Johansson Wows in A View From a Bridge

Scarlett Johansson, VIola Davis, Catherine Zeta-Jones Prevail

(NEWSER) - Denzel Washington won his first Tony Award tonight for his performance in August Wilson's Fences, and Scarlett Johansson and Catherine Zeta-Jones joined the Hollywood-to-Tony parade by picking up statuettes of their own. Best play Red and best musical Memphis also enjoyed big nights, the AP reports . More»

Because we have no middle class to celebrate

(NEWSER) - Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a bravura performance in the new revival of Death of a Salesman, but as he watched, Lee Siegel wondered "why the play was revived at all," he writes in the New York Times . After all, Salesman is about the delusions of the middle class, and "the American middle class—as a social reality and a set of admirable values—has nearly ceased to exist." Heck, no one in the middle class could afford to see Salesman anyway; tickets range from $111 to $840. More»

Kristin Chenoweth defends 'Promises, Promises' co-star Sean Hayes

(NEWSER) - Sean Hayes made his Broadway debut shortly after officially coming out , and his performance has drawn mixed reviews, a Tony nomination—and one scathing notice from Ramin Setoodeh of Newsweek . Setoodeh, who is gay, called Hayes "the big pink elephant in the room" and deemed his performance as a lovestruck straight guy "wooden and insincere." That didn't sit well with co-star Kristen Chenoweth, notes Broadway.com . So she pretty much destroys Setoodeh's argument. More»

She looks fantastic, but isn't cut out for After Miss Julie role

(NEWSER) - Critics agree on one thing when it comes to Sienna Miller’s Broadway debut: She looks hot. Her performance in After Miss Julie, however, wowed exactly no one:

• Ben Brantley was rooting for Miller from the start, but ultimately she “registers as a healthy, sane young woman with good diction, good posture, and great legs,” he writes in the New York Times. “Commendable as these attributes are, they are of limited use in portraying a tautly wound, death-courting neurotic who is eaten alive by her own demons.”

Rave reviews for Shakespeare in the Park debut

(NEWSER) - New York theater critics are giving raves to this summer's free outdoor production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, starring Anne Hathaway. For Charles Isherwood of the New York Times, Hathaway has "the unmistakable glow of a natural star" and invests the shipwrecked Viola with "a bright humor that feel spontaneous and unforced." And with Hathaway in drag, in a tight-fitting blue jacket and men's riding boots, "I probably don’t need to tell you how lovely she looks." More»