Michael Riedel has covered Broadway for 20 years, 10 of them for The New York Post. He is also the co-host of "Theater Talk" on PBS and CUNY-TV. He graduated from Columbia University with a BA in history.
Strolling through the West Village the other night, I ran into Duncan Sheik, who, with lyricist Steven Sater, wrote the Tony-winning "Spring Awakening." He'd just come from Poughkeepsie, where he saw a production...
July 13, 2011 12:00 AM
Hugh Jackman's one-man show opened in Toronto this week -- and boy, is it hot. I wrote about "Hugh Jackman in Concert" in May, when it opened in San Francisco, and while the reviews were pretty strong, the word-of...
July 08, 2011 12:00 AM
Critics may snigger all they want to at Andrew Lloyd Webber's music, but the great songwriter Cy Coleman ("Witchcraft," "Hey, Big Spender") once told me, "There isn't a Broadway composer alive who wouldn't give his...
July 06, 2011 12:00 AMJudging from his salary demands, Harry Connick Jr. must think he's Nathan Lane. The crooner from New Orleans, who got his start in New York playing the piano at Chez Josephine, could pull in more than $100,000 a...
July 01, 2011 12:00 AM
Everybody knows Columbo from television. But in fact, the beloved disheveled detective made his first appearance in a stage play called "Prescription: Murder," by the now-legendary writing team of Richard Levinson...
June 29, 2011 12:00 AM
Oh, you're going places, Alice. You're going -- straight to Broadway! Though it sounds like one of Ralph Kramden's cockamamie schemes to get out of Brooklyn, there is, in fact, an invitation-only reading today of a...
June 24, 2011 12:00 AM
Playwright Douglas Carter Beane -- who, with director Jerry Zaks, turned "Sister Act" into an unexpected treat -- always makes me laugh. On the eve of the Tonys, I wrote that you could tell who was going to win by...
June 22, 2011 12:00 AM
"Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark" pulled off a miracle this week: It opened. But for all the hoopla surrounding the show's troubled preview period (which began in the Pleistocene Epoch) and its celebrity-studded...
June 17, 2011 12:00 AM
It's casting from heaven. Kristin Chenoweth, the only Christian fundamentalist I know of on Broadway, played the mascara-encrusted Tammy Faye Bakker last week in an invitation-only reading of a new musical called...
June 15, 2011 12:00 AM
Mitt Romney should take a page out of "The Book of Mormon." Because if he can sweep the Republican primaries next year the way "Mormon" swept the Tonys last night, he'll be the first Mormon to be nominated for...
June 13, 2011 12:00 AM
The Tony Awards are tonight, and approximately 12 people will be watching. Broadway’s big award show on CBS is always ratings challenged, lagging far behind sporting events and reruns of “Murder, She Wrote.” But the...
June 12, 2011 12:00 AM
Never mind the straw polls, the crystal balls and the off-the-record chats with voters. If you want to know who's going to win a Tony, look at seat locations. Tickets to Sunday night's telecast at the Beacon...
June 10, 2011 12:00 AM
There is, I regret to report, very little agita surrounding this year's Tonys. That's because the winners -- "The Book of Mormon" and "War Horse" -- are as certain as the sun rising in the east. And where's the...
June 08, 2011 12:00 AM
Never mind Bono and The Edge. The real ratings booster for this year's Tony Awards could have been the No. 1 Mormon in American politics -- Mitt Romney. On the "Today" show earlier this week, the Republican...
June 03, 2011 12:00 AM
Bono and The Edge popped up on the "American Idol" finale the other night and performed "Rise Above," the big tune from "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." Their appearance helped lure 29.3 million viewers, 5 million more...
June 01, 2011 12:00 AM
There aren't many great broads left on Broadway -- wise cracking gals with strong opinions and well-aimed zingers. Elaine Stritch reigns supreme, of course, as does producer Elizabeth I. McCann. And then there's...
May 27, 2011 12:00 AM
Quick hits and gossip today: * Hello, Julie! The wacky (and whacked) Julie Taymor has resurfaced on Broadway. Taymor attended last week's New Dramatists luncheon, her first public appearance in New York...
May 25, 2011 12:00 AMTake a look at the songlist from "Baby It's You," the new Broadway musical about the Shirelles, and you'll notice a startling omission: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," the song that launched the Shirelles, is nowhere to...
May 20, 2011 12:00 AMGive Hugh Jackman some handcuffs and a pair of ripped pants and he'll have an audience of middle-aged ladies reaching for the smelling salts. In a Vegas-y show that just wrapped up a two-week run in San Francisco,...
May 18, 2011 12:00 AM
"The Book of Mormon" is going to sweep the Tonys next month. But is there a song from the show that can be performed on national television? The producers of the musical and the producers of the Tony telecast...
May 13, 2011 12:00 AM
Arthur Laurents, who wrote "Gypsy" and "West Side Story," called his gossipy, score-settling 2000 memoir "Original Story By." He might also have called it "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Laurents...
May 11, 2011 12:00 AMIt's a role that can make -- or break -- a career. But it's almost impossible to cast. Auditions are being held in New York and Los Angeles for the part of Fanny Brice in the upcoming Broadway revival of "Funny...
May 06, 2011 12:00 AM
'The Book of Mormon" is much more than the hit of the season. It's the hit Broadway's been looking for -- the hit Broadway's been desperate for -- since "Jer sey Boys" shook up the town in 2006. That was the...
May 04, 2011 12:00 AMLet's torture some producers today! A few of them are on the ledge, fretting that, in a crowded season, their shows will be snubbed Tuesday when the Tony nominations are announced. Adding to their anxiety is...
April 29, 2011 12:00 AM
Nothing's more predictable than the Tony telecast. The host is usually some sitcom star -- Sean Hayes, Neil Patrick Harris -- who opens the show with a second-rate Hugh Jackman song-and-dance routine, backed up by...
April 27, 2011 12:00 AMBroadway's such a gossipy little world, it's hard to keep a lid on a good old backstage fracas. But when that fracas involves a star and his female dresser -- well, don't even bother. The dresser grapevine is...
April 22, 2011 12:00 AM
Frank Langella, who was unforgettable as Richard Nixon a few years ago in "Frost/Nixon," will return to Broadway next season in "Man and Boy," Terence Rattigan's long-forgotten but all-too-topical play about a corrupt...
April 20, 2011 12:00 AMThe poor -- and I do mean poor -- Public Theater is facing some tough times. The theater that once produced "A Chorus Line" has gotten a reputation around Broadway for failing to meet financial obligations on such...
April 15, 2011 12:00 AM
As I predicted last week, Stephen Adly Guirgis' "The Motherf**ker With the Hat" is turning out to be the sleeper hit of the season. Oh, sure, a few naysayers may have whispered in my ear that advance ticket sales...
April 13, 2011 12:00 AM
I had breakfast recently with Nick Hytner, head of Great Britain's National Theatre. He's in town checking up on the National's production of "War Horse," which opens Thursday at Lincoln Center. It's a terrific...
April 08, 2011 12:00 AM
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