume Kabuki Plays on Stage series. From 1992 to 2004 he was editor-in-chief of Asian Theatre Journal. His many honors include a Fulbright Research Fellowship and an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Emeritus Fellowship. Sam is a voting member of the Drama Desk Awards and from 2012-2014 he was a nominator for the Drama Desk Awards. Since 2012, he has reviewed nearly 600 New York productions on his blog, Theatre’s Leiter Side (slleiter@blogspot.com).
Meredith Heyman
Meredith Heyman has been covering Broadway for more than a decade. When she’s not writing about theater, she is a video correspondent and producer for Investor’s Business Daily. Her work has also been seen in The U.S. Sun, Backstage and on Pix 11. She is a graduate of NYU and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Meredith lives in Hoboken with her husband, Andrew, toddler son, Elliot, and Cavapoo, Sadie.
Walter Murphy
Walter Murphy caught the theater bug as a youth in NYC. For a birthday present his Dad took him to see The Sound of Music on Broadway, starring Mary Martin. He was hooked and became a lifelong theater devotee. A retired Instructional Designer, he now focuses on Off and Off-Off Broadway shows. As a writer, he’s published throughout his career and more recently in NYC and international media. Writing for Theater Pizzazz has become a labor of love. Walter also teaches advanced ESOL at Lenox HIll Neighborhood House.
Yani Perez
Yani Perez, M.F.A, is a poet, playwright, translator and educator. Her plays have been presented in various theaters in the United States such as La Mama and Yale University as well as internationally in Bogotá, Colombia. She works at IATI Theater, one of the oldest Latinx theaters in NYC. She is a contributor for Off Off Online and All About Solo. www.yaniperez.com
Melissa Griegel
Melissa Griegel is an avid theater-goer and loves all things Broadway. A graduate of Cornell University, she went on to study photography at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. In addition to owning her own portrait studio, Melissa writes and photographs for five magazines. “I love being able to interview people and write reviews and articles in addition to doing the photography,” she says. “I feel like I get the complete story that way.” One of her favorite annual events is BroadwayCon. “There is so much energy and you are completely surrounded by people who love theater as much as you do.” You can view her work at www.griegelphoto.zenfolio.com
Glen Charlow
Glen Charlow is a graphic designer in the performing arts, He’s worked on many cabaret and off-Broadway shows, and for many prestigious theaters and production companies in the United States. His advertising designs have been in every production house and agency in New York. Experience with editing, design, color and typography, has been applied to many award-winning publications. He combines a passion for design, usability, and innovation with a drive to develop products that enrich peoples’ lives. Glen creates websites and graphics for individuals, universities, and small businesses. He uses good old HTML, CSS, and PHP, with QUARK and Photoshop.
Myra Chanin
Myra Chanin, aka Mother Wonderful, has been called a cross between Julia Child and Woody Allen–unfortunately not by either one of them yet. She’s also the author of several Mother Wonderful Books, the name a former suitor dubbed her Philadelphia cheesecake business that produced a cookbook which appeared on Oprah, Charlie Rose, Maury Povich and Hour Magazine. In New York, after a few stints on the Joey Reynolds all night radio show, she became his talent booker, part time sidekick, surrogate mother as well as the manipulative Bubby of Joey’s dysfunctional Friday Night Jewish Hour family. She now writes for several web publications and is working on a novel about her husband’s family, which Alvin is praying will be published posthumously.
Magda Katz
Magda Katz has been in the entertainment world for most of her life as a child actress, assistant to the head publicist of Avco Embassy Pictures, theatrical print agent. She went on to manage the show business career of her 2 children for over 15 years. For the last five years Magda has been filming and editing video trailers of live performances as well as celebrity interviews. Broadway After Dark was the first website to feature her video trailers. She contributed in creating a star studded 90th birthday party for Mickey Rooney at Feinstein’s at the Regency Hotel. Her video trailers have a large international following. Videos are featured at: www.theaterpizzazz.com. All of Magda’s videos can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/MagdaCorrespondent
Michael Lee Stever
Michael Lee Stever is originally from Sacramento, Ca and has called New York City his home for over twenty years. Having worked successfully for over fifteen years as an actor, singer & dancer and now works on both coasts as a full time freelance filmmaker, camera man, editor, writer. He had the supreme pleasure of meeting TheaterPizzazz editor-in-chief Sandi Durell while working as UPM on the documentary, ‘Broadway: The Golden Age’ and is elated to be working with her again in the internet arena. Stever’s mini-documentaries ‘Resurrecting Carrie’ featuring Academy Award nominee Piper Laurie and ‘Jan Broberg’s Guide To Thespians, Sociopaths & Scream Queens!’ featuring Elijah Wood have been official selections at several east coast film festivals, and can be viewed right here at TheaterPizzazz. To learn more, visit Michael at www.MichaelStever.net or http://about.me/michaelstever
Adam Cohen
Adam Cohen grew up watching summer stock at Plays in the Park New Jersey. He’s written for Center on the Aisle and Broadway World. Cohen runs marathons and triathlons and prefers an aisle seat to stretch out and enjoy shows with his college-age daughter.