Spectacle Editor & Webmaster
“If there's a twenty-foot LED wall and a diva in a crystal bodysuit, I am THERE and I have THOUGHTS.”
I grew up training in Atlanta — ballet, jazz, hip-hop, anything with a stage. Never made it to Broadway as a dancer, but honey, I found something better: being the loudest person in the audience. I moved to Harlem right after college with forty dollars, a laptop, and an opinion about every choreographer working in American theater. I started writing about dance and spectacle because nobody else was covering it with the energy it deserved. The big Broadway pop crossovers, the stadium-scale productions, the shows where the lighting rig alone costs more than my rent — that's my world.
Joy. I am watching for joy. Not the fake kind, not the calculated-for-the-algorithm kind, but the real thing — when a company of forty dancers hits a formation in the second act and the whole audience gasps at exactly the same second. I'm watching the ensemble, not just the lead. I'm watching the lighting operator. I'm watching the diva in the wings waiting for her entrance like she knows exactly what's about to happen to the room. Great spectacle is a whole ecosystem and I notice every single part of it.
Pop crossover casting, diva vehicles, stadium-touring shows that land on Broadway, the moment when a pop star walks into a Sondheim score and it either works or it absolutely does not — I live for all of it. I will defend a maximalist production to my last breath. Give me the flying sequences. Give me the turntable. Give me the trap doors. I'm the one who will tell you whether the spectacle actually serves the story or whether it's just very expensive distraction — and I'll do it with love, because the people who build this stuff are artists and they deserve a critic who understands what they're trying to do.
Between matinees and closing nights I built this whole damn site from scratch — every component, every color token, every responsive breakpoint. My CSS is tighter than the choreo in Newsies and I will die on that hill. Carmen brings the opinions, Priya brings the plays, and I keep the lights on, literally and digitally. If something loads fast and looks right on your phone, that's me. If something looks a little TOO good for a theater blog? Also me. I'm the webmaster, the editor, and the girl who will stay up until 3am making sure the homepage banner hits exactly right.
I WILL NOT be quiet about Hamilton, an eight-year-old show that STILL sells out because it is that correct, and now I get to wear my devotion instead of just yelling about it into the void! Founding-father drip, no notes, throw it on and go be a whole production number.
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Ragtime will always be the BIG one for me, and honestly this street-sign tee is giving "I have been standing outside a Broadway house since 1998 and I regret nothing" energy — EXACTLY what I need. Put it on and go be a whole production number in line at the bodega.
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Myles Frost doing Michael Jackson live eight shows a week was SUPERHUMAN and I NEED the whole world to know I stan theater kids specifically, so I wear it in full sentences now! Rise up, put it on, go be a whole production number wherever you're standing.
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SIX turned six wives into six queens and gave every single one of them a crown, and I will not be caught without mine — this shirt is the merch equivalent of knowing all the harmonies and ALL the beef. PLAY IT LOUD, wear it louder.
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Every time I watch a killer dance break I want to know exactly how that genius got there, and this book actually answers the question — it goes inside the creative process of staging musicals with real rigor and reverence for the craft. Bob Fosse didn't just happen, people.
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Carmen: Two people. That's what "The Last Ferry" gives you. Two people, a set that looks like a harbor at the end of the world, and a score that thinks it can carry the weight of everything unsaid
Damara Voss is coming to Broadway and this is the industry story of the season, full stop.
Okay so here's what I need you to understand: Lenora Vance did not start the Cobalt Stage Collective twenty years ago because the theater world gave her an opening.
Carmen: Here is what I will tell you about Last Light at the Meridian: it is the most complicated two hours I have spent in a theater seat this season, and I mean that as a compliment — a qualified
Okay, so. What happened in Meridian Court last night was not just a benefit. It was not just an industry event.
Carmen: Marquee opens with a woman standing alone at the edge of a stage that is, for one full moment, completely dark.
The show that deserves your attention this season isn't only happening inside the Aldridge.
Okay, I need you to hear me clearly on this one: the licensing boom is not the enemy of the stage, and the choreographers who keep saying it is are missing the bigger picture.
Imani Carter argues Broadway is entering a golden run for prestige conversation just as streaming stumbles through its worst stretch in years.
Listen. I need you to sit down because this is a must-hear for everyone who loves spectacle and dance in theatre.
Carmen: So let’s set the record straight here. Iceboy! is like that hot slice of pizza you’ve been waiting for all week.
Imani Carter breaks down the four Broadway spectacles you absolutely cannot sleep on this summer, from flying sequences to LED walls to the diva moment of the decade.
