Johnny Oleksinski

“Now, with the final show of the 2025-26 crop, he’s delivered the best.”

“The actor is the soul of this production, and deftly escapes its failings.”

“Still, there's much to like, even adore, in Pinkleton's revival — from its Fritz Lang-y metallic manikins to a dark and seductive castle set that feels ripped from a Jim Steinman music video to two knockout performances from Luke Evans as Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Hsu as Janet.”

“For a musical that’s been squatting in various cities for more than 10 years, it’s hard to believe that so many crummy songs litter it.”

“Line by line and moment by moment, “The Balusters” is an engrossing and enjoyable watch, fueled by Lindsay-Abaire’s impolite humor and the cast’s sparky connectivity and willing embrace of the bonkers.”

“But the musical with a book, music and lyrics by Cinco Paul is confused as to what it’s supposed to be.”

“Watching such a fine-china actress as O’Hara shatter on the floor, sliding down designer David Rockwell’s grand staircase and crudely spitting out sweets, is a hoot.”

“Add to that Edebiri, who, while not giving the career-defining performance Parker did, is nonetheless worth seeing.”

“It’s just that “The Fear of 13,” as written, is a lifeless, stuffy and dutiful schlep through years of events, posing an insurmountable obstacle for any actor.”

“You enter a fan of Celine, you leave a fan of Marla.”

“That was the best “Death of a Salesman” I have ever seen.”

“What was once a spooky and balletic spectacle of 1980s excess, best known for the hit song “Memory” and purring chorines crawling on the seats, is now a glitter bomb of euphoric pandemonium.”

“Their latest winner is “Becky Shaw.””

“For a play about a real-life 1972 bank robbery and hostage situation, the stakes are curiously medium, as if everything will magically return to normal on next week’s episode.”

“It’s Lithgow’s ability to be quiet and sweet and seconds later booming and scary that makes us squirm in our seats over our own feelings toward the writer.”

“It’s Radcliffe’s vitalizing and vulnerable performance, a cardio workout both physically and emotionally, that’s the reason to go.”

“If “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” offers brainless theme-park jump-scares, “Bug”’s bold imagery, especially as the story hurdles toward its end, provokes raw terror.”

“The actress is astonishing as a widow named Marjorie in the superb revival of Jordan Harrison’s haunting science-fiction drama that opened Monday night.”

“The guy takes a Costco sirloin and turns it into Peter Luger.”

“With hardly any helpful staging from director Michael Mayer, who has developed an EpiPen-level allergy to good shows, the endless production becomes totally reliant on the amped-up singing of leads Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher to give it a boost.”

“Reid, Strong and Manville are transfixing as awful revelation after revelation comes to light.”

“The Orlando-area colossus comes to represent the criminally bad show it’s in — a wrecking ball to good taste that opened Sunday night at the St. James Theatre.”

“Even if Wohl’s play is overlong and ambles repetitively at times, there’s nothing didactic or “eat your spinach” about the enjoyable and touching story of a weekly women’s group in 1970s Ohio.”

“It’s a hard-hitting, hard-laughing show that combines topics that you arrive at the theater not itching to confront — the COVID pandemic, meth addiction, health insurance, shift pay — into an absorbing story you leave wanting much more of.”

“Stripping away the excesses of Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Terrence McNally’s 1996 musical amplifies its many, many flaws.”

“This particularly meandering and stiff “Godot” is hardly an excellent adventure.”

“So, Reza’s play of petty bickering makes my eyes glaze over.”

“So, why, why, why has she chosen to return to Broadway in the anemic, copy-and-paste “Call Me Izzy,” a star vehicle fit for the junkyard?”

“But not when the production’s energy level is that of a funeral parlor at 8 a.m.”

“One of its most enjoyable shows has arrived just in time.”

“"The continental leap dusts off the 145-year-old operetta and gives it an energetic oomph of swing and ragtime music, and the stage is brightened up by hot-sauce pops of purple, yellow and fiery red.”

“The material, screechy and heartless, bares little resemblance to its warm source.”

“Guettel’s sumptuous early work, although lyrically too “there’s gold in them, thar hills,” is enough of a reason to see the rarely performed show.”

“But while “John Proctor” is a good time, it is not a powerful one.”

“Now, twelve years later, much of the backstage drama’s creative team has doubled-down on their failure and produced something far, far worse.”

“That lush and emotional all-company song, called “Sunday,” is one of 42 numbers in “Old Friends,” a supremely entertaining and altogether divine celebration of Sondheim’s legacy created by producer Cameron Mackintosh that opened Tuesday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.”

“"Boop," a fun if not fantastic musical with a fizzy score by David Foster and Susan Birkenhead, gives Betty the "Elf" and "Barbie" treatment.”

“A traumatic and consequential chapter in American history becomes nostalgic, and few things are deadlier onstage than nostalgia.”

“It’s Mamet, so the “f–k”s still fly.”

“Both the play and playboy walk a perilous tightrope, and the result is riveting.”

“Despite the formidable presence and occasional specks of greatness from Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, and a real winner in Jake Gyllenhaal’s feisty Iago, this is one slooow-thello.”

“I found the story absorbing; the yuks, abusive.”

“So transportive are the intoxicating Cuban music and spirited dance that it’s easy to forgive the show’s rather wispy and cliched book.”

“His latest firecracker is unstoppably fierce, funny — and ruthless.”

“Too bad the Broadway show named after the wooden giant is a toothpick.”

“Each cutesy bit is more self-satisfied and twee than the next.”

“But they perform the parts so enormously that they’re out of whack with the rest of the show, which has been frustratingly dialed down and never settles on a consistent tone other than dull.”

“Lois Smith, at 94, delivers a powerhouse performance that anchors this sprawling family drama”

“Even if the musical doesn’t have a discernible heartbeat, Hilty and Simard ensure “Death Becomes Her” stays fun and fabulous.”

“The second half of the show is impenetrably strange.”

“Unfortunately for Sir Elton, the god-awful musical about flamboyant 1980s televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker (later Messner) is a lot more of a “Lestat” than an “Aida.””

““Maybe Happy Ending,” like Pixar at its very best, nourishes the soul in a way few Broadway shows even attempt to do.”

“What’s on Broadway is largely a deflating and cobbled-together wife story that fails to capture Armstrong, the artist.”

“But, without question, Kit Connor’s Romeo is the sole reason to get thee to the theater.”

“But the mangled tone, laughless jokes and emotional fakery are impossible to look beyond.”

“So, why, if it is Our town, is director Kenny Leon’s staging of “Our Town” among the most uninvolving and anemic I have ever seen?”

“Even Iron Man is no match for a fatally shoddy script.”

“Suffice it to say, Butterworth’s compelling drama starts sad and only gets sadder.”

““Sunset Boulevard,” which opened Sunday night at the St. James Theatre, is Broadway’s most exhilarating show in years.”

“Mary Rodgers’ musical has found Sutton Foster.”

“Friedlich's smart and often very funny script actually shares a lot in common with those of Emerald Fennell, the writer-director of the films 'Promising Young Woman' and 'Saltburn.'”

“And yet the Great White Way has not witnessed a comedy this funny, or a comedic star turn this dazzling, in at least a decade.”

“And at times, I found director Anne Kauffman's production too quiet for the Friedman, intimate though the venue is.”

“And while my gut tells me the show — from New York City Ballet resident choreographer Justin Peck that’s set to the songs of Sufjan Stevens — is not really a musical per se, it is a transporting and soul-stirring experience all the same.”

“The musical, a patchwork quilt of discordant styles that belongs in a box, becomes the latest in a long line of adaptations of this beloved novel to mess up a story that’s far more satisfying to read and imagine.”

“While the production has got the jokes down pat, it is quite a bit shakier when it comes to the pathos and hardship that spring from them.”

“Leaning so hard on the relevance of its issues that it pulverizes any actual drama, the show from London is one of the season’s longest sits.”

“It’s perhaps the first time in my life that I’ve been happy to see a confetti cannon at curtain call.”

“At this “Cabaret,” nobody ever forgets their troubles, onstage or off.”

“It’s the best singing you’ll find on Broadway.”

““Stereophonic,” directed by Daniel Aukin, is undeniably transportive, and it’s a pleasure to be immersed in this creatively robust decade for a while.”

“Still, while never less than likable, “Suffs” comes short of being riveting.”

“Despite the cozy feeling of being reunited with beloved material 40 years after it was last on Broadway, director Schele Williams’ production is deflatingly flimsy and lackluster.”

“And so, the ugly splatter that audiences are left to parse is a ridiculous two-and-half-hour Eurovision act with stratospheric delusions of grandeur.”

“Driven by authenticity, earnestness, youth and ample heart, “The Outsiders” is very much an outsider itself.”

“Everything about this exhilarating production shakes you awake and leaves you buzzed: Knockout singing, superbly inventive stagecraft and a star-making performance from 24-year-old Ali Louis Bourzgui as the Pinball Wizard that’s the most exciting New York stage debut in years.”

“Thankfully, it’s rescued from total banality by a group of wonderful acrobats, who double as carnies and animals, and have an irrepressible desire to entertain.”

“Excellent performances like these are all this play needs to be forceful and pulse-pounding.”

“Because as elegantly staged as “The Notebook” is by co-directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams, and despite boasting an appealing cast, the show amounts to a series of un-involving pencil sketches rather than a layered portrait of a decades-long love.”

“Shanley wrote an immaculate work that can stand up to even so-so productions like the revival starring Amy Ryan and Liev Schreiber that opened Thursday at the Theatre. The script is the marquee star.”

“...it’s unquestionably absorbing thanks to its fine actors.”

“But as groundbreaking as “How To Dance” is as an idea, its execution across the board does not match its admirable intentions.”

“Never hilarious, the revival stalls out at pleasant.”

“That’s the central takeaway of “Harmony”: not everything is harmonious, but nonetheless there is much that’s worth listening to.”

“It’s nowhere near as compelling, focused or human.”

“But it’s not a 100% laugh riot either.”

“If you’ve ever seen the fantastic Groff in concert, you know he’s a singer who loves to make eye contact with audience members. That quality — his desire for personal connection — is what makes him such a strong, layered, sympathetic Frank. And his hopeful glance is what sells an unobtrusive but vital new ending.”

“Still, on Broadway, the little play gets swallowed up like a doomed teen in Amity.”

“On Broadway, however, we have a bloated gizmo nobody asked for that, while enjoyable in parts and with an embraceable star in Casey Likes as Marty, never justifies its perplexing existence as a stage musical.”

“Tellingly, that physical prop gag is funnier than any one line of dialogue in this entire witless play.”

“David Byrne's immersive disco musical about Imelda Marcos is a knockout that turns Broadway into a dance floor.”

“It’s bibbidi-bobbidi-brainless.”

“But the problem is not that we’re reminded of Stephen King or Jordan Peele — it’s that the execution here is far worse, the second half is a slog and nobody knows what the hell is going on.”

“It’s tired, sappy and deathly dull.”

“That thrilling moment — without mannerisms, words, other characters or exposition — is the only time Levant and “Good Night, Oscar” come to life.”

“In a way, the story's modesty allows emotion and meaning to suddenly sneak up on you.”

“Comer goes far beyond our basic expectations and into the upper echelons of greatness.”

“Shields’ self-debasement is delightful.”

“Much of Ijames’ “Fat Ham” is playful ideas that don’t add up.”

“If you’re fond of laughing, “Shucked” is the best new musical of the Broadway season so far.”