His Broadway debut, in M. Butterfly,won every award going except the Nobel Prize in Mathematics. Fair enough: there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. He renewed everyone’s admiration with Law & Order: SVU, and that’s not the half of it, or even the quarter, but why be precise? It’s not as if there’s a Nobel at stake. Produced with … Continue reading »

This terrific comic actor started early: “At five-years-old, I used to sing ‘You Make Me Feel So Young,’ and it got a laugh, and I didn’t know why.” She’s learned, on TV (Only Murders in the Building), on Broadway (Hairspray), and off (the Yiddish Fidler). Continue reading »

This costume designer, known for his work with playwright Taylor Mac, rejects the old saw, there’s no accounting for taste. “Yes, you account for taste. It is part of who you are. And maybe I’m judging you right now. No. I’m kidding.” I don’t think he’s kidding. We talk sense and sensibility and suits at … Continue reading »

When this improv artist—he created Freestyle Love Supreme with Lin-Manuel Miranda—received a guitar from his wife, he was eager to play at bedtime for their two young daughters. “They were like, ‘Could you stop? Could you just cuddle?’” The ups and downs, but mostly ups, of a performer’s life. Continue reading »

Forty years ago, she became a star in Dream Girls, when she was only two years old or perhaps slightly older. She’s developed some surprising ideas since then, including the belief that you should cheat at golf. Under certain circumstances. We talk Broadway and the back nine. Continue reading »

She won a Tony for the musical The Life, an Emmy for Sesame Street, and is the voice of Calliope in Disney’s Hercules. She’s just wrapping up a Broadway run—at age 70—in Chicago. And this: “They put me up on top of the dining room table, and I would sing and dance for my family.” In 2017. No, no, no: as a … Continue reading »

When he set out to become an actor, this Broadway great—Rent, Wicked, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels—was opposed by his conservative Catholic family. But they came around, even his Fox-watching father. “He loved Rent. My homophobic dad would come to Rent, probably once a month.” Tales of reconciliation. And show tunes. Continue reading »

Having won the Pulitzer Prize for his play A Strange Loop, what will he do next? One possibility, move to Wyoming. “I’d get my house somewhere, get my shotgun, if I needed it, and sit on my porch in my rocking chair.” An eastern sophisticate contemplates the West, Tori Amos, and soap opera.  Presented with Federal Hall … Continue reading »

This actor and singer won a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Tony for The Color Purple. She played Harriet Tubman in Harriet and Aretha Franklin in Genius. Is there anything she can’t do? “I will not be releasing an album of Hawaiian guitar music; I don’t think I can nearly get good enough to do that.” Hey, if she turned her … Continue reading »

“I identify as a clown,” he says, understating his range as a performer, having portrayed George on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf and Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street in Elmo’s World. And yet even a career as luminous as his has its disappointments: “I once asked John Cleese to play Pozzo in Waiting for Godot. Wouldn’t it have … Continue reading »