News Ticker
- December 14, 2025 in Broadway // Oedipus
- December 14, 2025 in Interviews // Conversation with Dominick LaRuffa Jr.
- December 14, 2025 in Off-Broadway // The Surgeon and Her Daughters
- December 14, 2025 in Features // Notes Toward a One-Man Play About Scammers, Character, and Control
- December 14, 2025 in Features // A Seasonal Salon Worth Noting
- December 13, 2025 in Off-Broadway // BUM BUM (or, this farce has Autism)
- December 12, 2025 in Musicals // The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
- December 12, 2025 in Cabaret // Mary Foster Conklin — Mirrors Revisited (50th Anniversary)
- December 11, 2025 in Cabaret // Kathy Kaefer — Kiss Me Once: Stories from the Homefront
- December 11, 2025 in Off-Broadway // The American Soldier
- December 9, 2025 in Off-Broadway // This World of Tomorrow
- December 9, 2025 in Cabaret // A Noel Coward Celebration — Steve Ross & Friends
- December 7, 2025 in Off-Broadway // Diversion
- December 5, 2025 in Off-Broadway // Meet the Cartozians
- December 5, 2025 in Features // Tom Stoppard: An Appreciation
Archive
"Ragtime," thought of as an unwieldy musical with too many characters and too many themes, hit Broadway in 1998. Based on the 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel of the same name, the many storylines were artfully tamed by the team of Terrence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics). New York City Center has chosen "Ragtime" as its 2004 Annual Gala presentation in a brilliantly streamlined production directed with an eye to its still-important message by Lear DeBessonet with a large and exceptional cast and an excellent orchestra under the baton of James Moore playing William David Brohn’s original rich orchestrations.
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Whether performers liked him or disliked him, they agreed that Gil Wiest—the last of the great nightclub impresarios—kept them working. He routinely booked artists for long runs—a month, or six weeks, or two months. For decades he made his supper club, Michael’s Pub, a prime destination for top-tier cabaret and jazz.
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As both playwright Harry Teinowitz and his co-author Spike Manton spent time in rehab, they carry us through the epiphanies as well as the relapses by injecting humor in every “shot glass” of this play. This is most evident when George returns from a drinking binge with the front wheel of his bicycle mangled into a pretzel. The roommates focus on the “falling off the wagon” rather than the falling off the bicycle. The highlight of their days (and nights) is getting together to watch reruns of "Cheers," with the episode where Sam Malone relapses being one they can probably chant verbatim the way other people can act out all the parts of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
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Now, director Jamie Lloyd has taken the clunky—but entertaining—Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Sunset Blvd." (1993) and stripped it of all realistic scenery—and a few songs—hoping to get to the nitty-gritty of its Hollywood characters and period with enormous projections which suggest an expressionistic silent film. The results are decidedly mixed mostly due to a failure to settle on a tone plus some head-scratching additions that have nothing to do with the story. Lloyd, most recently represented by his dreary, stripped-down A Doll’s House and an equally spare production of Pinter’s Betrayal, has shepherded this production with a combination of brilliance and self-indulgence.
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Seeing this presentation of “Ragtime” was the most satisfying theatrical experience I’ve had in years. I hope a way can be found to bring “Ragtime” back to Broadway—ideally with full sets. But the show’s book, music and lyrics are so powerful that “Ragtime”-- even in the current bare-bones form at City Center--works its magic.
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“Drag: The Musical” has the look and feel of a winner. Production values are first-rate. And the sweet, tender, innocent contributions of a young cast member, Yair Keydar—who sings beautifully--give it a surprising amount of heart.
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Fisher directs a solid ensemble through a production of "Medea" that is a spoof of a college production with a gay man in the role of Jason and a feminist as Medea. It takes place from the last days of rehearsals to opening night. It is a play within a play with a romantic entanglement between the actor playing Jason and the actor playing Medea. It is amazing that with all the different elements of two storylines being played out the show works as well as it does.
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David Pittu, Victoria Clark and John Ellison Conlee in a scene from the MasterVoices concert
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The good news is that "Little House on the Ferry" is full of heart and brimming with laughs. Sook’s use of the space is commendable even if she struggles to wring a few ounces of earnestness out of the largely cartoonish characters. Michael McCrary’s choreography is simply awesome, and the music and songs are super fun. The actors are having such a great time that even some of the lesser jokes and moments of duller wit in the script are forgiven. “So far, so fun!” exclaimed my theater companion after the first number, and when a towering Galganni as Xana DuMe breaks out into a vigorous tap dance, it’s truly a fantastic moment that throws the audience into a delicious tizzy, present company included.
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Following her star turn as “Celine Dion” in "Titaníque" which she co-wrote, Marla Mindelle has a new role in "The Big Gay Jamboree," another parody musical which she co-wrote with Jonathan Parks-Ramage. As Stacey, with a degree in musical theater, on her wedding day to chauvinist millionaire Keith, she wakes up to find herself trapped in an Off Broadway musical comedy, circa 1945, in the provincial town of Bareback, Iowa. Rather scattershot with its many multitudinous references to both pop culture and musical theater, the show is both raunchy and erotic in the style of a cabaret or nightclub act. The corny humor may charm some theatergoers, but put others off by its old-fashioned and familiar humor spiced up with bawdy, off-color jokes.
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"Bad Kreyòl" is gifted with a pre-show voiceover from the playwright herself: “To love a people is to learn their language.” This speaks volumes for two women who know what they know, aren’t keen on changing it up any, and are inherently both generous givers and caretakers in every aspect of their lives. And yes, sometimes you need to butt heads.
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"Rawshock" is a powerful, insightful, compelling play that lays bare the craven manipulation of corporate healthcare in the name of profits. It is beautifully written by Rita Lewis and superbly directed by Ken Wolf, who also did the lighting and sound design. It is a story about a group of patients in a psychiatric hospital setting and what happens to them when the new corporate owners of the hospital disrupt their therapeutic group. It is a gem of a show with outstanding performances that should not be missed by anyone who enjoys solid dramatic theater.
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Adam Driver in a scene from Kenneth Lonergan’s “Hold on to Me Darling” at the Lucille Lortel
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Swapping Ethereum is a practical strategy for investors who want to diversify, secure stable assets, or participate in new opportunities within the Ethereum ecosystem. With a trusted platform, you can swap ETH safely and quickly, maintaining flexibility in your portfolio without needing to cash out in traditional currency.
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Although the play is graceful and appealing, it is mainly presented in narrative form with Delia played by Julianna Margulies in New York and Peter Gallagher playing Dr. Peter Rutter, her surprise new boyfriend from California, reading their emails to each other from desks at opposite sides of the stage. Left on Tenth, with its episodic nature, and many short scenes, is really a screenplay with the lead actors doing the equivalent of the voice-overs. Susan Stroman, best known for her choreography and direction of musicals, has piloted the play with polish and urbanity, but has not solved all the play’s problems.
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Wilder’s experimental play uses no scenery except for two tables, some chairs, a piano and usually two ladders for the upstairs bedroom windows of the young people. Here, however, Leon and set designer Beowulf Boritt have eliminated the ladders for two windows that open in the wooden back wall. Parsons’ description of the town and the street is so vivid that your imagination sees all that is meant to be there. Many of the stage effects are created by Allen Lee Hughes’ subtle lighting plot which takes us back to the end of the last century with lanterns both on the footlights and in Parsons’ hand. Leon has also added another one of the five senses by piping in the odors of heliotrope, vanilla, and bacon, one in each act. Professor Willard is here played by a woman, and as John McGinty playing milkman Howie Newsome is hearing challenged, the other actors speak to him in sign language, a new effect for this drama.
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Donald Steven Olson’s "The Christine Jorgensen Show," a two-hander, focuses on the creation of her nightclub act. Jorgensen (portrayed by Jesse James Keitel known for "Younger," "Queer as Folk" and "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds") approaches showbiz veteran Myles Bell. Mark Nadler, virtuoso pianist, cabaret superstar, and co-composer for this show, takes on the role of this quirky, energetic performer and songwriter.
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Ready to host the ultimate Christmas dinner party? Whether you're a seasoned entertainer or a first-timer, planning the perfect holiday gathering can feel overwhelming.
But don't worry! Here are easy holiday hosting tips to help you create a festive and memorable evening. From delicious dishes to cheerful decor, we've got you covered.
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Broadway is the embodiment of the most in-demand shows in the world. Getting good tickets to a Broadway show can feel like winning the lottery. Famous shows like Hamilton, The Lion King, Wicked, and Moulin Rouge! are all cultural phenomena, and both tourists and locals will go miles to ensure getting tickets to the spectacle.
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Essentially a cri de coeur, "Vladimir" desperately wants to answer affirmatively; however, Sheffer forthrightly acknowledges that it's a dangerously knotty road to yes, requiring Raisa (Raya in the diminutive form) to not only imperil herself but also possibly cause the deaths of others. In particular, passivity is the much safer choice for Yevgeny (David Rosenberg), a financial analyst who, despite having experienced virulent anti-Semitism while attempting to navigate the Russian educational system, helps Raya link that aforementioned suspicious tax refund to the upper echelons of Putin's corrupt administration. Like Raya, Yevgeny is not purely plucked from Sheffer's imagination, as he also possesses a non-fictional counterpart, Sergei Magnitsky, who, in a tragic similarity to Politkovskaya, savagely lost his life for having the courage to tell the truth about Putin's misdeeds.
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In an era where technology is often seen as isolating, virtual theater reminds us that it can also be a tool for connection. Whether it’s through the fusion of abstract photography into storytelling or the simple act of sharing a performance across borders, virtual theater is reshaping the way we experience art, making it more accessible, more collaborative, and more global than ever before.
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Directed by Annette Mees, "Deep History" is a real eye opener but it is not depressing. Finnigan is so upbeat and compelling a storyteller it is not possible not be pulled into events as he describes, telling the history of the world from the point of view of a mythic woman who appears in all eras. The show is punctuated by Australian pop songs that figure in both Finnigan's life and the history he is recounting. The video design by Hayley Egan will sear the proof of climate change into your eyeballs permanently. You will never think about this topic the same way again: a not to be missed enlightening theatrical event.
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This stunning theatrical work is a creation of the two-member On The Rocks Theatre Co. (Christopher Ford and Dakota Rose), two ingenious artists who have been at work on "The Beastiary" since they were selected as Ars Nova’s fifth Company in Residence in 2019. Commissioned to create a new show from scratch, a first Ars Nova-produced reading came to fruition in 2021. Adding composer Dorit Chrysler to the team, later 2022 workshops added the theremin score and the puppets to the play. More behind the scenes development, a puppet build residency, and a two-week production workshop built the show that is now at Greenwich House. Ford and Rose have co-written and co-designed the scenic elements. Ford designed the glorious costumes and hand-made puppets and Rose directed the entire production.
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Lloyd Suh writes quirky historical plays from a unique perspective as ironic comedies. In "Franklinland," the latest entry in the EST/Sloan Project, commissioning and developing plays about science and scientists, Suh creates a Benjamin Franklin like you have never seen him depicted before. Unlike Howard Da Silva’s iconic and benevolent Franklin in the now classic musical "1776," this Franklin is crotchety, irascible, arrogant and demanding. In the play’s six scenes covering 33 years, we see him in his fraught and contentious relationship with his illegitimate and only son William who though not a great mind or a scientific genius like his father goes on to do well for himself politically.
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Comedian Hannah Gadsby became an international sensation with their Netflix Special "Nanette," in which they revealed traumatic episodes from their past along with a slew of jokes. Gadsby's latest, "Woof!," now at the gorgeous Abrons Arts Center, is more focused on laughs than serious matters, but it still has some serious moments.
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James Ijames’ new play now at The Public Theater is quite different from his satiric Pulitzer Prizing-winning "Fat Ham" which appeared there two years ago. "Good Bones" is a realistic depiction of black on black gentrification in an unnamed American city, a theme not often represented on our stages. This provocative and timely play also has some intriguing supernatural elements which are not fully dealt with in Saheem Ali’s otherwise polished and urbane production.
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Clearly, Hwang’s playwright-within-the-play has been on a colorful journey, full of characters that amuse, anger and move him. Hwang’s genius here is his ability to spin his real life into a fascinatingly entertaining work using all these events and characters. He is artful in balancing the lighthearted with the sardonic and the dramatic, the result being a colorful portrait. The flier for "Yellow Face" shows its handsome star Daniel Dae Kim holding a mask of his smiling face away from his own scowling visage, a witty take on the Greek Comedy/Drama masks, a shorthand for "Yellow Face"’s richness. Of course, having Daniel Dae Kim in the central role embodies his character with depth and subtlety.
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"Ashes & Ink," a new play by first time playwright Martha Pichey, is getting an excellent production at the AMT Theater in Manhattan. Tony-nominated actress Kathryn Erbe leads a strong cast smoothly directed by Alice Jankell.
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The story weaves together the group's history with flashbacks to their childhood, high school years, and a time immediately after college. It is a show that tries to cover too much territory without getting a solid handle on any of it. There are two potential dramatic threads, either of which would provide a strong story arc if developed as the heart of the story. One is the Vietnam War's social, political, and personal impact on the group members, and the other is the interpersonal romantic relationships within the group. These two themes are the strongest in the show but lack the depth to explore the dramatic possibilities fully.
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The show may have been overly long, but I’m very glad I caught it. Because I saw two up-and-coming “unknown” singers—Robert Levey II and Johnny Sullivan—with as much promise and potential as any I’ve come across in recent years.
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While "Sump’n Like Wings" is a lovely little play about a feisty 16-year-old girl who wants her independence in the 1913-16 period just after Oklahoma became a state, unfortunately Raelle Myrick-Hodges’ production is limp and undramatic, not making a good case for restoring this play to the American repertory. Ironically, while the fact that Riggs was gay and a Native American is being publicized by this production, neither of these themes appear in this play. The use of Junghyun Georgia Lee’s unit set for all five scenes makes the play seem thinner than it is and the beautiful poetry and high flown language of "Green Grow the Lilacs" (made available in the collection "The Cherokee Night and Other Plays" from University of Oklahoma Press) is nowhere in evidence in this play. Most of the important events take place offstage, unlike some of Riggs' other plays.
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In a theatrical era when "full-length" works often fail to exceed 90 minutes, the English playwright Jez Butterworth dares to dubiously dramatize for approximately twice that span. His previous Broadway epic, "The Ferryman," conflated The Troubles with anachronistic paganism, a disturbed old woman's fear of banshees, and lots of boozing, earning Butterworth much critical acclaim, as well as Olivier and Tony Awards, for this bold mix of pretentiousness and unabashed Irish stereotyping. "The Hills of California," Butterworth's latest overhyped synthetic slog teeming with underdeveloped characters, is basically a tale of two postwar entertainment cities: Los Angeles, the world's dream capital, and Blackpool, England, a fading resort town that's become uniquely fit for delusions.
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As in Ayad Akhtar’s plays "Disgraced," "JUNK" and "The Who and the What," all of which have been produced by the Lincoln Center Theater, "McNeal" is always interesting, always arresting. Unfortunately, in McNeal each scene seems to bring up a new theme and never completely finishes with the previous one. The individual confrontations are fine, but they never coalesce into a unified whole other than to depict the messy life of a famous author which can’t be the author’s sole purpose. Is the message that Artificial Intelligence is dangerous or only in the hands of the wrong people?
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Copyright Jack Quinn, 2001-2023
