Mark Kennedy

“Chenoweth, who was born to be in a spangly dress and center stage on Broadway, is perfect for the role, an always-welcome jolt of in-on-it theatricality, but is let down by dialogue that’s not as funny as it could be and with a character too unfocused.”

“Under Scott Ellis' tight and enthralling direction and with three perfectly cast actors who seem to be having a ball at the Theatre, ‘Art’ frequently erupts in laughter but still has plenty to say about friendship, power dynamics and how we get on each others' nerves.”

“Another reason the musical fails to fully connect is that a lot of the music played onstage is fake — it’s actually the orchestra tucked into the sides making those piano scales and funky percussion.”

“So begins ‘Stereophonic,’ one of the most thrilling pieces of theater in years, a play with better songs than most musicals on Broadway and an ensemble that rocks, literally.”

“It is intent now on making a live audience openly weep by employing massive doses of schlocky sentimentality without the aid of Ryan Gosling.”

“There’s nothing broken on this stage besides sharks.”

“Only one Spears show on Broadway is truly ‘Toxic.’”

“Their hopeful duet ‘This Is Not Over Yet’ is a roof-roaring triumph.”

“Just something to help lubricate one of the most puzzling jukebox musicals in years.”

“The most uncomfortable bit is when the Black actors are tasked with recreating slaves at auction, a jarring step that could have been done more artfully.”

“Like them, it is astonishing, challenging and awesome.”

“Almost three hours after that scene, she's completely won the audience over. No shadows are holding her down.”

“They’ve gone too far, almost mugging for the audience.”

“That’s just one very large disingenuous note in an altogether baffling production that opened Tuesday at the Theatre.”

“From a craft perspective, there’s a lot to like here, and it’s easy to get swept up in the moment and walk out with a huge grin on your face, as well as an appreciation for the staging and performances that went into the show.”

“It will still take your breath away, making it a mandatory stop in the fall season.”

“It’s pure showmanship with none of the emotional payoff.”

“The formidable McTeer has made the leap and so has the taut direction by the Donmar’s Artistic Director Josie Rourke. Liev Schreiber makes a welcome, languid return to Broadway with more than enough chemistry with his co-star...”

“Without Lane, there's little reason for this revival.”

“You’re better off just watching cat videos on the internet.”

“The amount of concentration required by Ferguson is impressive and director Jason Moore runs a tight ship.”

“The gloriously gory, sleek, over-the-top musical that opened Thursday at the Theatre is a darkly wonderful adaptation of the once-controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis.”

“This is a production that can feel somewhat cluttered, which is a strange thing for a van Hove show.”

“With this indisputably superb cast, the play ducks and weaves enough to take your breath away under Joe Mantello's taut direction.”

“The show that opened Thursday at the Cort Theatre never hits an honest note and seems to have been written by two people who adore classic Broadway musicals but who have intentionally decided to make a third-rate version.”

“An astounding cast, a nifty story and memorable songs turn this revival into a celebration of classic musical construction.”

“By the time the clock hits 4 a.m. and the sun peeks out, there's something deeply satisfying about this little play.”

“They are utterly, terribly good at being bad, which is meant as a supreme compliment.”

“From the first moment to the profound last, this ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is a triumph.”

“Listening to them is a rare treat.”

“But even she can’t rescue the farcical, out-of-context ending.”

“Nowhere this season on Broadway is there an acting gulf as wide between two leads than here.”

“While it’s great that an Asian cast is telling a chapter in its own history, it’s through an old-fashioned, stereotypical style that’s out of touch with where Broadway is going.”

“‘King Charles III’ is ingenuous, intelligent and intriguing.”

“It's not funny enough to be satire and yet too earnest to be believed.”

“This production never feels vital enough to care about anyone, no matter how much panting Knightley does.”

“The result is an exhilarating and fluid hybrid of song, word, dance and sign — and a sheer triumph for director Michael Arden and choreographer Spencer Liff.”

“‘The Visit’ is sophisticated and beautiful and yet has that typical glorious chilling view of man that you expect from a Kander and Ebb show.”

“Something Rotten!‘ is fresh and hysterical and irreverent. It's easily the funniest thing to arrive on Broadway since ’The Book of Mormon.”

“Visually beautiful but one-dimensional, the show...is breathless and bombastic to the point of silly, undercutting not only the novel by Boris Pasternak but also some really wonderful actors.”

“Having Fleming herself belt out notes - and self-pompously believe her voice has the ability to cure the disabled - is delicious.”

“Rarely do you find a funeral home you’re unhappy to leave.”

“All the parts are good. They just, maddeningly, don't add for a stunning show.”

“His story about an old house cat becomes an aria and his eventual collapse into a barking puddle of honesty is gorgeous.”

“The decision to let this sequence drag on so excruciatingly actually guts the work itself.”

“Stoppard, as usual, keeps his audience perpetually on edge, unsure if we're watching a play-within-a-play or actual events unfolding, a blurring of art and life that's brilliantly mined.”

“Sting's stage composing is nicely complex, mixing sassy ballads with brooding duets and big, violin-led crowd pleasers.”

“Few playwrights are examining what Akhtar does, certainly not with his insightfulness, and his play is breathtaking — and not a little uncomfortable — to watch.”

“An exuberant, dazzling revival of ‘On the Town’ opened Thursday, filling Broadway's biggest theater with big, crowd-pleasing dance numbers, lavish and clever visuals and superb performances from a massive cast.”

“Whatever it is, it's a pure hoot, a rollicking comedy with perfect casting and deft direction in Jack O'Brien that gleefully dissects modern Broadway and doesn't pretend to mask its targets by using fake names.”

“A sweet revival opened Sunday at the Longacre Theatre with a perfectly picked cast but offering little reason why this old chestnut needs to be seen again.”

“What's the minimum requirement for putting on a play? Is it performers? Sets? Memorization? Surely, at a minimum, it's acting, right? More than a quarter-century after 'Love Letters' premiered, A.R. Gurney's charming ditty of a play has landed on Broadway with virtually none of the characteristics of what you might expect in a play.”

“Spending two hours watching these wealthy, unmoored slackers is a treat, even without the contact high.”

“The high-energy, deeply felt but ultimately overwrought production opened Thursday in a blaze of N-words at the Palace Theatre, proving both that rap deserves its moment to shine on a Broadway stage and that some 20 Shakur songs can somehow survive the transformation - barely.”

“Violet is a reminder that a Broadway musical has to hit your heart as much as be visually pretty.”

“‘Violet’ is a reminder — if we have already forgotten the power of ‘Once’ — that a Broadway musical has to hit your heart as much as be visually pretty.”

“Theater has turned Moss Hart's cracking memoir ‘Act One’ into a rollicking play, which, if you think about it, is the natural medium for a man who lived and breathed the theater, what he called ‘a lifelong infection.’”

“It's all been so well thought out and executed, right down to its bouncy chairs and rotating houses.”

“It's Stroman's vision that will keep this cute, brashy ode to Broadway on Broadway for long to come.”

“You know when people first meet and it can be instantly awkward? They talk over each other, make inane comments and sometime completely miss the point? Well, that pretty much never ends in Will Eno's quirky, existential Broadway debut...That exchange pretty much sums up this play - funny, but more than a little maddening.”

“The show that opened Thursday night at the Theatre is blistering, beautifully acted and superbly touching.”

“The tonal difference between the two acts is striking. A whimsical comedy in the first is taken over by a series of tragedies and sadness.”

“Daly, the former star of the TV show ‘Cagney & Lacey’ and later winner of a Tony for ‘Gypsy,’ is simply wonderful here, a remote and chilly guest who clings to old ideas even as she knows they are out of date and secretly pines for love.”

“Bryan Cranston delivers a towering performance as Lyndon B. Johnson in 'All the Way,' capturing both the crude ambition and surprising vulnerability of the 36th president.”

“The play has been tweaked since then, but not enough to make it more than Yankee advertising.”

“The plays may not always be your cup of tea — filled with spare language, ambiguity, unreliability and disintegration — but there can be no complaints about the service.”

“There is loss everywhere - jazz dies, his mom dies, neighborhoods change, his beloved Yankees decline and memories fade. But Crystal, under Des McAnuff's tight direction, never gets maudlin. He always knows when to dispel the darkness with a laugh...”

“Tickets at the box office start at $70.”

“So many things onstage these days champion the notion that change is good - open your mind, learn to love what you fear, embrace the unknown. So it's refreshing to have something that cheers the hopelessly stubborn...”

“While acknowledging that the show is about a self-consciously rambling and absurdist hero, the bloated 90-minute Act 1 threatens to derail as visual gags, projections and busy scenes - plus a book that uneasily mixes whimsy and cancer - bombard the senses.......”

“Both require some knowledge of the world they are showing and both look sadly on a lost time that was more freewheeling and fun.”

“The combined effect of all this stuff is faint indeed, a playful obliqueness that seems somewhat pointless.”

“Yes, it is bombastic and overwrought. It's true that there's enough smoke to make three Whitesnake videos. OK, it sometimes makes ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ seem small and staid.”

“It is the best time travel right now on Broadway.”

“Lane as the tortured soul at the play's heart is magnificent -- showing sides that are charming, witty, savage, self-destructive and yearning.”

“The 2 1/2-hour show opened Sunday at The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre completely unbalanced: The songs are staggering, the book utterly flimsy.”

“The whole thing is a pleasing, tuneful, heart-filled ode to small towns and American dreams.”

“By the end of the show, you'll swear that truck can dance.”

“The many scenes stubbornly refuse to add up to much and it remains as flat as Golightly is supposed to be effervescent.”

“Taylor becomes Richards, somehow capturing that glint in the Texan's eye, reveling in being her at her witty best.”

“Taylor's Richards is a hoot yet she almost gets upstaged by another character, which is hard to do in a one-woman show.”

“A dazzling revival of Clifford Odets' 'Golden Boy' opened Thursday, still packing a punch after 75 years.”

“There are passionate kisses but always a lingering threat of violence.”

“No one talks like this and the two actresses struggle to make something unnatural seem natural.”

“Rebeck has stumbled a bit with 'Dead Accounts,' a love letter to the hardworking, plainspoken Midwest, but one that lacks the sharpness and depth of her previous work.”

“We've all seen the scene in ‘A Christmas Story’ when the kid gets his tongue stuck on a frozen flagpole. Now on Broadway is that very same scene – plus the kid actually singing through it, or at least trying to sing. ‘Sthlun luv a...,’ he mumbles at the end.”

“Now on Broadway is that very same scene – plus the kid actually singing through it, or at least trying to sing.”

“Director Evan Cabnet has aimed at, and struck, the tender heart in a script that could easily be performed with more darkness or more cartoony.”

“Most of the jokes from the new Broadway comedy 'The Performers' cannot appear in a family newspaper.”

“Perhaps the best part is watching the first-rate cast have so much fun — Stephanie J. Block shows real comedic power, Jim Norton is having a ball, Chita Rivera is giggly, Gregg Edelman is just silly and Will Chase is over-acting perfectly...”

“It is an odd thing indeed to watch Sandy get a huge ovation from New Yorkers.”

“This production plays the laughs excellently but also proves that love – twisted and damaged, perhaps – is at the heart of this play.”

“The new musical 'Chaplin' opens with the sight of the Little Tramp balanced on a tightrope high above the stage. It's a fitting metaphor for the show itself – a wobbly, high stakes attempt to avoid gravity. Guess what happens? Gravity wins…Rob McClure in the title role certainly deserves more than this to work with.”

“‘Bring It On: The Musical’ has more – more athletics, more songs, more dazzle, more interesting characters.”

“So is any real reason to see it.”

“It's tired, warmed-over farce that involves seltzer spraying, imaginary insects, boob jokes, loads of alcohol, people jumping over sofas, and the cast running around in dressing gowns.”

“There's a strong musical somewhere in 'Leap of Faith,' which stars a soulful Raul Esparza and has some of Alan Menken's best songs. But what opened Thursday at The St. James Theatre is sometimes confusing in its tone.”

“If only the show itself had enough faith to leap in one direction.”

“If this is a jukebox musical, this is how you do it right.”

“Overall, it's an ambitious, carefully orchestrated work that raises the bar on technological innovation.”