MARK BLANKENSHIP

By Mark Blankenship New York’s Off Broadway companies are a crucial part of the city’s theatre scene. These are the troupes that bring us the next great actor, the hottest rising playwright, and the fresh new look at the classic play. Here’s a sample of the shows in the fall Off Broadway season, covering everything […]

By Mark Blankenship You’ve got to love the start of Broadway’s season season: It’s the time when every show still has the potential to be sensational. In that spirit of anticipation, here’s a look at fifteen plays and musicals that will open on the Great White Way between September and December. All of them give […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP When people talk about dance as a universal language, they’re generally speaking in metaphors. But not Gregory Butler. From Argentina to Spain to Korea, he has literally used movement to communicate with huge groups of performers.   As the associate choreographer of Chicago, the Broadway musical revival that’s been running since 1996, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP If you’ve seen the documentary “Every Little Step,” which follows a group of actors auditioning for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line, then you probably remember Rachelle Rak. She’s the one who gives the killer audition for Sheila, wowing the producers with her take on the sassy character. Or at least, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Jill Paice isn’t actually British, but you’d never guess that from her resume. On Broadway, the Ohio native dropped her American accent to play Laura Fairlie, the clever heiress in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s veddy English musical The Woman in White, and she’s currently tackling all the female roles in the long-running comedy […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP They might seem slight next to four-hour epics or ten-part cycles, but short plays can be exhilarating. Before he wrote Our Town, for instance, Thornton Wilder perfected his experimental style with brief, brilliant pieces like Pullman Car Hiawatha, and for every Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett wrote a miniature masterpiece like Footfalls. […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Paul Bargetto doesn’t want to know about the work he’s producing this summer. As the curator of the Undergroundzero Festival, whose third season of experimental shows runs through July 26 at P.S. 122, he prefers to walk into a performance and be just as surprised as the audience. That’s an unusual approach, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Vanitieshas all the trappings of a major new musical: The story of three Texas cheerleaders who remain friends over three decades, it’s based on the popular 1976 play by Jack Heifner (who wrote the musical’s book), and it’s premiering on July 16 at Second Stage, a company known for long-running hits like […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP It’s hard to imagine it now, especially given the kind of acclaim they’ve received, but early in Mary Stuart‘s Broadway run, stars Harriet Walter and Janet McTeer thought the audience was against them. The actresses first tackled Friedrich Schiller’s classic 19th-century drama—which stages the rivalry between royal cousins Elizabeth I (Walter) and […]