The name Elliot Willensky, which belonged to a middle-class Jewish songwriter from Bayonne, N.J., never achieved national recognition. But his songs certainly did.

While their musical “Fiddler on the Roof” was running on Broadway in 1964, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Jerry Bock were creating another show about another Jewish family facing oppression. But while “Tevye’s people were resigned to their poverty, the Rothschilds were determined to c…

More often than not, classic thrillers come across as glass-encased museum pieces to today’s theater audiences, what with their arthritic wordplay, creaky plot twists and archaically excessive exposition spouted by dusty archetypical characters. They are more exhibition than entertainment.

“I hate theatre,” says a frumpy, effeminate middle-aged man (Jonathan Kronenberger) from his comfy center stage chair at the start of this play. He is talking directly to the audience that has gathered at French Creek Theatre, adding that he particularly hates plays that break the fourth wall.

As they did with “Chicago” and “Cabaret,” composer/lyricists John Kander and Fred Ebb manage to combine social consciousness and moral indignation with high entertainment in “The Scottsboro Boys,” currently on stage at the Beck Center for the Arts.

I could go on and on about the coincidental yet serendipitous timing of a pro-tsarist musical being staged on the heels of President Trump’s State of the Union address and impeachment acquittal.

Playwright and lyricist Brian Yorkey and composer Tom Kitt have turned self-reflective self-disclosure into a musical theater art form of sorts, first with their 2008 Tony Award-winning “Next to Normal” – a dark and vivid portrait of manic-depression – and later, in 2014, with “If/Then,” whi…

In the world of live entertainment, there is no shortage of popular amusements inspired by such low-hanging fruit as motorsports (“Monster Jam”), pro-wrestling (“WWE Live Raw”) and children’s collectables (Mattel’s “American Girl Live” tour).

Seeing the name Lynn Nottage on the playbill for Ensemble Theatre’s “Intimate Apparel” should be enough to tell you that the simple story slowly unfolding on stage is more than it appears to be.

Cultural anthropology has never been more probing or poetic than Dominique Morisseau’s aptly titled “Skeleton Crew,” a case study of the working-class conscience teetering on the brink of extinction. It is a relevant, riveting and important piece of work.

The question is not whether the national tour of “Jersey Boys,” currently on stage at Playhouse Square, is good.

French playwright Gérald Sibleyras’ “Le Vent Des Peupliers,” which has been translated into English by British playwright Tom Stoppard and retitled “Heroes,” is a modest work affectionately referred to as a “boulevard comedy.” Like a boulevard, it is broad in terms of its humor, well-manicur…

The Mentalist. The Trickster. The Daredevil. The Elusive. The Manipulator. The Showman. The Transformationalists.

One may not recognize Deb Filler when she takes the Mandel Jewish Community Center’s Stonehill Auditorium stage in Beachwood on Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. with her show, “I Did It My Way in Yiddish (In English).”

One of the darkest moments in the Cleveland arts scene was when the Cleveland Ballet, which was founded in 1972 by Dennis Nahat and Ian Horvath, established a co-venture in San Jose, Calif., in 1986 and then relocated there in 2000.

The casting call for the role of Tiny Tim in this year’s London and Broadway revivals of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” read: “Applicants without a disability will not be considered.”