BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Take the studied mimicry of a musical tribute act, add the dead-on burns of a Friar’s Club Roast, and top it off with the showy vocal flourishes of a Kennedy Center Honors cover, performed as the iconic originator looks on from their box seat. Whisk together and bring to a near-boil—and […]
BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Last week, the Chelsea Community News website hit its half-decade mark, celebrating the fifth anniversary of our April 23, 2019 launch. Last weekend, at the annual NYPA (New York Press Association) Better Newspaper Contest, CCNews won Third Place, Division I, Coverage of the Arts. It was an unconventional entry–all LGBTQ+-themed content. […]
Whether you made an appointment to be there or stumbled upon it and stayed, Gansevoort Plaza (Gansevoort St. & 9th Ave.) was the place to be on Saturday, April 13. That’s when the Meatpacking District’s large and lively public plaza saw a new tradition set in stone—cobblestone, actually—as the second annual Return of the Red […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | No, the Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen isn’t about gay guys who live in affordable walkups and go to Empanada Mama. With songs by 16-Grammy-winner Alicia Keys, it loosely draws on the long-running music star’s experiences, using Keys’ own hits (and three new songs she wrote) to illustrate a 17-year-old girl’s relationships […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | If you think the idea of suffragists bursting into song is absurd, you’re forgetting Mary Poppins. (“We’re clearly soldiers in petticoats/And dauntless crusaders for women’s votes.”) Well, now, they’re crusading for Tony award votes with the ambitious musical Suffs, based on the American women’s suffrage movement, with a book and score […]
Easter came early this year, putting all of its eggs in a basket that saw plastic pastel-colored straw, dyed eggs, marshmallow peeps, and hollow chocolate rabbits high-tailing it to March 31. Some say a super-funky lunar calendar is the cause, while others wonder if these beloved springtime traditions simply thought it best to cede full […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | If you care about honoring quality, tune in to the Oscars on March 10—but if you’re like me and you think it’s more fun to shoot spitballs at schlock, you’re in the right place. I’m the esteemed host of the Annual Gaffie Awards, and there are no losers here. No, wait […]
BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER | If, after a serious dose of the latest dance technology—via February 9-12’s Dance on Camera festival—your idea of a good terpsichorean time still involves sharing a room with live dancers moving to music, get yourself to the Joyce Theater, where Twyla Tharp, now in her ninth decade and as sharp as […]
A show whose thematic “Oomh!” comes from the Broadway songbook’s emotional depth and camp-friendly absurdities has arrived on West 42nd Street—the very doorstep of its source material—to throw down the gauntlet. Fortunately for us, the gauntlet is actually two pairs of long satin evening gloves worn with confident, comedic ferocity by native-to-Florida drag queens Ginger […]
BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER | The 2024 Dance on Camera festival, running February 9-12 at Lincoln Center, is particularly rich and diverse. The world’s longest-running assemblage of dance film—now in its 52nd year—presents, in 11 different programs, a mix of shorts and features from around the world. Up first (Feb. 9, 7pm) is the full-length Swan […]