Jackson McHenry

2 weeks ago | vulture.com | Jackson McHenry

Somewhere beyond the sea: Jonathan Groff in Just in Time. It’s easy for a show to lose its sense of purpose somewhere along the way to Broadway: The director lost whatever artistic impulse they had at the start, the producers hedged their bets on its commercial prospects, the original star left for a television gig, and what finally premiered is something half-baked and compromised, the kind of thing that leaves you sitting there in the audience wondering why any of this is happening.

3 weeks ago | vulture.com | Jackson McHenry

The television fan raised on Gilmore Girls and still demanding justice for Bunheads is intimately familiar with the tropes of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s aesthetic universe: fast talking, overflowing pop-culture references, and parental dynamics pulled so taut they could be plucked like a harpsichord string. There’s probably a lot of coffee, as well as a starry-eyed love of stage performance, especially classic musicals and dance. The Marvelous Mrs.

3 weeks ago | vulture.com | Jackson McHenry

With Redwood and Floyd Collins, Tina Landau remains uncompromising in her vision. Director and writer Tina Landau in rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Floyd Collins. “My body of work has been a surprising mirror back to myself,” she says. Director and writer Tina Landau in rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Floyd Collins. “My body of work has been a surprising mirror back to myself,” she says.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Jackson McHenry

From Smash, at the Imperial Theatre. The sunk-cost fallacy lies at the heart of producing commercial theater: Sure, you’ve invested way too much time and money and talent in a production that isn’t working, but maybe you can fix it with another workshop? Audiences will finally understand the potential … if the composer just reworks the opening number … if you just replace the director … if you just hire a new writing team … if you just recast the star.

1 month ago | vulture.com | Jackson McHenry

Sometimes a spell may last past what you can see. Rarely will you hear as much audience response to a song’s opening notes as you will at a Sondheim revue, especially one like Old Friends, which takes as its premise that we’re all here to listen to melodies and lyrics we already love.