The internet magazine of stage reviews and opinion

David Spencer

INTO THE WOODS

 INTO THE WOODS Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Book by James Lapine Directed by Lear deBessonet St. James Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer As I never tire of saying, every revival of a musical is a conversation with the original production. Sensibilities change over time and there’s always a negotiation—and often a war—between

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HANGMEN

HANGMEN by Martin McDonaugh Directed by Matthew Dunster John Golden Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer A little known fact in the US is that, until capital punishment was banned in the UK, the veteran hangmen who executed the doomed were celebrities of a sort, almost like sports figures. And why wouldn’t they be? Men

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MJ

MJ Book by Lynn Nottage Directed by Christopher Wheeldon Neil Simon Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer I’m as entertained—well, almost as entertained—as anyone by the by-now standard genre of pop-star biopic musical, but only a few times (Jersey Boys and Beautiful come to mind) have I been so to the point of feeling as

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MACBETH

MACBETH By William Shakespeare Directed by Sam Gold Starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga Longacre Theatre Official Site Reviewed by David Spencer Director Sam Gold’s staging of Macbeth is probably best reviewed in brief. There’s nothing wrong with the notion of doing a stripped-down, rehearsal clothes production of a Shakespeare play—in popular commercial theatre, that notion

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A STRANGE LOOP

A STRANGE LOOP Book, Music and Lyrics by Michael R. Jackson Directed by Stephen Brackett Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer A Strange Loop is an odd bird. It’s actually not remotely the first self-referential musical in which the writer—in this case, composer-lyricist-librettist Michael R. Jackson—determines to tell his own autobiographical tale about being a musical

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POTUS

POTUS by Selina Fillinger Directed by Susan Stroman Sam S. Shubert Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer   I’ve long since come to the conclusion that there are times when being a critic means being a chronicler of the experience rather than a deconstructive analyst. It’s all well and good to expound upon why a

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FUNNY GIRL

FUNNY GIRL Music by Jule Styne Lyrics by Bob Merrill Book by Isobel Lennart Revised Book by Harvey Weinstein August Wilson Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer I don’t think it serves the matter spending too much time on Funny Girl. What you’ve heard as a consensus (if you’ve been listening) is largely true: Beanie

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THE MINUTES

THE MINUTES by Tracy Letts Directed by Anna D. Shapiro Studio 54 Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer   Because I’ve spent so much of my career adapting, writing and writing about genre stories, I’m over-sensitive about spoilers, and to my way of thinking, it is literally impossible to review Tracy Letts’ new play, The Minutes,

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PLAZA SUITE

PLAZA SUITE by Neil Simon Directed by John Benjamin Hickey Starring Sara Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick Hudson Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer   I was worried about Neil Simon’s 1968 trilogy of one-acts, Plaza Suite, being revived for 2022 Broadway. Simon was undoubtedly a comedy master, his success remains unparalleled, and I’m old

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COMPANY

COMPANY (Gender Reversal Version) Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Book by George Furth Directed by Marianne Elliott Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer The revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s trailblazing 1970 musical Company, re-imagined as a gender-reversal update by director Marianne Elliott, is very much an eye-of-the-beholder experience and you should take

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SIX

SIX Book by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss Music and Lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss Directed by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage Brooks Atkinson Theatre Official Website Reviewed by David Spencer More and more as we get deeper into the new millennium, the determination of what may or may not be a “real”

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