"Now your eyes are feeling heavy. You want to sleep, don't you?" That's the question posed by child psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Richard Griffiths) as he hypnotizes his 17-year-old patient Alan Strang (Daniel Radcliffe) in the current revival of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus. But in that moment I could have sworn Griffiths was speaking directly to me. It was also the only point where I felt that any of the performers in this tedious, overwrought production were actually in the same room as the audience. more ›

That Broadway revival of Equus that's packing them in at the Broadhurst (93% attendance, giddyup!) has been getting a lot of press, much of it focused on Daniel Radcliffe's frenzied nude scene, in which [spoiler?] he runs amok and blinds some horses. Michael Riedel at the Post has dubbed the show's big attraction "Harry Potter's other wand" ha ha, but at least one person is not amused by the quip: Equus's author Peter Shaffer, who tells the columnist, "How very naughty of you. There is a great deal more going on in the play, you know. I'm not writing porn, for God's sake! I was irritated that people talked on and on about it. It was so infantile." He's absolutely right! So let's have no immature comments about these NSFW cell phone photos of Radcliffe's penis taken by an Equus audience member the other night. more ›

The Fringe, the Summer Play Festival, the Ice Factory—all that's behind us. With summer all but over, it's time for the big dogs of Broadway take center stage once again. Today the Times arts section is packed with ads and articles about the upcoming theater season, which critic Charles Isherwood has dubbed A Season of Men. That's mainly because there are two David Mamet plays set to open, Arthur Miller's All My Sons (with its gender-specific title) is being revived, and a naked Daniel Radcliffe can now be seen onstage at the Broadhurst Theatre. All that and a few other highlights from Broadway and Off Broadway below. more ›

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is testifying in a Manhattan federal courtroom this morning against a small publisher trying to release an encyclopedia based on her work. In the past, Rowling has been supportive of the fan-based websites that explore her novels, but when RDR Books announced last fall that it would be publishing a book version of the The Harry Potter Lexicon website, Rowling filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. more ›