Musical Theatre and Theatre With Music

Jessica Wallenfels considers the state of the new American musical.

Ryan Leeds interviews Ty Defoe about winning the Jonathan Larson Grant, his show Crane: On Earth, In Sky, and how his identity influences his work.

Calling for more female-driven musicals.

Meghan Randolph surveys theatregoers to consider best practices to market lesser-known plays.

Director Alex Hare discusses using a town hall format for Chains Don’t Rattle Themselves, a song cycle performance about incarceration and how it affects individuals and their families.

The grace and fury in the performance of Jo Lampert as Joan in Joan of Arc: Into the Fire.

 Jonathan Mandell considers his own and other reactions to the Broadway musical Come From Away, which have as much to do with what's happening in the world as on stage.

Kitty Drexel writes about Stephen Sondheim's Assassins , and the need for artists to defend natinoal arts funding.

Jonathan Mandell digs into three recent productions in New York City—Made in China, Confucius, and Caught—that explore US-China relations.

Jena Tesse Fox talks to Jennifer Ashley Tepper, theatre historian, author of the three-volume series The Untold Stories of Broadway, about her role as Director of Programming at 54 Below, and how the history of Broadway relates to us today.

Rob Oronato on Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, a “communal, intelligent, erotic, participatory, spectacular performance art concert; a marathon survey dedicated to destroying through exposure the racism, patriarchy, supremacy, and fascism suppressing the fabulosity of all our country’s different beleaguered Others over the years.”

Donald Sanborn, III reports on the New York Musical Festival, discussing the landscape of original musicals.

Matthew Clinton Sekellick unpacks the crediting dispute over the Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and the implications for the relationship between non-profits and commercial producers.

A new play takes cues from funk music to explore bisexuality, biphobia, and polyamory in 1990s Brooklyn.

Alison Durkee considers the preservation of the theatrical past in a number of ‘reconstructed’ performances or resurrections of ‘lost’ works, such the 2016 production of Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.

Joel Fishbane examines the politics and patriotism of two hit musicals that deal with early American history.

Donald Sanborn talks with director John Doyle about the differences between musical theatre and opera, and the power of seeing actors play instruments on stage.

Educator and director Luanne Davis Haggerty directs a musical with a Deaf and hearing cast and considers how the rehearsal room creates and reveals forms of Deaf leadership.

Renée Camus reports on this summer’s Song, Stage, and Screen Conference in New York City.