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No matter where fate propels Oliver Twist—from the workhouse to the funeral home to the hideout of a master pickpocket—the orphan maintains a fierce sense of who he is, plus a willingness to stand up for himself and, yes, even ask for more in his pursuit of a loving home. And Benjamin Pajak, the actor who plays him, is on a similarly dogged quest: a nearly one-kid glorious mission to rescue the New York City Center’s lumpy revival of Lionel Bart’s 1960 musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel Oliver Twist.

If it felt like hyperbole to praise the 10-year-old playing Winthrop Paroo in the revival of The Music Man as the most electrifying performer on stage, there’s no need to pull punches now that he’s taken on a title role. Indeed, Pajak, now 12 years old, is a marvel in Oliver! For one, his...

When he passed on at age 60 in 1933, Addison Mizner was best known as the architect whose Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean style helped define the emerging visual culture of South Florida. When his younger brother Wilson Mizner died two months later, he was best known as a raconteur whose name could occasionally be found among the writing credits of a Broadway play or Hollywood feature.

Clap... clap? David Letterman silenced his Late Show audience at his studio on Monday, April 20, after he allegedly made a sexist joke, according to Page Six. Letterman, 68, was first asked by a college staffer what kind of advice he would give to the class of 2015. "Treat a lady like a whore," the longtime late-night host suggested. "And a whore like a lady." The quote's origins come from Wilson Mizner, a screenwriter from the 1930s. The insider told Page Six that Letterman's joke was met with ice-cold [...]...

Audiences today often don't know the name of a play until just before its run starts. But would you book a ticket for a show without a title?

With a new play, audiences never quite know what they're getting, but early ticket-buyers for Anthony Neilson's latest piece at the Royal Court were taking an exceptionally wild shot in the dark. Originally advertised several months ago as "Untitled New Play by Anthony Neilson", it was only revealed to be called Narrative on 15 March, three weeks before opening.

Neilson's play joins a very small sub-set of theatre productions that have been delivered onto the posters unbaptised. The other most recent British example was Mike Leigh's 2011 show at the National theatre, promoted and sold for several months as "New play by Mike Leigh", before, at the last minute, becoming Grief.

In both cases, the delay resulted not from indecision or wilfulness...

It’s safe to say that most films that have tackled The Great Depression did so in a melancholy fashion; befitting the mood of the nation and “properly” dignifying the experiences of those who suffered through it, and even those who never lived to see the economy recover. It was, after all, the most devastating economic depression in the whole of the 20th century. Its effects were felt worldwide, with unemployment reaching astronomic heights and economies contracting seemingly beyond repair. The Us alone saw unemployment skyrocket to 25%, which wasn’t even the worst recorded during the depression, and crop prices fall as much as 60%, and being as how this was the 30s, cash crops were a major sector of the Us economy. This information, in its own way, finds itself weaved into the narrative of Hard to Handle, Mervyn LeRoy’s tragi-satire filmed during the height of the depression. During this period,...

It’s safe to say that most films that have tackled The Great Depression did so in a melancholy fashion; befitting the mood of the nation and “properly” dignifying the experiences of those who suffered through it, and even those who never lived to see the economy recover. It was, after all, the most devastating economic depression in the whole of the 20th century. Its effects were felt worldwide, with unemployment reaching astronomic heights and economies contracting seemingly beyond repair. The Us alone saw unemployment skyrocket to 25%, which wasn’t even the worst recorded during the depression, and crop prices fall as much as 60%, and being as how this was the 30s, cash crops were a major sector of the Us economy. This information, in its own way, finds itself weaved into the narrative of Hard to Handle, Mervyn LeRoy’s tragi-satire filmed during the height of the depression. During this period,...

Sherri Shepherd’s shocking elimination from Dancing With the Stars last night could have been an occasion for the The View co-host to rail against the judges or begrudge her fellow competitor, who had a lower score on Monday’s performance episode. Instead, Shepherd set the Internet ablaze with her inspirational words to fans: “That thing that scares you the most, that makes you say, ‘I don’t know if I can do it, I’m scared — run towards it because it’s so amazing on the other side.”

Shepherd joins a long list of celebrities who have doled out affirming advice.

Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Code series, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...

In the New Group and Tectonic Theater Project’s Off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ One Arm, Claybourne Elder plays Ollie, a chiseled and charming young Navy boxer, and he’s a total knockout in the role.

The 6-foot-1 out actor from Springville, Utah, pulls no punches in depicting how Ollie loses his right arm in an auto accident and then turns to a life of prostitution and prison. Based on Williams’ 1940s short story and 1967 unproduced screenplay, One Arm has been lovingly adapted into an 85-minute one-act and championed by another theatrical heavyweight: Moisés Kaufman.

Claybourne Elder (Photo credit: Andrew Parsons and Serge Nivelle)

Kaufman, the openly gay, Tony- and Emmy-nominated writer/director (33 Variations and The Laramie Project), says One Arm is “one of the frankest portrayals of the homosexual world that Tennessee lived in. And that made me want to do it. For the most part, gay characters in...

While some actors' biggest thrill is a showcase song or a scene-stealing turn, Broadway veteran William Parry has relished opportunities to grapple with big questions. A regular presence in Stephen Sondheim's musicals, Parry has probed the depths of artistic integrity, flexible morality, and dysfunctional relationships. With the New York premiere of Sondheim and John Weidman's Road Show at the Public Theater, he can add the American dream to the list of rugged psychological terrain he has covered.In Road Show, Parry plays Papa Mizner, the father of Addison and Wilson Mizner (Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani), characters based on real-life brothers who worked and weaseled their way to fleeting fortunes over 40 years, from the Alaska gold rush to the 1930s Florida real estate boom. The show makes its debut after nearly 10 years of rewrites, workshops, a regional production, and three previous titles: Wise Guys, Gold!, and Bounce.Having...