Culture Watch

Back in Old Egypt for a Song and Dance with Cleo and Julius

by Bruce Chadwick

Sphinx Winx Beckett Theater Theater Row W. 42d. Street New York, N.Y. I’ll bet you didn’t know that Julius Caesar, famed tough guy dictator of the Roman Empire, was also a skilled song and dance man.  And that his beloved Cleopatra could do a pretty good job of hoofing it with him.  Or that Cleopatra’s aide, Enobarbus, was actually a dead ringer for Sarah Palin.

Dedicated to the Ones We Loved: a Trip into Rock ‘N Roll History

by Bruce Chadwick

Baby It’s You Broadhurst Theater 235 W. 44th Street New York, N.Y.

Broadway Theater's History Plays Set All-Time Box Office Record

by Bruce Chadwick

The Broadway theater set a new all time annual record of more than $1 billion in ticket sales over the last fiscal year, according to statistics released yesterday by the Broadway League. History plays accounted for about $600 million of that total.The New York stage also set a record for attendance, with over 12 million people going to shows, a nearly 6 percent jump from last year.   

1600s History: Shakespeare Invades the American Summer Stage

by Bruce Chadwick

You cannot drive across America in the summer without passing a Shakespeare theater festival.  The Bard seems to be everywhere, even Canada, and his plays, written in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, overflow through cities, suburbs and rural villages.  This summer, though, there are more Shakespeare plays than ever and people are paying more attention to them.

A Post-Civil War Puzzle Play in the Hills of Tennessee

by Bruce Chadwick

Tennessee Ensemble Studio Theater 549 W. 52d Street New York, N.Y. It is 1870 in the backwoods of North Carolina, just five years after the last battle of the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began.  A farmer has returned home from a day of work on his land with his son to his loving wife, who is cuddling their baby.  He owns his house and his land, he tells his family, wiping sweat from his brow, and he is a happy man.

Ten Years Later: the Theater Tackles the National Tragedy of September 11, 2001 with a Riveting Play

by Bruce Chadwick

WTC View 59E59 Theater 59 E. 59th Street New York, NY

‘Law and Order’ Meets History, 1873 Style

by Bruce Chadwick

The Ryan Murder Case 1873 Live IN Theater Church of the Transfiguration 25 Mott St. New York, N.Y.

New History Operas on the Way: Monsters and Wars

by Bruce Chadwick

New York City Opera VOX Lab Skirball Center for the Performing Arts New York University New York, N.Y.

A ‘Stark’ View of Racism over the Years in Hollywood

by Bruce Chadwick

‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’ Second Stage Theater 305 W. 43rd St. New York, N.Y.

In Defense of Harold Bloom?

by Jim Downs

It’s Becoming a Habit: the Theater is Suddenly Overflowing with Nuns, Past and Present

by Bruce Chadwick

            Nuns are everywhere in the American theater this spring. You can find them singing and dancing in ‘Sister Act,’ based on the Whoopi Goldberg movie, set in the 1970s, that opened last week, and recovering from alcohol in ‘High Times,’ starring Kathleen Turner.

History Plays Make History at the Tony Award Nominations

by Bruce Chadwick

 The Book of Mormon is a history play that combines a contemporary missionary’s trip to Africa with the history of the Mormon religion.  Last week, it snagged fourteen Tony Award nominations, including Best Play.  It was not alone as a history champ; The Scottsboro Boys, about racism in the 1930s, earned twelve nominations, and War Horse, about World War I, earned five.  Musicals about history swept all four Best Musical nominations and history plays earned a bevy of other nods.

Munch on Your Popcorn: Broadway Takes History on the Road to a Movie House near You

by Bruce Chadwick

‘Mamma Mia’ was a hit Broadway show that was turned into a movie. Critics howled that everyone would go to the movie instead of the show and that the play would shut down faster than a dancing queen when the music stops. Just the opposite happened. The musical became more successful than ever, thanks to the fame given it by the film. ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Chicago’ were both made into movies and the films helped extend the runs of both shows, each running for years now.

A Boy, a Horse, World War One and a Searing Story

by Bruce Chadwick

War Horse Vivian Beaumont Theater Lincoln Center New York, N.Y.

Drama about Triangle Shirt Waist Factory 1911 Blaze Does Not Catch Fire

by Bruce Chadwick

Triangle 59E59 Theater 59 E. 59th St. New York, N.Y.

From Bengal Tigers to Baghdad Tanks, the Stage Finally Catches Up with the Wars in the Middle East

by Bruce Chadwick

No matter where you go in Hollywood these days, people who work in the film industry complain bitterly that none of the movies produced about the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made much of a profit at the box office. The Hurt Locker even won the Oscar as best film and hardly made any money.

One of History’s Great Con Men Is Back, and with Panache

by Bruce Chadwick

‘Catch Me If You Can’ 250 Neil Simon Theater Need W. 52d St. New York, N.Y.

Science History Dull? No More, Boasts Stage Festival

by Bruce Chadwick

What do people think of when you say “science”?  Test tubes.  Rocket launches.  Moon rocks.  Old science fiction movies featuring scary monsters such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon.The answers people usually give make New York theater producer Billy Carden chuckle. “The study of science has, in fact, launched great movies and plays,” he said.And he has a festival full of science plays to prove his point.  This

Anything Does Go in “Anything Goes,” a Spectacular Musical about the 1930s

by Bruce Chadwick

Anything GoesStephen Sondheim Theater146 W. 43rd StreetNew York, N.Y.In the middle of the 1930s, following a business downturn after the 1929 stock market crash, the cruise industry rebounded.  Large, fast, opulent ocean liners sailed the seven seas and producer Vinton Freedley lived on one of them.  He did not stay on the ship because he wanted a l

"Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" Does Not Roar

by Bruce Chadwick

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad ZooRichard Rodgers Theater226 W. 46th St.New York, N.Y.The curtain on Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo rises and there is Robin Williams, long grey hair flowing, streaked beard covering much of his face, in a tiger cage at the Baghdad Zoo, a few days after the U.S. ‘victory’ in the Iraq War in 2003.  He is guarded by two ne