Musician David Bowie speaks onstage while accepting the Webby Lifetime Achievement award at the 11th Annual Webby Awards in 2007. Bryan Bedder/Getty Images hide caption
Performing Arts News, interviews, and commentary on theater, the arts, music, and dance.
Performing Arts
The Broadway cast of Come From Away had to cancel a week's performances before Christmas due to a COVID-19 outbreak. When it returned, eight out of the 12 actors in the show were substitutes. Matthew Murphy/© 2021 "Come From Away" on Broadway hide caption
Elizabeth Stanley plays Mary Jane Healy, a central character in Jagged Little Pill. Matthew Murphy/Courtesy of the artist. hide caption
In the third part of our series exploring crossover in pop music, we reexamine the so-called "Latin explosion" of the '90s: what it was supposed to be for audiences across the U.S., and what it actually came to represent. Blake Cale for NPR hide caption
People wait in line at a COVID-19 testing site in Times Square on Monday. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption
Randy Malcom, from left, Alexander Delgado of Gente De Zona and Yotuel sing Patria y Vida at the Latin Grammy Awards on Nov. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption
Latin Grammy winner to Cuban leaders: 'We're done with your lies and indoctrination'
Shola Adewusi (foreground) and the company in rehearsal for Merry Wives. When the show first began its run, the audiences were mostly white. Then, the organization piloted Black theater nights, says the Public Theater's artistic director, Oskar Eustis. "And we had two nights in which the Delacorte was 98 percent Black audiences, 1500 people a night." Joan Marcus/Courtesy of the Public Theater hide caption
Here's how theater directors have reimagined their work during the pandemic
Jaquel Spivey performs as Usher in A Strange Loop at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington D.C. Teresa Castracane/Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Association with Playwrights Horizons and Page 73 Productions hide caption
A Pulitzer winner at the worst possible time, 'A Strange Loop' is Broadway-bound
Iphigenia, played by esperanza spalding, prepares for her sacrifice. From Wayne Shorter and spalding's opera, ...(Iphigenia). Jon Fine/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Music educator Monica Levin teaches via video conference at Frances Fuchs Early Childhood Center in Prince George's County, Maryland. Jennifer Samson hide caption
For kids grappling with the pandemic's traumas, art classes can be an oasis
Mel Brooks (shown here in 1984) calls comedy his "delicious refuge" from the world: "I hide in humor and comedy. I love it." Larry Ellis/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
Mel Brooks says his only regret as a comedian is the jokes he didn't tell
The 2021 Kennedy Center honorees: (left to right) opera star Justino Díaz, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, entertainer Bette Midler and Motown founder Berry Gordy. Scott Suchman/Kennedy Center hide caption
Brandon Michael Hall, LaChanze and Chuck Cooper in Roundabout Theatre Company's Trouble in Mind. Joan Marcus/Roundabout Theatre Company hide caption
A prescient play about race in America has its long-overdue Broadway premiere
Alvin Ailey dancers Solomon Dumas, Samantha Figgins and Belen Indhira Pereyra in Robert Battle's dance "For Four." Christopher Duggan/Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater hide caption
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater brings 2 dances made for the web to the stage
Stephen Sondheim poses in April 1976. R. Jones/Getty Images hide caption
Bernadette Peters leans forward to discuss the recording of the "Sunday in the Park with George" album with Stephen Sondheim and producer Thomas Z. Shepard in June 1984. Marty Reichenthal/Associated Press hide caption
Reverend Billy (William Talen, left) among a flock of supporters. Courtesy of Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping hide caption
Veteran anti-consumerist crusader Reverend Billy takes aim at climate change
Vir Das in 2014. Aaron Davidson/Getty Images hide caption
Kronos Quartet Jay Blakesberg hide caption
Four centuries of Black American history are told in new Kronos Quartet performance
Rachel Brosnahan has received raves for her performance in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but comedian Sarah Silverman says it's part of a trend of non-Jews playing emphatically Jewish characters. Nicole Rivelli/Amazon Prime Studios hide caption
Costume designer William Ivey Long, then chairman of the American Theatre Wing, speaks at the Tony Awards nominations ceremony in 2014. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images hide caption
Composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter with a page from his ...(Iphigenia) score. Jeff Tang/Courtesy of Real Magic hide caption