“Allegory, drama, scripture, midrash, passion plays, musical, parable. Adam and Eve, Tevye and Golde. These are stories about our lives. Stories that turn our lives into art. If that isn’t something to worship, I don’t know what is.”

Larger bodies seem to be the last frontier in the push for greater inclusivity in casting. The topic is only beginning to surface in the theatre community. And this is why the casting in the current Broadway production of The Rose Tattoo rubs me the wrong way, like my thighs on a hot summer day.

In 2020, a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece Company will be opening on Broadway for the third time. As is usual with incarnations of this show, the creative team has assembled a cast chock full of incredible talent. However, as is also usual with incarnations of this show, the cast is almost all-white.

When Amar Ramasar takes his first bows as Bernardo, it will have been just a year and a half since he was fired from the New York City Ballet for sharing nude photos of female company members without their knowledge or consent. Yet, in typical professional theatre industry fashion, the powers-that-be decided to overlook egregious behavior and declare that talent trumps unethical behavior, no matter how vile.

So when Ramasar takes his first bows, I encourage you to give him the reception he deserves - boo him.

It is more important than ever before that we continue to have strong females on the stage, as directors and on creative teams in the theatre.

After experiencing a rise in aggressive behavior from guests, theatres in London’s West End are using body cameras to deter audience members from being abusive toward staff.

Upon entering the Helen Hayes Theatre to see “What the Constitution Means to Me”, I was met with a wall of white cis male faces symbolically relegating anyone falling outside of these parameters as an inherent outlier. Fortunately, this was not my experience walking into the 92Y to hear Heidi Schreck and Harvard professor Laurence Tribe discuss Schreck’s play as well as our nation’s complicated relationship with the titular document.

During the 2017-18 theatre season, Broadway attendance was higher than the cumulative attendance for ALL of New York’s main sports teams (Mets, Yankees, Rangers, Islanders, Knicks, Liberty, Giants, Jets, Devils and Nets).

This goes to show that musical theatre is still as popular as ever, with over a third (62%) of Broadway audiences attending at least two shows every season.

With Broadway audiences becoming more diverse, theaters have made adjustments to their facilities to make them more inclusive and accommodating, especially when it comes to restrooms. However, there have been recently reported issues where front of house staff have been discriminating various people based on their gender identity or appearance with which restrooms audience members were going to use.

I’ve even made a job out of doing social media marketing, and actually, I love it. From a business point of view, it’s a great way of promoting yourself, but as an individual and for your mental health, I’m not sure I agree. Is social media good for performers? 

Aries - Velma Kelly - Aries are described as self-centered, confident and impulsive. Which is basically Velma Kelly in a nutshell.

When we spoke on the phone, Mr. Cariou was tight-lipped about “Broadway & the Bard,” a show he originated Off-Broadway in 2016. But he calls the concert a “musical memoir” and a chance to review his storied career. It’s clear that at 79, he has many stories to tell and many more songs to sing.