TDF

The ritual of theatre may have begun in conjunction with religious observances. And though temples and theatres have gone their separate ways in the centuries since the Greeks, religion still has its theatrical aspects, and the theatre likewise retains some of its ritual, even superstitious character (the ghost light, anyone?). It should be no surprise, […]

Director Leigh Silverman is an expert multi-tasker, a skill that has come in handy in balancing the many agendas involved in directing brand new plays such as David Henry Hwang’s YellowFace, Lisa Kron’s Well and Tanya Barfield’s Blue Door. Multi-tasking has also become a more urgent necessity now that Silverman’s directing career has begun to […]

When David Mamet and William H. Macy formed the Atlantic Theater Company in the early 1980s, they were invoking a legendary company that inspired their efforts: The famous Group Theatre of the 1930s had briefly considered the name “Atlantic Theater.” But to any observer of the Atlantic’s Off-Broadway programming, the name seems especially appropriate, for […]

“We’re at this point because we didn’t think of Broadway,” says Heidi Rodewald, co-composer with single-named pop/rock songsmith Stew of the score for Passing Strange, a new rock musical which starts previews at the Belasco on Feb. 8 and opens there on Feb. 28. “If we had thought we were doing this for Broadway, we […]

When Paul Taylor was 16, he went bicycling through Mexico.

When Washington, D.C. resident Adam Natale relocated to New York a few years ago, he made sure to take care of the usual housing, finances and moving concerns. Just as important if not more was signing up for a TDF membership-which he did two months before his Gotham move. Now that’s thinking ahead. “There’s no […]

What do a nearly 20-year-old Broadway casting controversy and a 10-year-old federal banking investigation have to say to the political moment at the dawn of 2008? Quite a lot, in fact, based on the evidence of Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang’s new play, extended at the Public Theatre through Jan. 13. The twin inspirations for […]

“Let me hop off my skateboard,” says Jimmi Simpson, arriving at the Music Box Theatre for a recent performance of The Farnsworth Invention, the epic historical drama by Aaron Sorkin, in which Simpson plays the title character. It’s hard to imagine Philo T. Farnsworth, the farm-boy genius from Idaho who first envisioned the science of […]

By now Broadway audiences are used to seeing popular films adapted for the stage, particularly into musicals. The 39 Steps, which begins performances on Jan. 4 at the American Airlines Theatre, is something completely different: A lithe, funny, four-actor staging of Alfred Hitchcock’s 72-year-old classic film thriller, which involves a chase across the Scottish highlands […]