From Ballet to Broadway- A Genius Makes His Mark

One of the most touching tales in Amanda Vaill’s Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins is about a gift that Robbins gave to Ethel Merman when she was starring in Gypsy. A resoundingly unreflective performer whose every instinct ran counter to Robbins’ Method-driven approach to performance, Merman nonetheless submitted to his persnickety but gentle coaching Read More

Everything Comes Up Roses For Great American Musical

As the most famous line in Broadway musical history goes, “Sing out, Louise!” And so I shall. The revival of Gypsy at the Shubert Theatre is triumphant in every way. The best backstage musical ever created touches greatness in the central performance of Bernadette Peters as the ultimate stage mother, Momma Rose. Tabloid gossip and Read More

Pee-Wee Merman’s Big Adventure

Imagine a disco-era Ethel Merman trapped in the body of Pee-wee Herman, entertaining the likes of Liza Minnelli in the Betty Ford Center auditorium.

This twisted character, Pee-wee Merman, is proving to be the strangest star of drag auteur Michael West’s new show, Almost Live from the Betty Ford Clinic , now playing Thursdays Read More

Kids II: The Murderers

After A.I. , Steven Spielberg’s extravagant

summer banquet, everything else at the movies is scraps. Signaling the arrival

of dog days, we have several bits of flotsam to get out of the way. Most controversial

of them all is Bully , a disturbing

but ultimately pointless little horror from Larry Clark, the overrated director

of Read More

A Rowlands Revival

In the forthcoming avalanche of big-budget, end-of-the-year Hollywood epics with limitless money for marketing and promotion, don’t overlook The Weekend and A Good Baby , two small, sincere, modestly financed but extremely intelligent independent films worthy of attention. The Weekend , written and directed by Brian Skeet, is a lushly photographed reverie about a group Read More