TDF

By LAUREN KAY This past October, Kathryn Morgan graduated from the corps de ballet to soloist with the New York City Ballet. Her unusually mature sense of drama, lithe legs and breathtaking use of her upper body made her a clear (if young) choice for promotion. Having shot through the ranks in just three years, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Welcome to Building Character, TDF’s ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles. ________________________ Plenty of actors talk about the “journey” they take with a character, but Bill Heck’s voyage is especially epic. For seven installments of Horton Foote’s nine-play opus The Orphans’ Home Cycle, now playing at Signature Theatre, […]

By Daniel Gillen Based on my experience at the musical Wicked, audio description may help increase the visually-impaired community’s interest in largely visual forms of entertainment.  This is especially true of musical theatre. The music may be pleasing and agreeable to the ears of one with or without vision, but when there is no dialogue, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP If you’re seeing shows at this year’s Under the Radar festival and you happen to notice a theme, then please let Mark Russell know. Sure, he’s the artistic director and producer of this annual round-up of new theatre, co-presented by the Public, but he never curates around a particular idea. “Sometimes I […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Zero Mostel was a man of the theatre, so he may have realized his life was like a play.  Yes, he originated iconic roles in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, but he also got blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Yes, […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Spend two seconds with a music video or a Gatorade commercial, and you’ll see hip-hop dancing. Hoofers who pop and lock, flip and bounce, and freeze on the tips of their toes are an everyday part of the pop culture routine. Seeing an ad, however, is not the same as understanding a […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP Welcome to Building Character, TDF’s ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles. — David Alan Grier isn’t just starring in a new Broadway play. He’s starring in Race, a new Broadway play by David Mamet, and that comes with a very specific set of demands. Grier plays Henry Brown, […]

By PATRICK LEE Sarah Ruhl’s plays, which include The Clean House and Dead Man’s Cell Phone, have made her one of the most distinctive and celebrated playwrights to emerge this decade. Already the winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant, she’s currently making her Broadway debut with Lincoln Center Theater’s production of In the Next Room […]

By MARK BLANKENSHIP She likes us, but when it comes to being trashy, Dillie Keane says England trumps America every time. She should know: As the founder and co-star of Fascinating Aida, a British comedy cabaret trio, she’s been skewering her native country for over twenty-five years. Her people have never failed to provide her […]