Theater

Shawn has made a living playing comic, downtrodden characters like Rex, the green dinosaur in Toy Story. But in his free time, he has written a handful of intellectually demanding plays. New York's Public Theater is showcasing two of his works this year.

For the first time since the Tony Award-winning adaptation of Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1972, New York's Public Theater is presenting a brand-new musical as part of the Shakespeare in the Park series. The team behind the hit Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson have adapted Love's Labour's Lost.

The 1930s film star dropped out of sight for decades, only to return as the toast of 1970s Broadway.

Turns out the nerd-turned-spy from the TV show Chuck can sing. Zachary Levi is rehearsing for his first role on Broadway — a new musical comedy called First Date, which also features Krysta Rodriguez, the star of another NBC program, Smash.

One Los Angeles performer has played Dr. Hill in Re-Animator, Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, and now Father Merrin in The Exorcist. Did we mention he sings opera, too?

A whirlwind finish for the Broadway season saw 19 shows open in March and April. Are producers skewing the process in hopes voters will pick fresher shows over faded memories from the fall? Jeff Lunden looks back at a so-so year on the Great White Way.

Among the hopefuls who might take home trophies at this weekend's Tony Awards are costume designers William Ivey Long and Dominique Lemieux. Jeff Lunden talks to the two about their work on Cinderella and Pippin, two of the season's better-upholstered revivals.

A successful Broadway set builder took his theater skills back to New England. At the tiny Addison Repertory Theater, a part of the Hannaford Career Center, he teaches all aspects of professional theater to students — some of whom go on to successful careers in Hollywood and New York.

The union of actors and stage managers, who banded together to improve working conditions in the early 1900s, marks its centennial this year. As Jeff Lunden reports, it's operating in an ever-shifting theatrical landscape.

Writer Kevin Williamson of the National Review attended a musical in New York. He says a woman was web surfing on her phone, violating theater rules. He tells Gothamist he complained to the woman. She replied, "So don't look." That's when Williamson grabbed her phone and threw it across the theater.