State of the Art

Everything they're saying about this revival of "Death of a Salesman" is true. I can't imagine this play being more honest, urgent and gut wrenching than this 2026 Broadway revival. I'm assuming that most people reading this are familiar with Miller's masterpiece. The play originally premiered on Broadway in 1949 and tells the story of the Loman family. Willy Loman, the patriarch, is a traveling salesman. Once (relatively) successful, well liked and well known, with a loving wife (Linda) and two sons, Biff (the older, star athlete "golden boy"), and Happy (the charming younger brother.) When the story begins, Willy is pretty much on his last leg. He's suffering from some unnamed medical conditions that are making it unsafe for him to be driving as much as he needs to. He's older, and desperately needs to retire (which he can't), or be transferred to a local or desk job at the company he's faithfully served for decades. He and Linda ar...

There is an interesting and unusual revival of "Into the Woods" playing off-West End at the Bridge Theatre, with talks of a potential West End transfer. I was intrigued the moment I saw the poster. Cautiously so. "Into the Woods" is one of my favorites. It is one of those pieces that is always worth seeing, and always a disappointment when compared to the original production. "Into the Woods" is a brilliant musical. Possibly one of the top five best of all time. But it is a show that I, and many others, believe will never have a cast top the original. That's ok. It's still very much enjoyable with different performers. But with the original, it's as if you're watching living, breathing people...not actors playing characters. The humor, incredibly important to the show, was crafted on them, the character's voices, in some instances, written for them. There are some lines that will just never land the same way. Kate Fleetwood (The Witch) ...

Watching "& Juliet" is like eating a box of Twizzlers. Yeah, it might be fun...it may result in a hyperactive sugar rush, but there's no question that it has absolutely no substance and, if you're really honest with yourself, it just tastes of plastic.  The attraction of "& Juliet" is the energy, dance, chance to experience fun pop songs and eye popping design elements (namely the costumes.) But the story feels like it was written by a five year old who once looked up "boss bitch" in the dictionary and has most definitely never read "Romeo and Juliet."  The plot is, on the surface, simple and yet so convoluted it is literally painful trying to make sense of it. The surface level is this: Willam Shakespeare is about to debut his new play, "Romeo and Juliet." His wife, Anne Hathaway, blessed with a rare night off from taking care of the kids, has come to Stratford to see the premiere. Shakespeare has just finished the endi...

  Oh, no. I liked the first "Wicked" movie. Was it perfect? No. But GOD they could have screwed it up and they didn't. Nothing will top the Broadway production, but at least the first film felt like a decent reflection. And then came Part 2. I understand why they split this into two movies. According to composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz, "Defying Gravity" is SUCH a dramatic act one closer it was difficult to find a way to turn that into the midpoint of an intermission-less film (though who says they couldn't have pulled a "Gone With the Wind" and had an intermission? They paid tribute to films of the 1930's in other ways...) with a scene or song coming right on its silver heels. I get it. But it didn't work.  Surely finding a fix to the "Defy Gravity" problem would have gone over better than the almost disaster that the second film turned into - complete with two new (and wildly unnecessary, if not downright bad) songs, padding o...

OH. MY. GOD. I had no desire to see "Stranger Things: The First Shadow." It felt like another obnoxious cash grab in the "Which IP are we going to adapt for Broadway next?" catalogue. Up next: Netflix's offering. And of all the things to adapt - a retro sci-fi/horror show that was fantastic in it's first season but has gotten progressively worse (with some improvements in season four) leading up to the, as yet still unreleased, fifth season (due to be released imminently). Not a genre "born for the stage" as it were, even in the best of circumstances. And the T.V. show isn't currently in the "best of circumstances." But after seeing "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" (which I reviewed for State of the Art ( https://stateoftheartreview.blogspot.com/2025/10/harry-potter-and-cursed-child-on.html ) I wanted to see what else the brilliant illusion team had up their sleeve. At intermission for "Stranger Things" I texted...