Exclusive Interview: A Strange Loop star Antwayn Hopper “I’m drawn to raw emotion, real-life storytelling”

Topeka, Kansas-raised Obie Award-winning actor Antwayn Hopper is currently starring on Broadway as Thought 6 in Michael R. Jackson's exhilaratingly meta musical, A Strange Loop. Hopper has been part of the ensemble cast for six years during the show's development ahead of its Tony-winning Broadway run, including appearing in the 2019 Playwrights Horizons Theater production,... Continue Reading →

September 20, 2022 0

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022 Theatre Review: Unfortunate – The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch (Underbelly) ★★★1/2

Ursula is here to spill the tea on what really went on under the sea. Splash-landing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this down and dirty Disney parody is full of show-stopping songs, magical puppets and delightfully filthy humour. Elliotte Williams-N’Dure as Ursula. Photo credit: Underbelly. Following in the footsteps of Cruella and Elphaba, everyone’s favourite... Continue Reading →

August 22, 2022 0

GLAAD Awards Exclusive Interview: Michael R. Jackson on writing A Strange Loop “I felt misunderstood, unseen & unheard”

A Strange Loop became the most Tony Award-nominated production of the season today, receiving 11 nominations including Best Musical. On Friday night the show's Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, composer and lyricist, Michael R. Jackson, gave a powerful and moving performance of Memory Song from the musical on stage at the 33rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards. Ahead... Continue Reading →

May 9, 2022 2

Theatre Review: A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, New York) ★★★★★

Before the lights go down at the Lyceum Theatre, a recorded announcement by A Strange Loop's Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, composer and lyricist—Michael R. Jackson—politely reminds us to keep our masks on and to switch off or silence our mobile devices. Theatre etiquette which he says, as a former usher, he finds particularly irksome when ignored.... Continue Reading →

May 2, 2022 4

Theatre Review: Steve (Seven Dials Playhouse, London) ★★★1/2

The tale of a middle-aged white gay New Yorker having romantic issues might not be the story the world is desperately crying out for at the moment, but Steve—now playing at the newly renamed Seven Dials Playhouse in London—is brisk, bright, and funny. There’s a sense of new beginnings about this production bringing Mark Gerrard’s... Continue Reading →

March 6, 2022 0

Dr Emily Garside on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s love letter to musical theatre & Jonathan Larson’s legacy with tick, tick…BOOM!

Lin-Manuel Miranda's hugely creative film adaptation of tick, tick...BOOM! has been, it now seems safe to say, a huge success. Fittingly for the story of Jonathan Larson, a man who referred to himself as 'the future of musical theatre', it is an inventive movie musical that shows what the genre can be and has the... Continue Reading →

November 25, 2021 1

Film Review: tick, tick…BOOM! ★★★★

After over a year of binging Netflix in my tiny East Village apartment it felt a little Alanis Morissette ironic that my first trip to a Broadway theatre since last March wasn't to see a live theatre production, but for the New York premiere of a Netflix film, Lin-Manuel Miranda's tick, tick…BOOM! As it turned... Continue Reading →

November 19, 2021 3

The Queer Review meets the cast & filmmakers of Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM! “it’s a love letter to theatre”

In case you hadn't already heard, Broadway is back, baby, and on Monday it was abuzz, not with the opening of a new show, but with a celebration of the legacy of one of musical theatre's most beloved artists, taken far too soon, Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning Rent creator Jonathan Larson. The event at... Continue Reading →

November 19, 2021 4

Outfest 2021 Exclusive Interview: filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz on Boulevard! A Hollywood Story “how many queer stories are buried in boxes, sitting in people’s attics & basements?”

Jeffrey Schwarz, the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker behind Vito, I Am Divine, and Tab Hunter Confidential, returns to Outfest this month for the world premiere of his latest feature, Boulevard! A Hollywood Story. The fascinating film unearths the little-known attempt by actress Gloria Swanson to stage an original Broadway musical based on the movie she is... Continue Reading →

August 3, 2021 1

Exclusive Interview: Stage Mother star Allister Macdonald “not only is it such a queer story, but it was so queer making it”

One of the standout performances of Thom Fitzgerald's uplifting comedy Stage Mother, which opens in select US theatres and on demand this Friday August 21st, comes from queer Canadian actor Allister MacDonald who portrays a talented San Fransisco drag queen with an inspired name, Joan of Arkansas. MacDonald appears in the movie alongside Oscar-nominee Jacki... Continue Reading →

August 19, 2020 1