TDF Stages Archive

By Mark Blankenship Lowe Taylor has been to so many senior proms, you’d think she went to every high school on earth. But really, she’s just the biggest trouper in The Marvelous Wonderettes , the long-running musical about a girl group that performs at their high school prom in 1958 and then reunites for their […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP If you listen to the Public Theater’s production of The Brother/Sister Plays in the right way, then you’ll hear several conversations at once. First, the plays talk to each other. Tarell Alvin McCraney has written a trilogy, currently running in two sections at the Public, that depicts several generations in modern-day Louisiana. […]

By Mark Blankenship A few weeks ago, director Rachel Chavkin paused rehearsal for The Lily’s Revenge and pondered: When a giant tick drags a wounded daisy into the hallway, how many screams does it take to make the exit funny? For The Lily’s Revenge , that’s a standard question. Now in its world premiere at […]

By PATRICK LEE One of Broadway's best-known leading ladies, Kerry Butler originated the roles of Penny in Hairspray , Audrey in the revival of Little Shop of Horrors , and Kira in Xanadu (for which she earned a Tony nomination).  Now she’s sporting acid-washed jeans in Rock of Ages , the hit musical that uses […]

By LINDA BUCHWALD Bill T. Jones is a busy man these days. On November 10, his dance company will perform Serenade/The Proposition , part of a trilogy about Abraham Lincoln, at the Joyce Theatre. On November 23, Fela! , a musical about the legendary Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti that Jones directed and choreographed, opens on […]

By Julia Rosenfeld During a recent rehearsal for What Once We Felt , playwright Ann Marie Healy and director Ken Rus Schmoll had an idea for restructuring the end of their show. Healy took the suggestions from the rehearsal room, went home to her computer, and started working on new pages. And then something happened. […]

By Linda Buchwald Justin Kirk is an actor, so it stands to reason that portraying an actor on stage wouldn’t be a stretch. But his role in The Understudy , now playing at the Roundabout, is a serious departure from his actual life. A backstage satire from Theresa Rebeck, the play stages a put-in rehearsal […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP It’s certainly a hooky idea: In Love Child , writer-performers Robert Stanton and Daniel Jenkins create an entire world using nothing but their bodies, six chairs, and some light cues. Their low-tech, high-energy style made the show a success last year when it played at Primary Stages, and it should make the […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP When you’re writing a musical, the smallest changes can make all the difference. Just ask Adam Gwon. He was in previews for Ordinary Days , his new musical about New Yorkers with intersecting lives, when he discovered the power of tiny edits. A tweaked line here, a new song there, and he […]