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''Sweet and sour?'' Patti LuPone suggested, as if considering options on a menu. She looked questioningly at Mia Farrow, who was sitting next to her in a small atelier in [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley 'Sweet and sour?' Patti LuPone suggested, as if considering options on a menu. She looked questioningly at Mia Farrow, who was sitting next to her in a [...]

It was on a late summer's night in 2022, about eight months after his death, that I confirmed that Stephen Sondheim had turned into a holy ghost. The setting was [...]

About 10 or 15 minutes into the first play I saw by Jon Fosse, this year’s Nobel Prize winner for literature, I realized I had succumbed to a strangely paradoxical [...]

In his fond memoir “Making It So,” the actor traces the path from the working class to the Shakespearean stage to “Star Trek” superstardom. MAKING IT SO: A Memoir, by [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley The actor conveyed the gravitational force of mortality, tugging the men he played so commandingly toward a void beyond meaning, our critic writes. Even in silence, he [...]

The actor conveyed the gravitational force of mortality, tugging the men he played so commandingly toward a void beyond meaning, our critic writes. Even in silence, he thundered. Make that, [...]

What promises to be the most passionate love story of the new Broadway season is a tale of three people. Like many triangles, this one involves jealousy, guilt, misunderstanding, recrimination [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley What promises to be the most passionate love story of the new Broadway season is a tale of three people. Like many triangles, this one involves jealousy, [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley 'Leading Lady,' a mosaic of reminiscence and self-analysis, explores the ascent of a man who's really good at playing women. Charles Busch, the celebrated male actress, Tony-nominated [...]

''Leading Lady,'' a mosaic of reminiscence and self-analysis, explores the ascent of a man who's really good at playing women. Charles Busch, the celebrated male actress, Tony-nominated playwright and, most [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley 'I had been prepared to be awed, intimidated, even terrified,' Ben Brantley writes of meeting the actress in person five years ago. She didn't so much enter [...]

''I had been prepared to be awed, intimidated, even terrified,'' Ben Brantley writes of meeting the actress in person five years ago. She didn't so much enter the restaurant as [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley Audiences were eager to humbly suffer the stinging quips tossed out by the towering figure that was Barry Humphries's creation. She was, lest we forget, the original [...]

Audiences were eager to humbly suffer the stinging quips tossed out by the towering figure that was Barry Humphries's creation. She was, lest we forget, the original Real Housewife. Or [...]

Andrea Stevens, a Times editor, died this month at 83. She was a loved and feared presence in the theater world. In an essay, Ben Brantley explores her legacy. Times [...]

Maria Friedman's productions of the show in London and Boston were hits. Now a starry cast is preparing to open her latest staging Off Broadway. In the beginning, everybody cried. [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley Maria Friedman's productions of the show in London and Boston were hits. Now a starry cast is preparing to open her latest staging Off Broadway. In the [...]

Ever since Stephen Sondheim died last month, certain images have been flaring in my head, so insistently that I have to catch my breath. They come with sound, of course [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley Ever since Stephen Sondheim died last month, certain images have been flaring in my head, so insistently that I have to catch my breath. They come with [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley The actor, who died at the age of 72, was known for his commanding performances of Shakespeare's Richard III and the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. To watch [...]

The actor, who died at the age of 72, was known for his commanding performances of Shakespeare's Richard III and the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. To watch Antony Sher onstage [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley She was unforgettable onstage playing seemingly serene women who rippled with restlessness. Selfishly, my first feelings on hearing that the uncanny British actress Helen McCrory had died [...]

She was unforgettable onstage playing seemingly serene women who rippled with restlessness. Selfishly, my first feelings on hearing that the uncanny British actress Helen McCrory had died at 52 were [...]

On a thrilling trip to New York, a 16-year-old budding critic learned that the insistent optimism of musical theater was a beautiful lie. At long last, I was exactly where [...]

The New York Times theater critic, who stepped down after 27 years, recently responded to readers, including one hungry for a do-over on his review of a blockbuster musical. I'm [...]

Byline: Jesse Green and Ben Brantley After 27 years and more than 2,500 reviews, The Times's co-chief theater critic reviews his own tenure and talks about why he's (quietly) making [...]

After 27 years and more than 2,500 reviews, The Times's co-chief theater critic reviews his own tenure and talks about why he's (quietly) making an exit. Critics look back for [...]

After 27 years on the job, the writer Ben Brantley bids farewell with one last recommendation: Watch a show as if you were a reviewer. Times Insider explains who we [...]

Self-aware, self-conscious or self-deluding, it's a form as old as theater itself. And it's flourishing in a time of social isolation. You've been talking to yourself again, haven't you? It [...]

In a few minutes or a full show, these performers capture heartbreak, fury and laughs. For the words of Samuel Beckett, a disembodied mouth did the trick. The shutdown of [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley In this enthralling streaming production of Brian Friel's 1979 play, an itinerant miracle worker is grounded in a gritty reality. The first time I ever saw Michael [...]

In this enthralling streaming production of Brian Friel's 1979 play, an itinerant miracle worker is grounded in a gritty reality. The first time I ever saw Michael Sheen, he was [...]

Richard Nelson's profound conclusion to his Zoom-format trilogy about the Apple siblings examines the perils of conversation in 2020. There is so much they all want -- no need -- [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley Today we stream what shows we can find. Back then: James Dean, 'Twelve Angry Men' and conclusive proof that Kim Stanley was one of the all-time greats. [...]

Today we stream what shows we can find. Back then: James Dean, ''Twelve Angry Men'' and conclusive proof that Kim Stanley was one of the all-time greats. One of my [...]

This streamed reading of Beth Henley's slice of Southern noir offers scorching portraits of bad faith from Ed Harris, Amy Madigan and Bill Pullman. Fred Weber, a proud son of [...]

This streaming piece by Abigail and Shaun Bengson translates the agonies and ecstasies of lockdown into a cosmic hootenanny at his folks' house. One bright pleasure amid the grimness of [...]

This streaming piece by Abigail and Shaun Bengson translates the agonies and ecstasies of lockdown into a cosmic hootenanny at his folks' house. One bright pleasure amid the grimness of [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley The Berkshire Theater Group put on the first professional musical in the U.S. since the pandemic lockdown, and it's a revival in every sense. PITTSFIELD, Mass. - [...]

The Berkshire Theater Group put on the first professional musical in the U.S. since the pandemic lockdown, and it's a revival in every sense. PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- And it came [...]

Our critics discuss the last four months, which thanks to Zoom (and Meryl Streep) have been full of experimentation and playfulness. The megahit live-capture of ''Hamilton'' on Disney+ notwithstanding, the [...]

Byline: Ben Brantley, Jesse Green and Maya Phillips Our critics discuss the last four months, which thanks to Zoom (and Meryl Streep) have been full of experimentation and playfulness. The [...]

In Duncan Macmillan's play, streaming live from the Old Vic, the stars of ''The Crown'' play a contradictory couple in an age of isolation. The woman and man who make [...]

They're never gone: Star turns from Ralph Fiennes, Meryl Streep, Gregory Hines and Christopher Plummer still live in the mind's eye of readers. Live theater, it would seem, lives on. [...]

Miranda's rap. Rylance's poems. Jackman's pelvis. And a brassy reunion for Bea Arthur and Angela Lansbury. Now set your clock for ''Turkey Lurkey Time.'' The 500 guests at the American [...]

The Belarus Free Theater's livestreaming, mind-bending adaptation of Sasha Sokolov's poetic novel assumes the bifocal eye-view of a divided self. The divided self finds a natural home among the multiplying [...]

For stuck-at-homes feeling like submerging into the existential depths of no-exit theater, here's a list of works to read and to watch. Sometimes, when all lighter diversions have failed, what [...]

Unforgettable moments lost to time, from Christopher Plummer to Jennifer Holliday, now more than ever remind us of theater's special resonance. Some 20 years ago, in a New York hotel [...]