Category Archives: Broadway

As You Kink It

Posted on September 5, 2022 by dgsweet

Because of serendipitous scheduling, I saw Kinky Boots on a matinee and the New York Shakespeare production of As You Like It that night. Kinky Boots is about a guy who gets to say and do some things because he … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, Chicago theater, drama, improvisation, musicals, New York, off-Broadway, theater, Uncategorized | Tagged Adrian Lester, As You Like It, BAM, Beauty and the Beast, Callum Francis, Cheek by Jowl, Christian Douglas, Cyndi Lauper, Danielle Hope, Harvei Fierstein, Henry V, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Darien Julie Taymor, King Boots, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Shaina Taub, Viola Spolin, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments

“The Bedwetter” and “Mr. Saturday Night”

Posted on June 20, 2022 by dgsweet

Two new musicals are co-written by people who came to fame via stand-up comedy. Mr. Saturday Night, the Billy Crystal vehicle (which he co-wrote with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, composer Jason Robert Brown and lyricist Amanda Green) is about … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, musicals, off-Broadway, television, theater | Tagged Amanda Green, Bebe Neuwrith, Billy Crystal, Jason Robert Brown, Mr. Saturday Night, musicals, Sarah Silverman, stand-up, The Bedwetter | Leave a comment

Telling it Clearly — “Macbeth” vs. “Cyrano”

Posted on May 23, 2022 by dgsweet

I’m a story guy. I think the roots of the theater lie in people sharing stories. I’ve written before about a conversation I had in the mid-Seventies with novelist Louis L’Amour that influenced my thinking. He described how Native Americans, … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, theater | Tagged BAM, Betrayal, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cyrano, Daniel Craig, Evelyn Miller, Harold Pinter, Ivo Van Hove, James Mcavoy, Jamie Lloyd, Louls L'Amour, Macbeth, Othello, Ruth Negga, Sam Gold, Shakespeare | Leave a comment

“American Buffalo” on Broadway

Posted on May 20, 2022 by dgsweet

In 2001, I served on a grand jury. At one point, an ADA played for us a recording from a wiretap. It was a conversation between two members of a violent drug gang. One was assigning the other to kill … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, Chicago theater, drama, improvisation, playwriting, Second City, theater, Uncategorized | Tagged American Buffalo, David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Neil Pepe, St. Nicholas Theater | 2 Comments

CULLUD WATTAH and CLYDE’S

Posted on December 21, 2021 by dgsweet

My idea was to write a series of plays, each of which would take place in another American city. The stories would be specific to those towns, each arising organically out of the character and history of the location. And … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, theater | Tagged All My Sons, Arthur Miller, Clyde's, contaminated water, Crystal Dickinson, Cullud Wattah, Detroit, Dominique Morissea, Edmund Donovan, Enemy of the People, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Flint, Generl Motors, Henrik Ibsen, Kara Young, Kate Whoriskey, Lynn Nottage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, pollution, Public Theater, Reading PA, Reza Salazar, Rick Snyder, Roger Ailes, Ron Cephas Jones, Rosebud, Ruined, Skeleton Crew, The Detroit Project, Uzo Aduba, What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing | Leave a comment

Sondheim

Posted on November 27, 2021 by dgsweet

In 1966, ABC decided to try to change its image. It had a reputation for dumb shows with scantily-clad women and car chases. Someone at the network decided they were going to prove they could do quality, too. Thus was … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, off-Broadway, playwriting | Tagged A Chorus Line, A LIttle Night Music, ABC Stage '67, Cabaret, Company, Donna McKechnie, Edward Kleban, Evening Primrose, Finishing the Hat, Follies, For the Left Hand, Gypsy, Hal Prince, Howard Reich, Hugh Wheeler, Joe Allen's, Jule Styne, Lady in the Dark, Lanford Wilson, Lehman Engel, Maurice Ravel, musical theater, Norman Malone, NYU, Pacific Overtures, Paul Simon, Sondheim, Stephen Sondheim, Take Me to the World, Terrence McNally, The Breaking Point, The Capeman, The Hot L Baltimore, The Killing, Whiskey | 5 Comments

Fairycakes, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Chicken and Biscuits

Posted on November 9, 2021 by dgsweet

It could be that, after months of having to watch actors in two dimensions on screens, I am so grateful to be in the company of life-sized human beings that I’m in a glass half-full mode. I have seen a … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting | Tagged Ann Harada, barbershop, Brooklyn, Chicken and Biscuits, Cleo King, Douglas Carter Beane, Ebony Marshall-Oliver, Fairycakes, Gregory Gale, Into the Woods, Jackie Hoffman, Julie Halston, Keenan Scott II, Kristolyn Lloyd, Michael Urie, Norm Lewis, Thoughts of a Colored Man | Leave a comment

Returning to the Scene

Posted on October 8, 2021 by dgsweet

To be simultaneously separated by masks (I wear two) and joined in responding with laughter with hundreds of others is to experience the contradictions of going to the theater these days. Of course, you can’t see the mouths, but maybe … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater | Tagged A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet, Alex Wyse, Ben Fankhauser, Bridge Theatre, Bryonha Marie Parham, Charlotte Bydwell, covid, Dan Wagoner, Hal Prince, Jay O. Sanders, Lakawanna Blues, Martyna Majok, Maryann Plunkett, National Theatre, Porch, Prince of Broadway, Rhinebeck, Richard Nelson, Robert LePage, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Stratford Festival, What Happened? | 1 Comment

Men in White, Sidney Kingsley, and Ancillary Thoughts

Posted on September 4, 2021 by dgsweet

I recently read Sidney Kingsley’s play, Men in White (1933), and last night I watched the 1934 film adaptation directed by Richard Boleslawski. (Interesting that Boleslawski directed the film version of a work that had been directed on Broadway by … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadway, drama, film adaptation, movies, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, television | Tagged Dead End, Dead End Kids, Detective Story, Dramatists Guild, hospitals, Lee Grant, Men in White, police stations, Sidney Kingsley | Leave a comment

From “Crime in the Streets” to “West Side Story”

Posted on July 17, 2021 by dgsweet

Watched a clumsy but fascinating film called Crime in the Streets. It started as a 1955 live TV play by Reginald Rose presented by the Elgin Hour, directed by Sidney Lumet. A young John Cassavetes starred as Frankie, a member … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s TV Drama, Broadway, film adaptation, Golden Age of Television, movies, New York | Tagged 12 Angry Men, Crime in the Streets, David Winters, Dead End, Don Siegel, James Whimore, Jon Cassavetes, Mark Rydell, Reginald Rose, Robert Preston, Sidney Lumet, Street Scene, The Defenders, West Side Story | 3 Comments

	Richard L Warren on As You Kink It
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