TDF Stages Archive
An online theatre magazine
Read about NYC’s best theatre and dance productions and watch video interviews with innovative artists
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Three Different Films in One Big Dance
Susan Reiter covers dance for TDF Stages.
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An Actor Channels a Journalist to Play a Marine
“I wanted to become a journalist before I became an actor,” says Jonny Orsini. “I think I approach roles the way a journalist approaches stories.” That means he does a serious amount of research for every part he plays. Take his work in Almost Home, a new drama by Walter Anderson that’s now at Theatre […]
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The Secret to Surviving a Terrible Family
Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles The ghost of Konstantin, the tortured young playwright whose diva mother withholds her love in Chekhov’s The Seagull, seems to haunt Donald Margulies’ The Country House, now on Broadway from Manhattan Theatre Club. In the new play, the broken artist […]
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She Tore Up the Theatre to Build a New World
by Suzy Evans Rachel Hauck drew the line at live chickens. Director Lisa Peterson wanted “at least three” birds to create the authenticity of a poultry factory, where South American immigrant women work in Lisa Ramirez’s play To the Bone. However, Hauck knew she could create that environment without a real animal in sight. “What […]
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Lea Salonga (Finally) Has Company
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Lea Salonga. Of course, back in the ’90s, all little Asian girls who loved to sing wanted to be the Miss Saigon star. She was the Asian musical theatre Cinderella, a young Filipino girl with a beautiful voice, plucked out of obscurity and turned into […]
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When Naughty Congressmen Inspire Funny Plays
By MARIO CORREA A closeted gay Congressman hits on your boyfriend, and presto, an Off-Broadway comedy is born! So it was with Tail! Spin!, a verbatim recreation of four preposterous, real-life political sex scandals (now playing at Culture Project) inspired by my days batting back the wandering hand of a very friendly Congressman. See, back […]
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Once, Twice, Three Times Your Savior
Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles — It’s not every day you sit down with three Jesus Christs. Wait, what’s the plural form of Jesus? Jesi? Jesuses? “Jesees!” says Donald Warfield, one of three actors playing the son of God in 3 Christs, now at Judson […]
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This Play Seems Predictable (Until You Listen Closely)
By MARK BLANKENSHIP The Fatal Weaknesssneaks up on you. Superficially, George Kelly’s 1946 play, about a woman discovering her husband’s affair, seems like a typical pre-War comedy, with well-heeled New Yorkers snooping on each other and making droll statements about the ways of love. But the more you listen, the more you realize there’s something […]
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Where Did This Raunchy Musical Come From?
By MARK BLANKENSHIP There aren’t that many places in New York City where you can see a musical that lets you lick whipped cream off the leading lady. Or lift her up on your feet so she can “play airplane.” Or hand her your glass of chardonnay after she accidentally breaks the bottle she’s toting […]