With a three-hour running time (the first act runs two hours straight without an intermission) the play is too long for its repetitiousness having the actors go over the same theater games and monologues over and over again. Of course, the play becomes an endurance test for the actors as well as viewers, whether it was intended to or not. Actors who have undergone this kind of training may be amused; those of us who have not may be bored or lose interest. Although the actors who make up the ten-member cast of "Practice" play very different personalities, we see so little of them individually that it is hard to keep them separate and they become a big blur. [more]
Harlem Holidays features Renée Elise Goldsberry in an intimate CTH celebration of music, storytelling, and community-driven artistry on Dec 15, 2025 [more]
In its final form, the piece stands as both elegy and proclamation: a testament to a heritage reclaimed, and to the fierce, necessary act of making contact—full, unguarded, and profoundly human—with oneself. Estrada exists here in a purgatorial tension, suspended between the gravitational pull of guilt and the stark instinct toward survival. The play chronicles not simply his attempt to move forward but the Herculean labor of taking even the first tremulous step toward healing—an act rendered as perilous as any physical combat he has ever undertaken. At times it seems his own mind, a treacherous and labyrinthine opponent, threatens to drag him beneath its tide. And yet, in the fragile space between collapse and catharsis, the work finds its most haunting register: a portrait of a man grappling to reclaim his narrative before the darkness that shaped him claims him once more. [more]
Unlike J.T. Rogers’ Tony Award-winning "Oslo" which handled similar material about the secret Oslo Peace Accord conference, "Kyoto" by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson makes little concession to its audience giving almost too much information and depicting too many characters, while being patently undramatic much of the time. However, the topic is so explosive that it carries its audience through its 11 conferences. (One hardly notices Natalie Pryce’s costumes so closely does one have to listen to follow the flow of the arguments.) One does come away with the knowledge these sorts of conferences are almost futile with each nation having its own agenda and limits to how far it will go even at the expense of other nations. It is almost remarkable that the Kyoto conference reached any consensus at all. The question now is how much of that was actually enforced by the signatories to the protocol. [more]
If you know the play, you many have trouble following it as several actors double: Ron Canada plays both John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (Richard’s uncle and Henry Bolingbroke’s father) and later the Bishop of Carlisle. Daniel Stewart Sherman doubles as both Sir Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfork and later as courtier Sir Stephen Scroop. Ryan Spahn is seen as Richard’s favorite Bagot, a Welsh Captain, and as a companion to the Queen. The ending has been changed as there is no Sir Piers Exton: another character comes to murder Richard in his cell, giving a different import to the scene. As there is no Duke and Duchess of York, the Duchess’ defense of her traitorous son after Bolingbroke becomes King Henry IV is given to the Queen instead. [more]
In Neil Pepe’s stark revival of Rajiv Joseph’s "Gruesome Playground Injuries," Nicholas Braun and Kara Young trace three decades of bruised connection. Childhood scars, teenage volatility, and a late-night reckoning unfold in jagged time jumps that reveal how two people can orbit each other without ever landing in the same emotional place. [more]
Strong’s book belies his name, its overlong (two hours, 40 minute) narrative, with all its scheming realpolitik, being more formulaic than authentic. Its points about the individual vs. the state, personal ambition vs. national loyalty, truth vs. propaganda, the pressures of celebrity, and so on, are clear, but Chess is too addicted to larger-than-life histrionics to make us more than cerebrally grateful or deeply invested in the choices the characters must face. [more]
By the time the play reaches its understated yet piercing climax, the question is no longer whether ChiChi and Theodore are “right” for one another—though that question lingers—but rather what it means for any of us to seek connection in a world where desire is both compass and mirage. "HardLove" distills the fragile thrill of two strangers attempting to divine each other’s contours—emotional, physical, moral—and uses that single night’s encounter as a prism through which larger anxieties of belonging, expectation, and becoming refract. In the end, this bold, darkly funny, and unexpectedly tender work stands as a testament to the theater’s capacity to anatomize intimacy without anesthetizing it: a funny, poignant hour that leaves its audience pondering not only these two characters but the mysterious machinery of desire itself. [more]
With its big, if economical, imagination, "Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)" also seemingly contains a metropolis of non-digital humanity, thanks, in particular, to Tony Gayle's robust and amusingly familiar sound design ("stand clear of the closing doors, please"). But Robin and Dougal are the only people ever actually present onstage, which is enough. As they repeatedly scale the twin mounds of literal baggage on Soutra Gilmour's circular treadmill of a set--rotating away from and towards each other--the metaphoric intent is obvious. Still, it's the promptly endearing Pitts and Tutty who must translate that visual meaning into a palpable bond, so that the audience cares deeply when it is eventually threatened by both past and future complications. [more]
"Saturday Night Live" has made political satire look easy and has a lot to answer for. "44 – The Musical" written, composed and directed by Eli Bauman, who worked on the Obama campaign in Las Vegas in 2008, has created this slight parody of the 44th president’s first term. While the show is slickly produced, the writing is lazy using vulgar language – the f-word is sprinkled generously throughout the dialogue and repeated in its songs whose names are not spelled out in the program – and the satire only takes on the most clichéd items. As none of the talented cast looks or sounds like the real people they are playing, we need to keep reminding ourselves who they are. [more]
George Bernard Shaw — A salon-style evening at the American Irish Historical Society brought artists and educators together as David Staller led a candid, contemporary look at Shaw’s ideas in 2025. [more]
At Winter Rhythms, the lights warm, the lobby hums, and Sue Matsuki runs Urban Stages with the grace of a mentor and the stamina of a producer who loves every beat of the work. More than 150 artists gather for 11 nights of music, community, cookies, and the unmistakable generosity that defines this festival. [more]
Reunited with Chenoweth for the first time since "Wicked," Schwartz once again benefits tremendously from a genuine member of Broadway royalty who, roughly two decades ago, as the original Glinda, turned a bunch of prosaic songs into popular ones (critic takes ostentatious bow). While the score for "The Queen of Versailles" will not survive in our collective memory (please, no!), Chenoweth, as always, gives it her considerable best, particularly when showing off her coloratura soprano to Marie Antoinette (Cassondra James). That would be worth a severely reduced price of admission, if not for the frustrating inconsistencies of Schwartz's lyrics and Lindsey Ferrentino's book, which eventually turn unconscionable. [more]
Step inside the wild, razor-sharp world of VAPE! The Grease Parody, where creators Billy Recce and Danny Salles reveal how parody becomes true theatre — from the chaotic genius of “Green Lightning” to the meta-heart of “Look at Me in Agony.” A smart, funny, and surprisingly honest look at Off-Broadway’s boldest new spoof. [more]
However, like its characters in their narrow world, the play itself—which premiered last year at Chicago’s dynamic Steppenwolf Theatre—seems small and isolated on a Broadway stage, even at the relatively intimate Booth. Despite a typically sterling performance by Laurie Metcalf, whose presence in a part that fits her like a glove is the principal reason to make a visit worthwhile, Hunter’s dramatic tropes seem too familiar to generate the kind of breakthrough excitement warranted by the price of a Broadway ticket. [more]
"Reunion"'s lyricist Scharf and Composer Calire explore how two forgotten one-acts became a musical about second chances, memory, and the courage to reconnect. [more]
In their latest, Shaw’s ever-popular "Pygmalion," Staller has staged Shaw’s never-used prologue created for the 1938 film version which has the gods and goddesses on Mt. Olympus recount to the modern audience the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea which inspired Shaw’s Edwardian comedy. The set by Lindsay G. Fuori creates an Al Hirschfeld-inspired Greek temple used for all of the play’s five scenes. Four of the actors dressed in white Grecian robes (courtesy of designer Tracy Christensen) greet us and tell us the myth that we will see in Shaw’s updated 20th century comedy in which the sculptor becomes a professor of language and linguistics and the statue becomes a flower girl who wants to improve her speech well enough to get a job in a flower shop. However, Staller does not stop there but has created narrative introductions for each act which is rather intrusive though it may help some first-time viewers to understand the play. (Is there any theatergoer who has not seen the play’s musical version My Fair Lady on stage or screen?) [more]
"Reunions" is a charming new Edwardian musical made up of two classic one- act plays: James M. Barrie’s 1910 “The Twelve-Pound Look” and the Quintero Brothers’ 1901 “A Sunny Morning.” Using an ensemble of six main actors who rotate roles, these two one-act musicals have the same theme: former lovers meet years later by an accident that changes their lives. However, the Barrie play deals with a middle-aged couple in a London mansion while the Quintero play brings together two septuagenarians in a Madrid park. Beautifully directed by Gabriel Barre, this is an elegant evening worthy of its Edwardian ancestry. [more]
"The Yellow Wallpaper" is an enthralling new stage adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story of the same name. Gilman’s original narrative is written as a series of diary entries by a woman who’s been confined to the upstairs room of a rented mansion by her husband, who is also her doctor. He prescribes her bed rest and little else, leading her to slowly losing her mind due to the stifling restrictions she is forced to exist under. Actress/choreographer Susannah Millonzi (Beldam's "Fall River Fishing," "Hedda Gabler," "The Crucible") and director Caitlin Morley ("Macbeth," "Twelfth Night") adapted the story together, taking a very direct approach. The diary entries become a series of monologues to be read by the nameless protagonist, the play’s only character. At the same time, the creative production and clever blocking adds significant depth to the narrative, introducing new ideas and exploring them wonderfully. [more]
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Martyna Majok, who has specialized in plays about the immigrant experience like Ironbound and Sanctuary City, has revised her play Queens first seen at the Claire Tow Theater at LCT3 in 2018. The new version now at Manhattan Theatre Club Stage I at New York City Center still with an all-female cast has three fewer characters and is now in two acts instead of three. However, the play, though still powerful and authentic, continues to be confusing as it goes back and forth between scenes in the borough of Queens in 2017, 2001 and 2011, and with two middle scenes set in the Ukraine in 2016. Mostly taking place in the same basement apartment in New York, at one point women from both 2001 and 2017 are on stage simultaneously. It is all a little bit difficult to keep the chronology straight. [more]
Billy Recce and Danny Salles' lyrics are the secret engine of "Vape!"—clever, campy, and unexpectedly pointed. They skewers performative purity, influencer culture, and the desperate nostalgia of Gen Z’s retro revival, all while composing hooks catchy enough to survive outside satire. Under Jack Plotnick’s razor-sharp direction, "Vape!" turns vintage pink into neon green, and proves that a good parody doesn’t mock its source—it reinvents it. [more]
Mark Leiren-Young’s timely one-man show, "Playing Shylock" (formerly called simply "Shylock"), has arrived in New York after its premiere run in Toronto in its new version rewritten around the life and career of veteran film actor Saul Rubinek ("The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," "Unforgiven," "Frasier") playing himself. Returning to the stage for the first time since 1990, Rubinek plays an actor performing Shylock in a (fictional) production of Shakespeare’s "The Merchant of Venice" which is shut down by protestors claiming that the play is anti-Semitic and the theater company has caved in to their demands. While the play is fascinating and provocative, it also has some flawed passages but Rubinek is commanding at all times. [more]
While Broadway was once filled with plays like this a generation or two ago, "Art of Leaving" now seems very dated. It would have been more believable set back in an earlier decade. Matt Gehring’s direction emphasizes the sit-com nature of the play which is a mistake as it makes the proceedings seem all that much more shallow. Both Aaron and Diana are very thinly written so we learn little about their 25 year marriage except that Diana has lived her life to please her unhappy and demanding husband. Jordan Lage’s Aaron is a total egoist who is lacking in sympathy, while Audrey Heffernan Meyer’s Diana seems unbelievably naïve as to what is available to women today. [more]
There’s no denying that when 'The Pitch" stays in the office, it’s alive—taut, funny, and honest. Alper clearly knows this world; he writes its jargon and swagger with precision. But each time the play strays from the phones and the whiteboard, it forgets its own best pitch. As a showcase for a terrific ensemble and Keller’s crisp direction, it’s worth the listen. Yet, like a salesman who can’t stop talking after he’s closed the deal, The Pitch doesn’t know when to hang up. When it stays on the phone, it’s riveting; when it hangs up, we’re stuck on hold. [more]
To describe "Oratorio" is to flirt with the inadequacy of language. It is a musical work—a sung-through piece in the formal lineage of the oratorio, that 17th-century form that eschews staging and dialogue in favor of spiritual rumination through voice. Think Handel’s "Messiah," and then think again—"Oratorio for Living Things" shares the same bones, but not the flesh. Christian, ever the aural alchemist, reclaims and “rewilds” the form, unbinding it from its ecclesiastical constraints and infusing it with a heady blend of the sacred, the scientific, and the speculative. [more]
