Female playwrights find it's still a man's world

July 1, 2009

It is time to write this story again - you know, the one about the deck being stacked against women playwrights. Every few years, whether I want it or not, a study will emerge that proves, in hard numbers, the gender bias in favor of theater by men.

Recent columns

• Lincoln Center Festival is a foreign affair

  June 26, 2009

  It may just be wishful thinking. But it strikes me that, in the past few years, friends don't look at me with the same pity and fear when I mention foreign-language theater.

• Lincoln Center Festival is a foreign affair

  June 25, 2009

  It may just be wishful thinking. But it strikes me that, in the past few years, friends don't look at me with the same pity and fear when I mention foreign-language theater.

• Anne Hathaway adds her star power to 'Twelfth Night'

  June 11, 2009

  What is it about "Twelfth Night" that turns New York into theater camp for movie stars in the summertime?

• Warm up for the Tonys with 10 magic Broadway moments

  June 5, 2009

  The strange case of the triumphant star-driven theater season continues to grip Broadway with all the twisty surprise of a really satisfying thriller. Even as the commercial theater rehearses for the national ad campaign known as the Tony Awards (Sunday night at 8 on CBS), box-office grosses continue to confound the world's financial realities. The season's final tally is $943.3 million, which the Broadway League is calling its best ever.

• Warm up for the Tonys with 10 magic B'way moments

  June 4, 2009

  The strange case of the triumphant star-driven theater season continues to grip Broadway with all the twisty surprise of a really satisfying thriller. Even as the commercial theater rehearses for the national ad campaign known as the Tony Awards (Sunday night at 8 on CBS), box-office grosses continue to confound the world's financial realities. The season's final tally is $943.3 million, which the Broadway League is calling its best ever.

• Warm up for the Tonys with 10 magic B'way moments

  June 3, 2009

  The strange case of the triumphant star-driven theater season continues to grip Broadway with all the twisty surprise of a really satisfying thriller. Even as the commercial theater rehearses for the national ad campaign known as the Tony Awards (Sunday night at 8 on CBS), box-office grosses continue to confound the world's financial realities. The season's final tally is $943.3 million, which the Broadway League is calling its best ever.

• Tony Awards may pick up a British accent

  May 14, 2009

  Ballots for the Tony Awards are in the mail to the 806 voters - a weirdly shaped number that includes producers, a sampling from each theater union and, yes, even critics. Other prizes are being handed out almost every night of the week, but Broadway - after its busiest season since the early '80s - seems to be in a kind of suspended animation until the June 7 telecast on CBS. Still, there are a few stories left to tell.

• Broadway's big openings before the Tony deadline

  April 23, 2009

  Now it begins.

• Broadway's big openings before the Tony deadline

  April 22, 2009

  Now it begins.

• Susan Stroman returns to theater with 'Happiness'

  March 22, 2009

  March 30 will be exactly nine years since Susan Stroman became a Broadway powerhouse with a trio of marvelously original, virtually wordless dance-plays called "Contact."

• Natasha Richardson's indelible legacy in New York theater

  March 19, 2009

  Natasha Richardson was only in four plays here in 16 years, but she was very much a part of New York theater.

• 52 years of 'West Side Story'

  March 15, 2009

  When "West Side Story" opened on Broadway in 1957, New York had seven daily newspapers, which means seven daily critics, most declaring the show a milestone in the American musical theater.

• Jane Fonda, star of '33 Variations,' has many lives

  March 8, 2009

  On Monday, Jane Fonda had lunch with the woman who used to run her workout business, watched a sex-education video made for teens who come to the Jane Fonda Clinic for Adolescent Reproductive Health in Atlanta and carried around her little dog, Tulea, so the pooch didn't freeze her paws in the snow.

• Streep, Kazan and Rabe kids seem born to act

  March 1, 2009

  Ah, the Redgraves, the Barrymores, the Fondas. If science ever concludes that there's no such thing as a talent gene, we're going to have to find another way to explain the existence of acting dynasties.

• 'Billy Elliot' escorts dance back to Broadway

  November 9, 2008

  When it comes to dancing with or without the stars, Broadway has been losing the beat to TV.

• Tony Awards reflect a changing tide on Broadway

  May 18, 2008

  This is the time of year we dump on the committee that chooses the Tony Award nominations. In the twilight of the Broadway season, the theater world heaves with lists of egregious omissions and commercial sellouts aimed at the handful of (mostly little-known) theater experts (23 this year) who shape the memories for history and for the tourists.

• If the Met OKs encores, is Broadway far behind?

  May 4, 2008

  It was a night for the history books.

• Rosie O'Donnell will tap in 'No, No, Nanette'

  April 27, 2008

  Can Rosie tap?

• Spring awakening

  April 6, 2008

  However the wind blows, theatergoers know it's spring when Broadway gets crazy with openings.

• 'Mamma Mia' a Guilty Pleasure

  October 18, 2001

  In our imaginary encyclopedia of pop-culture shamelessness, the “guilty pleasure” section has a boisterous, unapologetic new entry.

• 'Mamma Mia' a Guilty Pleasure

  October 18, 2001

  In our imaginary encyclopedia of pop-culture shamelessness, the “guilty pleasure” section has a boisterous, unapologetic new entry.