Stage & Performing Arts

America’s Most Historic Theaters

Some theaters feel like buildings. Others feel like living instruments. The best ones do both. They carry the fingerprints of everyone who has ever stepped into the light, while still making room for whoever is next. When I think about the nation’s most storied venues , I look for a few telltale...

Willingboro’s New Performing Arts Center Opens With Atlantic Starr

There is a particular kind of electricity that runs through a room right before the first downbeat: a shared hush, a thousand tiny adjustments in posture, the feeling that a community is about to watch something together instead of separately. Willingboro Township is chasing that feeling on...

Highlights From the 2026 MTV VMAs

The MTV VMAs have always been part theater and part high wire live TV. This year’s ceremony, broadcast live from the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, September 27, 2026, landed for me in a few specific places: a Madonna opener that (to my eye) was built for scale, a seven-award...

What Makes a Good Stage Lighting Plot?

A lighting plot is theater’s quiet superpower: a piece of paperwork that turns “make it feel like a storm is coming” into something a crew can hang, circuit, focus, and run eight shows a week. When it is good, it saves time, prevents expensive mistakes, keeps performers safe, and preserves the...

How to Read a Theater Program Like a Pro

There are two kinds of theatergoers: the ones who flip through the program because it is there, and the ones who treat it like a backstage pass. If you have ever wondered why the person next to you seems to know everything before the first line is spoken, the answer is usually simple. They read the...

How to Prepare for a Commercial Audition

Commercial auditions are their own ecosystem. They move quickly, the sides (the script pages you are given) are often short, and the job is usually less about showing a big emotional arc and more about proving you can be believable , camera-ready, and easy to direct in a small window of time. The...

How to Get Cast as an Extra in Film and TV

There is a particular kind of thrill in watching a scene and thinking, I know exactly how that got made . Background work, also called being an extra, is one of the most accessible ways to step onto a professional set, earn a paycheck, and learn how film and TV actually move. It is not glamour, not...

What a Casting Director Does

There is a particular kind of alchemy in casting: that moment when a character stops being words on a page and becomes a living person with a pulse, a voice, a way of holding a coffee cup. Casting directors are the professionals who engineer that transformation, with equal parts taste, logistics,...

How to Choose Theater Seats for the Best View and Sound

Buying theater tickets can feel like a tiny high-stakes game show: pick the right square, win a great night. Pick the wrong one, and you might spend Act Two leaning like a sunflower toward the stage. The good news is that most seat maps follow a few reliable rules. Once you know what each section...

How to Attend a Live Comedy Show Without Overpaying

Live comedy is one of the best bargains in entertainment, until it isn’t. The same show can swing wildly in price depending on when you buy, where you click, and whether you accidentally turn a simple night out into a buffet of add-ons and fees. I love a packed room and a killer closer as much as...

How to Choose the Best Seats for Any Live Show

Buying tickets can feel like you’re taking a pop quiz in geometry. Orchestra or mezzanine. Center or side. Row A or “limited view” with a price that looks suspiciously good. The truth is, there isn’t a universally “best” seat. There’s only the best seat for your night: what you want to see, what...

Best Seats at a Concert Hall: Orchestra, Mezzanine, or Balcony?

Buying concert tickets should feel like the first page of a great night out, not a geometry exam. Yet here we are, squinting at seating maps that look like crop circles and asking the eternal question: orchestra, mezzanine, or balcony ? The truth is that there is no single “best” section for every...

What to Wear to an Opening Night, Film Premiere, or Red Carpet

There is a special kind of adrenaline that comes with a big night out in the arts. The curtain is minutes from rising, the lobby is buzzing, the photographers are posted at the step-and-repeat , and suddenly you are asking the most human question imaginable: Is this too much, or not enough? Good...

How to Get Rush Tickets for Broadway and Theatre Shows

Rush tickets are one of the last genuinely old-school Broadway thrills: you wake up, you take your chances, and you might end up in a great seat for a fraction of the usual price. They are not glamorous. They are not guaranteed. They are also one of the best ways to see a hot show without handing...

Where to Sit for the Best View

I have read enough playbills to know this: the “best seat in the house” is not a single seat. It is a relationship. Between you and the stage. Between you and the speakers. Between your knees and that mysterious row with no legroom. The same ticket price can feel like magic or mild regret depending...

Your First Night at the Theater

Your first live performance comes with a tiny thrill that streaming can’t replicate: the shared hush, the orchestra tuning, the lights dimming, the feeling that anything could happen because it literally can. The good news is you do not need insider knowledge to belong in the room. You just need a...

How to Buy Last-Minute Theater Tickets Without Overpaying

There is a special kind of adrenaline that hits when you realize you could see a show tonight . The trap is assuming last-minute means last-chance pricing. In reality, many theaters and presenters sometimes hold back inventory, offer day-of deals, and quietly reward the people willing to show up...

How to Choose the Best Seats for Any Live Show

Buying tickets is easy. Buying the right tickets is where the art comes in. The best seat is not always the closest one, and it is definitely not always the most expensive. A great seat is the one that matches the kind of performance you are seeing and the kind of night you want. Do you want to...

Unforgettable Red Carpet Moments at the Tony and Olivier Awards

Theater people love a transformation. Give us a dimmer switch, a quick-change, a perfectly timed entrance. So it makes sense that the red carpet, that little pre-show corridor of photographers and flashing bulbs, has become its own kind of performance at the Tony Awards and the Olivier Awards. If...

10 Historic Theatres for the Ultimate Broadway Experience

There are nights when Broadway is the show, and nights when the building is quietly acting right alongside it. The curve of a balcony, the hush of velvet, the way a chandelier makes everyone look a little more glamorous, even in a raincoat. Historic theatres do not just host performances. They...