Revivals of West Side Story and Blithe Spirit work, more or less—more thanks to two performances.

Cynthia Nixon battles a troubled kid (and script) in Distracted.

The Story of My Life doesn’t take the easy road, and isn’t up to the tough one.

Uncle Vanya’s jumpy, star-studded Russian melancholy, and Lynn Nottage’s grimly lyric Ruined.

Comic man-child Will Ferrell takes his perfect role to Broadway. Plus: The battling queens of The Third Story.

Mercedes Ruehl is a brilliantly monolithic matriarch in The American Plan. Plus, Hedda Gabler.

Billy Elliot is a flat-footed missed opportunity saved by the ecstatic performances of its young stars.

‘Lately I’ve been gettin’ this creepy feeling that she thinks we’re datin’,” teenage lost-boy Dennis tells twentysomething lost-girl Frances.

When Frank Langella plays Sir Thomas More, you expect thunder. What you get is drizzle.

A Tale of Two Cities: The Musical isn’t quite what Charles Dickens had in mind. Plus the brainy charms of The English Channel.