All posts by Richard Seff:

Richard Seff, a true Broadway quadruple-threat - actor, agent, author and librettist- has written the well-received Broadway autobiography, "SUPPORTING PLAYER: My Life Upon the Wicked Stage". Each year, Actors Equity recognizes the year's most outstanding supporting player with, appropriately enough, the Richard Seff Award. 'This Is Broadway' a series of 3 1/2 minute interviews with Broadway stars which Richard co-hosted with Isobel Robins in the 70's can be heard on AmericanTheatreWing.org.

A Streetcar Named Desire

There’s been some controversy about the slowly growing trend of presenting plays with characters originally conceived as white being played by actors of color. The recent all black cast on Broadway of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  comes to mind and reminds us that critic John Lahr with a blog comment last December called for “a moratorium on all those infernal all-black productions of Tennessee Williams plays unless we can have their equal in folly; all white productions of August Wilson.” Well, that set off a firestorm of protest, but Emily Mann who was directing this Streetcar refused to take the bait, and when asked for her opinion on the legitimacy of such a multicultural endeavor, her response was short and sweet: “Tennessee always wanted this to happen.”  [Read more...]

Peter and the Starcatcher

Disney-Hyperion published a novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson with this title, and it climbed to the NewYork Times best seller list. Disney Theatrical Productions president Thomas Schumacher discovered it while it was still in galleys, and its development has been guided by that organization ever since. [Read more...]

Clybourne Park

Bruce Norris, the author of Clybourne Park, must be Chicago’s best known secret, for it is in the Windy City that the Steppenwolf Theatre has premiered six of his previous plays, beginning in 2000. Clybourne Park was the first to reach here in 2010 with an Off Broadway run, and after spending a thrilling evening with the Broadway production of this  Pulitzer Prize winning play, I’m certain the others will be popping up all over the place. [Read more...]

Regrets

Matt Charman, playwright, is on the rise. His first play, A Night at the Dogs, which opened at the Soho Theatre in London, won the prestigious Verity Bargate Award for new writers. Richard Eyre directed his The Observer and he’s been produced at the National Theatre in London. He’s won awards in Britain, he’s currently writing a screenplay for Universal/Working Title Film and an original drama for the BBC. [Read more...]

Evita is back on Broadway

Andrew Lloyd Webber is returning with a vengeance. His Phantom of the Opera sizzles along in its 25th profitable year at the Majestic, his revived Jesus Christ Superstar set up shop at the Neil Simon on March 16, and the London transported revival of  Evita just opened at the Marquis, all on Broadway. [Read more...]

4,000 Miles

Don’t let the title of Amy Herzog’s play 4000 Miles put you off. My first impression after hearing it was  that it was probably another play about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.  But no, happily it refers to the bicycle journey young Leo (Gabriel Ebert) has made in order to visit his grandmother Vera (Mary Louis Wilson) . [Read more...]

This time they’ve got a title of show – Now. Here.This.

In a New York time before mine, there was something called “The Round Table” and it consisted of scalawags and wits who bonded between 1919 and 1929;  a group of bright wags who met daily for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel for nutritional sustenance and the sharing of commentary on the day.  [Read more...]

An Iliad

Let’s face it, on entering the New York Theatre Workshop to see Dennis O’Hare’s adaptation of Homer’s Iliad, I was unprepared.  All I remembered of my long ago quick read of a summary of the original was that it was an epic poem about the Trojan War. I had trouble remembering whether it was Athena who stabbed her brother, whether  Hector was husband to Andromache or Hecuba, and  whatever happened toParis, who kidnapped Helen, thus starting the catastrophic war that lasted ten years.   [Read more...]

Lost in Yonkers

I’ve written about the work of the Actors Company Theatre (TACT) before, and here I am again to report to you on Neil Simon’s Lost In Yonkers which is the company’s spring entry at the Beckett Theatre on 42nd Street’s Theatre Row.  [Read more...]

The Lady from Dubuque

Edward Albee has a lot of explaining to do. In the lobby of the newly opened Pershing Square Signature Center way out west on 42nd Street, there is a wall devoted to photos and quotes from the life of this prize winning playwright.  They indicate his state of mind as his play The Lady From Dubuque returns to New York for the first time since its very short run in 1980.  Here are some samples.   [Read more...]