MARK BLANKENSHIP
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Everyone’s Talking, So We Might as Well Listen
Lisa D’Amour on the torrent of words in her play Airline Highway — There are so many words tumbling around in Airline Highway, so many sly asides and sassy jokes delivered under the breath, that it might seem the conversation in the play is just happening, as though playwright Lisa D’Amour told her actors to […]
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WATCH: What Is Blocking? A Claque? A Stage Door?
We’ve got three new videos in our Theatre Dictionary ! (You can browse all our videos right here. )
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How Is This Musical Comedy Like Breaking Bad?
The surprisingly deep themes of Something Rotten! — On first glance – or maybe even fifth – Something Rotten! doesn’t seem anything like Breaking Bad. After all, the former is a raucous musical comedy about Elizabethan playwrights who actually invent musical theatre while trying to compete with Shakespeare, and the latter is an era-defining television series […]
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Kathleen Marshall’s Guide to Comedy
How the renowned director brings laughs to Living on Love — “All good screwball comedy depends on a level of danger.” So says Kathleen Marshall, and she should know. She directed hellzapoppin Broadway shows like Nice Work If You Can Get It, Anything Goes, and Wonderful Town, which were all distinguished by their zany charm. […]
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This Musical is More Moving in the Round
Inside the new design of Broadway’s Fun Home — When the floor starts collapsing, we barely notice. It’s only afterward, when all the trap doors have silently slid open, that we realize this family’s house has become a gaping maw. One foot wrong, and someone could disappear into darkness. In that moment, the set of […]
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Why Should Students See Hamilton?
The student matinees are, it turns out, the highlights of my life. I can’t begin to describe how it feels.
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How TDF Member Teresa Coico Met Hugh Jackman’s Dog
Welcome to Meet the Member, where TDF members let you know which shows they love Today’s member : Teresa Coico, who joined TDF in 2005. She currently lives in New Jersey and works at Community Education Centers, which runs programs to help prisoners reenter society. — Mark Blankenship, Editor of TDF Stages : Hi Teresa! […]
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That Evil Sock Puppet is Just So Cute!
Inside the puppetry design of Broadway’s Hand to God — Even when he’s possessed by Satan, Tyrone the sock puppet is still pretty cute. And that’s no accident. Just ask Marte Johanne Ekhougen, the puppetry designer for Hand to God. In Robert Askins’s giddily dark comedy, now on Broadway at the Booth Theatre, we meet […]
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Do You Belong In Your Neighborhood?
Tracey Scott Wilson looks at gentrification from all sides — In Tracey Scott Wilson’s Buzzer, the days and weeks just slide together. Take the first few minutes of the play, which is now at the Public Theater. In the opening scene, Jackson, a successful lawyer, talks to a real estate agent about the apartment he […]