The Determined Dilettante

'Tis the time to do like the characters do in Troll 2 : put on fleece and sweaters! Norwegians know what to do when it's cold, or wh...

Thus ends the Molière year in NYC — not an official commemoration, mind you, it's just that there were lots of shows by the French playw...

As one of the four genre columnists at the Times, I was happy to contribute to this piece about our favorites of the year. I picked three sc...

Happy to be part of this group effort about some of our favorite moments of the theatrical year.

I wasn't a huge fan of Marjorie Prime when I saw it at Playwrights Horizons a decade ago, but this revival on Broadway really worked fo...

Few women have performed A Christmas Carol, and frankly it's stunning it took so long for Christine Baranski to do it. So good! We met ...

It was a dark and stormy night in 2019 and I thought, Gosh, Netflix has a lot of Christmas movies this year — what if I reviewed them all? T...

Another Times assignment I enjoy, even though it's always preceded by bad news, ie we lost someone. In this case it was Tom Stoppard, so...

Jason Schwartzman's Top 10 list had to be brought down from 23 items — and one of them was Top 10 lists! I've interviewed a lot of p...

OMG this one was so much fun to report! I got to watch the sun rise over Mineral Basin and I got to work with the awesome Ruth Fremson: pure...

I love doing those Culture Diaries for the Times and I suspect it's because I want those people's lives! My latest is with James Bun...

You'd think a five-hour play with extended Dungeons & Dragons scenes would be right up my alley, and you'd be right — in the abs...

Every time I wonder where I'm going to find five new streaming science-fiction movies for the new installment of my monthly column, it t...

This gem of a musical is getting a fab revival at New World Stages. And by revival I mean that the staging hasn't changed much at all, w...

Seeing Chess on Broadway: at long last! I didn't catch the American premiere way back when and my only live exposure to this show was a...

Of course I'm really happy the Times has brought back its coverage of theater that people can enjoy from home, either from streaming pro...

Or La Femme du boulanger, as the movie that inspired this musical is known in France (the show, naturally, is completely unknown over there...

Here's another dump of links to the 647 articles I wrote for the New York Times these past couple of months. OK, maybe not that many but...

I went to Minneapolis to check out the stage version of Purple Rai n. There were many issues but the one that sticks in my craw a month afte...

Some shows have themes that interestingly dovetailed last month, and I covered them in a critic's notebook : Hannah Senesh, Playing Shyl...

 I'm a Drew Droege fan but his new one didn't quite work for me. Thataway for my review .

The curse of Stage 42,  formerly known as Little Shubert, forever known as That Barn on the Corner of W. 42nd St and Dyer Ave, has struck ag...

So. Much. To. See!  Here was my list for November , with many still playing.

What a treat this Encores! revival was! Could Kerry Butler be any more of a national treasure? Click here for my review.

I loved Bess Wohl's Liberation when it opened Off Broadway earlier this year, and I loved it just as much when it transferred. Its gros...

The October installment of my sci-fi column came out right on cue…in October. Here it is .

November was so crazy busy that I fell way behind on posting links to my articles here. Here's a big dowload, starting with my interview...

David Cale's new show is soooooo good! Please go see it. My rave is here .

I love scares at the theater, so it was really exciting to talk with Felix Barrett and Levi Holloway of their new show, Paranormal Activity....

 Tons of great stuff to check out on the streaming-theater front this month! I picked some new (and vintage) releases for your enjoyment , s...

Jesse Green and I were on the Times' Sunday Special podcast to talk about experiencing theater, just not on stage. Yeah, audio counts, t...

I talked to the actress and writer Jen Tullock about her new solo play Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God. Religion and homosexualit...

The movie based on the musical based on the book that also inspired a play and another movie is finally out! Jennifer Lopez: meh. Yeah, I wa...

 Like many people, I very much enjoy Tim Blake Nelson as an actor (we don't see him enough in The Lowdown !). But his play And Then We W...

I had serious issues with James Graham's play Punch, which is on Broadway. It's tough to do a show about reparative justice without ...

Belatedly posting  my profile of Natalie Palamides , whose show Weer,  at the Cherry Lane Theater, is one of the hits of the fall here in NY...

Er, I'm getting around to posting a link to my sci-fi column for September , just as the one for October is about to drop. It's a ti...

The Art section is the only one in the New York Times' culture pages that I haven't written for — is my review of the Yasmina Reza s...

Back in August I talked to several of the people involved in the new musical Saturday Church, which sourced most of its score from Sia's...

The fall season is a bountiful one for theater in New York, and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of shows on offer. I to...

Fine, it's always time for science fiction, not just when the weather starts turning. You can find my latest batch of recommendations fo...

Mamma Mia! is back on Broadway so of course I had to write about it, along with the concomitant phenomenon of Abba's eternal returns — ...

Elizabeth McGovern takes on not just Ava Gardner but the very idea of biography in her play, Ava: The Secret Conversations. It was an absolu...

After American Players Theater last year, I returned to Wisconsin for a very different experience at Northern Sky Theater, in Door County. C...

The latest installment in the Culture Diary series for the NY Times is Dennis Lim, the New York Film Festival's head honcho. I don't...

I'm starting to cook up what's going to be in my sci-fi column for September and realized I haven't yet linked to the August ins...

I've seen some grousing online about the very existence of a musical about the inventor of the Miracle Mop. As long as there are movies ...

Taye Diggs talked about 10 of his favorite things for the Times. Thataway for the list.

I love writing for the recurring series Ask a Showrunner because you get to ask all the super-nerdy questions and you don't have to worr...

Heathers: The Musical is back where it started — well, where it started its Off Broadway career — and I was there for it. My feature on the...

Two-for-one post as I link to my roundup of Off and Off Off Broadway shows  — do not sleep on Out of Order — and picked some streaming thea...

The July installment of my sci-fi column dropped and as usual, it's all over the map — well, the sci-fi map, of course. Thataway .

Earlier this month, I caught some queer shows and wrote about them for the New York Times: Beau the Musical, My Son's a Queer (But What ...

It's ok for a first date to go through twists and turns, but they have to make sense. The ones in Lowcountry don't. My review of th...

I was watching a rehearsal of the circus show Passengers when things took an unexpected turn. I wrote about it and how the company pivoted ...

Molière is having a moment in New York and I'm there for it! I wrote about two shows inspired by the French master, though one of them o...

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have returned to the franchise they launched with 28 Days Later, and the new movie is a banger! I wrote an expl...

I get a kick out of liveblogging events for the NY Times: Eurovision, the opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics, and of course the ...

Another batch of five sci-fi movies streaming for your alt-world pleasure — thataway .

I joined forces with the esteemed Laura Collins-Hughes for a roundup of cool theater to see around the country this summer. Get ready for so...

"My Heart Will Go On" was inducted to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry this year, and it was a great honor...

Off we go: a belated series of links to what I've been up to this past month! I'm basically using this blog as an archive of my work...