In our latest episode, @petermarksdrama.bsky.social and I discussed his recent trip to a theater festival in Krakow, Tom Stoppard and some of our favorite shows of the year. marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/with-stopp...

With Stoppard's passing, Peter and Elisabeth ask: Who are the canonical playwrights of our time?

We wish you a merry podcast with this gift of the two of us, talking about Tom Stoppard's legacy; our recent theatrical experiences and Elisabeth's giving shoutouts to some of her 2025 favorites.

marksvincentelli.substack.com

Attended Randy Rainbow’s show at Town Hall tonight. I needed that.

The Pointless Triumph of a Hapless President www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/o... “If Barry Goldwater was the book and Ronald Reagan the movie, Mr. Trump is the glitzy jukebox musical.” This is the kind of dumb, lazy analogy that “intellectuals” use to disparage theater.

Opinion | The Pointless Triumph of a Hapless President

nytimes.com

So, once and for all, is Hamlet a head case? Director/author Jeremy McCarter has decided to get inside Hamlet's head -- and get him inside yours, too -- to probe the question in a delicious new audio version of the play. Let us three tell you about it! marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/is-hamlet-...

Is Hamlet a total head case? We talk to the director who has set a new audio version of the play in the Prince's mind.

Jeremy McCarter's Make-Believe Association asks you to put on headphones to fully experience "Hamlet."

marksvincentelli.substack.com

It's worth doing if only to force a reaction from Vichy homosexual Ric Grenell.

Mark Harris@markharris.bsky.social · last yr.

So...okay, good. I'm kind of losing patience with the standard smug Bluesky "Oh, how cringe" or "Democrats amirite?" reaction. People are going to try a lot of things, from big policy actions to small performative gestures. If your reaction is "It won't fix things," yeah, no shit.

Early voting, Saturday 6/21. Lower Manhattan.

Staying at a house in Maine. Conservative Republican family next door. They’ve put up a Dump Trump sign.

Rockland, Maine! #NoKings

We talk Tonys - the proceedings were the best in memory. And ratings were up. (My first time in the audience. Elisabeth followed avidly from afar.) A discourse for our paying subscribers! open.substack.com/pub/marksvin...

Peter was sitting in the hall. Elisabeth was sitting at her screen. Listen to their scintillating post-Tony Awards talk!

The 78th Tony Awards, broadcast on June 8, 2005, was by many accounts one of the best shows in years. How come? Peter and Elisabeth drill down.

open.substack.com

I was there. Best Tony Awards show in ages.

How it looks in the hall!

What it looks like in the hall!

How it looks in the hall!

How it looks in the hall!

How it looks in the hall!

How it looks in the hall!

What do we see during commercial breaks? Set changes!

How the Buena Vista Social Club number looks in the hall.

Great opening number. In the room, goosebumps.

Could you feel Harvey Fierstein’s emotion at home? In the room it was electric.

Maybe Happy Ending score note: Darren Criss showed me the cramped little room adjacent to the Belasco Theatre stage, where the several string players sit. Several stories above them is located the conductor, whom they see on closed circuit TV.

First standing O of the night goes to Edwin Robinson, the teacher teacher at Boys and Girls HS in Brooklyn. The voice!

In Radio City Music Hall, it feels like a Maybe Happy Ending night.

I met Terry Moran when he was a reporter for Court TV. I was on the metro desk at the New York Times, and we were both covering the Woody-Mia custody trial in Manhattan in 1993. There is not a finer, more conscientious journalist.

Make your day more joyful! Spend some time with us and Jonathan Groff, as we talk to the Tony-winning actor about life and Broadway and dancing as a kid in heels to the voice of Bobby Darin. AND SUBSCRIBE! marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/jonathan-g...

There is no way not to have fun with Jonathan Groff. This episode of Marks & Vincentelli proves it.

Last year's Tony winner for best actor in a musical is up for the honor again this year, for "Just in Time." He could become the first back-to-back winner in the category, ever.

marksvincentelli.substack.com

As the critic and the Uber driver said to each other simultaneously: Would I steer you wrong? This is big. Our next guest on Marks & Vincentelli had a Broadway awakening. Audiences said: You'll be back. It all rolled along, merrily. So you won't want to miss this one, splish splashing down soon!

For anyone curious about how we do what we do, this episode--deconstructing a canny review by Elisabeth, about a Lincoln Center Theater play, Five Models in Ruins, 1981--is for you. How does one write considerately about a show that doesn't quite work? marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/special-gu...

Special Guest Elisabeth Vincentelli on The Art of Writing a Less-Than-Positive Review

One of the most annoying canards out there is that critics relish writing pans.

marksvincentelli.substack.com

Carol Channing in Show Girl, the first Broadway show to be telecast live on April 2, 1961.

Burnside Gooch@burnsidegooch.bsky.social · last yr.

Clooney show to be broadcast live on CNN, but “This announcement marks a historic Broadway first: never before has a live performance of a play ever been televised” is patently untrue.