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
Using the premise of a 1964 recording session that stimulates her many memories, good and bad, the play serves as a moving tribute to Holliday even though it doesn’t shy away from the darker side of her life. In truth, it is the contrast between her brilliant professional career and her personal unhappiness that makes Holliday and this play so moving.
[more]
Referencing the 1950 women’s prison drama "Caged" and synthesizing all of the conventions of that cinematic genre, the late playwright Tom Eyen crafted the 1975 camp classic "Women Behind Bars." It’s been hilariously revived at the historic 13th Street Repertory Theatre in a punchy production lovingly directed by Joe John Battista.
[more]
"Ain't Too Proud to Beg," “Get Ready,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “Since I Lost My Baby,” “You're My Everything” and of course “Papa Was a Rollin' Stone” are among the show’s more than 30 numbers. Besides those by The Temptations, there’s a choice selection of songs by their contemporaries such as The Supremes. All of them are rousingly performed by the orchestra and the company under the direction of conductor Kenny Seymour.
[more]
“Did you know that this play is called "Life Sucks"?” says a character in playwright Aaron Posner’s meta-theatrical Life Sucks. It’s a wild yet emotionally resonant work “sort of adapted from Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov.” Characters address the audience directly, they engage in sly wordplay, lollipops are consumed, overlapping dialogue is common and absurdism abounds in this free-form yet faithful treatment.
[more]
While many of the greats have tackled Kate over the years ever since it premiered in 1948, O’Hara brings a subdued charm to the usually more boisterous part of Lilli, even if she is positively beaming when she first arrives on stage. The first was Patricia Morison, and the most recent on Broadway--before O’Hara--was the late Marin Mazzie, who received a Tony Award for the 1999 revival, as did the revival itself. And then there was Kathryn Grayson in the 1953 film version.
[more]
If Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s "Fleabag" sounds familiar, it may be because of the cult television show now in its second season adapted from this one-woman play. Having premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013 and having had three successful London runs, it finally arrives in New York with its author-star in a sold out production at the SoHo Playhouse. Not only is this a riveting, liberated evening in the theater, it marks the local debut of a supremely talented actress and writer.
[more]
A lot has been made of the parallels between the original 1938 production of "I Married an Angel" for which George Balanchine choreographed the dances for his soon-to-be wife, the glamorous Norwegian ballerina Vera Zorina and the New York City Center Encores! production for which its choreographer/director Joshua Bergasse staged the dances for his wife, the New York City Ballet star Sara Mearns. This is great publicity and drew the public, including myself, to this staging of one of Rodgers and Hart’s more charming musicals known mostly through a Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy film. The original choreography is evidenced only via some silent film snippets taken of the original production.
[more]
You can hear a pin drop during Michael McKeever’s "After," an exciting, riveting play about the aftereffects of bullying. During the final scene in Jo Brancato’s production now at 59E59 Theaters, the tension is so thick that no one in the audience seems to be breathing to see how it will play out. Like McKeever’s "Daniel’s Husband," the author wants us to see the events from more than one side but his message is clear by the end: parents make excuses for their children and allow for bullying to go on unchecked. Bad parenting is as bad as bullying children.
[more]
“Everything is copy” was Nora Ephron’s maxim about the potential of all of one’s life experiences to be fashioned into narrative material if one has the cachet to be paid attention to. Actress Maddie Corman sure has a lot of copy as well the affluence and connections to get it out there in "Accidentally Brave," her 90 minute self-written solo show. It’s profanity-laden therapeutic storytelling with high production values succeeding as inspirational entertainment for those with an affinity for her upscale sensibility.
[more]
Jean-Claude van Itallie, one of the key figures in New York’s Off-Off Broadway theater in the 1960’s, takes on Trumpian politics in his new play, "The Fat Lady Sings" (directed by David Schweizer). Clearly, van Itallie still feels at home at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, where he developed some of his most influential early work, including parts of his landmark anti-war trilogy, "America Hurrah." The fire in this playwright’s belly can still radiate heat in the East Village more than a half century after the premiere of his most famous title.
[more]
Produced in New York City by the China Arts and Entertainment Group Ltd., "Princess Zhaojun" was performed by the members of the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater. It was directed seamlessly by Kong Dexin, written with as much subtlety as possible by Yu Ping and brilliantly choreographed by four artists—Tian Ye, Tian Zhuang, Jia Guozhu and Wu Sha—whose collective ability to find emotion even in the movements of large groups of dancers was uncanny.
[more]
A searing epiphany at "The Day I Became Black"’s climax redeems its uneven mixture of confessional and stand-up. The show is written and performed by the engaging biracial young comedian and actor Bill Posley. During 80 cluttered minutes we sketchily learn about his stern though supportive African-American father and Caucasian mother of Kentucky “white trash” origin. The Boston-reared Mr. Posley charts the complexities of his racial background due to his black appearance. Navigating through society, dating women and interacting with the police are concretely explored. That Posley is an Iraq War veteran is mentioned only in passing.
[more]
"Vilna," written by Ira Fuchs, is one of the more successful stage dramas to deal with the Holocaust, a notoriously difficult subject to portray on stage. That this play succeeds as well as it does is to the credit of its director Joseph Discher who assiduously avoids clichés and stereotypes and its cast of fine actors, led by the great Mark Jacoby, a star of Broadway musicals, here displaying heart-breaking depth of emotion in two parts.
[more]
The evening’s vocal guests are exceptionally strong singers, although their talents are not equally evident in a concert format. Silverman probably shines best in a book show, as well as Osnes, although she did demonstrate more spontaneity and connection with the audience. Kilgore brought even more freedom, energy and levity, and Large’s vocal and physical presence was sheer dynamite, and never to the detriment of ensemble moments. The amazing caliber of The New York Pops itself cannot escape mention; its underscoring of each of the singers was exquisite. Their ad hoc dedication to the late Michel Legrand and Andre Previn with a superb “The Summer Knows” (Michel Legrand/Marilyn and Alan Bergman, The Summer of ‘42, 1971) and the second act opener Disney Classics Overture were wonderful moments featuring its amazing musicians.
[more]
Although there is a great deal of talent behind the new musical Superhero at Second Stage Theater, it unfortunately makes little impact. It doesn’t help that the thin book by Tony Award winning playwright John Logan ("Red") is a little too much like the smash hit "Dear Evan Hansen" which goes much deeper with similar material. Pulitzer Prize winning composer Tom Kitt ("Next to Normal") has written his own lyrics for the first time and they mainly tell us what we know in pedestrian rhymes and phrases. Don’t blame the hard-working cast led by Tony Award nominees Kate Baldwin and Bryce Pinkham. You want to like "Superhero "with its heart in the right place but it is missing the wow factor and never takes us by surprise.
[more]
The Camagűey troupe danced Ruiz’s work as if born to his vigorously eclectic style. His choreography is an amalgam of ballet, modern dance, break-dancing, folk dancing and Latin ballroom. He seems to be influenced by the work of Nacho Duato (himself a Jiri Kylian protégé) with his complex, body-interlocking lifts, bent torsos and a step-to-every-note.
[more]
You may leave "Strangers" with mixed reactions. The proceedings onstage may make you feel as disoriented and tetchy as the villagers themselves. The characters’ words as they vainly try to maintain some of their former sanity and decorum seem at times to be pure nonsense. But if you’re diligently sleuth-like—or lucky enough to read and study Sharp’s playscript—you’ll piece together some fairly coherent and rich back stories.
[more]
Huppert, the consummate actress, commands the stage at all times, making all the other performers pale in comparison. As Anne, she travels from familiar to sarcastic to manic to depressed to suicidal. Initially her heavily French accented English and her staccato rhythms are difficult to follow, but eventually it becomes accessible, even appropriate to this very French play. While the role does not require much action, Huppert has found all sorts of ways of building her character: stretching out on the sofa as if sleeping, playing with a cigarette, dancing with her son in manic fashion, examining herself in a mirror. Anita Yavich’s chic costumes fit her to perfection: the severe grey turtleneck and black shirt that we first see her in, and later the short red party dress with black stockings that looks like it might be a throwback to her youth.
[more]
Brunstetter overloads the issue in the play by making Jen have doubts about being in love with a woman against her parents’ religious teachings, even though she cannot imagine life without the caring, compassionate, uninhibited Macy. Additionally, when Della quotes the Bible to Macy, Macy retaliates by pointing out that as a childless woman Della has not fulfilled her religious duty as a wife. The plot then goes in another direction to show us Della and her husband Tim who has lost interest in sex since he discovered he had too low a sperm count. The play builds to Jen revealing her real childhood feelings to Macy, as well as Della demanding that after years of estrangement Tim make passionate love to her as he did at the beginning of their marriage. Ultimately, Brunstetter wants to have it both ways with an ending that does not resolve the religious question at all.
[more]
It’s billed as “Two Ways” because this event is comprised of differing versions performed in repertory. There is the self-explanatory “Conventional Casting” and the “Reversed Casting” where the same superb ensemble plays a different role of the opposite gender in the identical previous performer’s costume. Each incarnation is a frothy delight faithfully affirming Wilde’s insightful wit and supreme dramatic construction through theatrical magnificence.
[more]
Chisa Hutchinson’s "Surely Goodness and Mercy" has its heart in the right place but as produced by Keen Company at the Clurman Theatre it is not a play at all but an after school movie script. We know we are in trouble when we see seven sets side by side on stage on three levels when we first enter the theater. Jessi D. Hill has directed her adept cast to believable characterizations but the script is so short at 73 minutes (plus a totally unnecessary intermission) and the 30 scenes so brief (some no more than four exchanges) that we never learn enough about them. It is as though the whole story has been told in a kind of shorthand and we are expected to fill in the dots.
[more]
"A Jewish Joke" brings immediacy to not only the personal and professional effects of the Hollywood blacklist, but to the current onslaught of internet finger-pointing and fear-mongering that can, and does, ruin lives even more quickly than in the slow-moving fifties. Watching Bernie squirm and sweat over issues not of his own making, but issues that will take him down, is made only slightly more palatable by his self-deprecating humor.
[more]
There’s stinging dialogue, solid construction and high powers of observation that accurately render the fractious literary milieu with Imran’s offstage agent a major figure. These all enable Ms. Mirza to spin out her enticing scenario over eight scenes in 90 often charged minutes, spanning several months. The characters are impeccably detailed and behave so realistically, causing the possible dynamic for the viewer of siding with one over the other.
[more]
Jeremy O. Harris’ “Daddy” is the work of a unique voice, a little self-indulgent in its length, and a little underwritten in its characterizations. It attempts to shock with its use of nudity and sadomasochistic sex, but nothing we have not seen before. The play’s message is not entirely clear but the play is provocative nevertheless. It is a work for the mature playgoer who wants to see a new direction that our theater is heading.
[more]
Let’s talk about the talent: Gallogly and Smith are, in a word, fantastic in "Fiercely Independent." They listen to each other intently, their responses are spontaneous and natural, and their chemistry is evident. Even when they’re not speaking, their inner dialogues are continuous and their intents are crystal clear. Gallogly and Smith are by turns playfully fun and painfully electric.
[more]
The production of "Boesman and Lena" at The Pershing Square Signature Center directed with attention to every detail by Yaël Farber is stark and unforgiving in a way that would have been shocking in 1970. Even though apartheid has been lifted, this play still resonates with its bleak display of human survival in the face of unimaginable terrors and its condemnation of racial inequity.
[more]
Suzy Conn’s zesty score is a fusion of her peppy music and well-crafted lyrics. “Quandary” is rhymed with “laundry” and among the 14 bright songs there’s a comical ode to Meryl Streep. Ms. Conn’s upbeat book is an orderly framework charting the everyday predicaments of her plucky stock characters. “I think that the Botox went to your brain!” “What’s next? An evening of Chardonnay and shingles?” are representative of the dialogue’s good-natured wit. The scenario manages to just about sustain its 80 minute length. Conn strives for and achieves a feel-good tone for this escapist escapade.
[more]
Dynamically presented and sensationally performed, "If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka" is playwright Tori Sampson's maddeningly overblown adaptation of a fable with music. A surfeit of extraneous devices and a heavy-handed agenda overwhelm and drag out a tender and potentially resonant tale. There’s repetitive jokiness, a lumbering ghostly gospel sequence and an anti-climactic pretentious finale. Amidst the frustrating tangents are bright spots during a straight through nearly two hour
[more]
In between scenes, the play’s lighting (by Paul Miller) and sound (by M.L. Dogg) conspire to create a hallucinogenic, disorienting slideshow of animals and rotting metropolises — a reminder of the massively dysfunctional world in which the characters of "Actually, We’re F**ked" are potentially raising children. Mind you, the question of whether or not to raise a child in 2019, along with lengthy discussions about genitalia, is essential to this play. And the answer to that question, according to "Actually, We’re F**ked," is much more lovely and hopeful than you might expect. So go see this show if you want a road map for emotionally processing the very f**ked America we live in right now — or very detailed and accurate instructions on how to break into a company server. That is something that appears in this play as well to quite amusing effect.
[more]
Both plays deal with young husbands who are coping with new fatherhood as well as their new responsibilities and their relationships with the dominant male figures in their lives. In Stephens’ "Sea Wall," Sturridge speaks admiringly of his father-in-law, while in Payne’s "A Life," Gyllenhaal speaks with love of his own father. Both men are madly in love with their wives who they could not consider living without. These plays are ultimately tragedies of the accidental kind, events that one has no control over and cannot see coming. The double bill is performed on a basically empty stage with a brick wall behind (designed by Laura Jellinek), on which Peter Kaczorowski’s poetic and atmospheric lighting is a kind of additional onstage character. Carrie Cracknell's assured direction pilots both plays.
[more]
Unlike the company’s 2016 luxuriously staged "Les Fêtes Vénitiennes," also at the Gilman, "Rameau" was purposely staged by Sophie Daneman as if in a village square, simply but effectively, the “effects” improvised as only peasants would: entrances to temples and heaven were curtains stretched between two poles; Jupiter appeared in a high stage box as an improvised Mount Olympus; a dancer as a god glided bare-chested undetected amongst the celebrating peasantry. According to the program, this type of performance is called “théâtre de la foire” (theater of the fair).
[more]
Employing his rumbling deep voice, his thinning hair slicked back and veering from snarling cheeriness to reflective introspection, Jeremiah Kissel swaggering in a power suit gleefully gives us the ballsy Madoff we desire. Tossing off expertly pronounced Yiddishisms in his rants, Mr. Kissel fully embodies the archetypal striving lusty Jewish kid from Queens who worked the angles and became a macher. Kissel attacks the role with outsize relish as if it were Roy Cohn in "Angels in America."
[more]
Some plays are simply too complicated for their own good, defying comprehension. This is certainly the case with Madeleine George’s "Hurricane Diane," in which the God Dionysus or Bacchus, famously incorporating both male and female characteristics--he went by many names--returns to earth--as a woman--at the present time, in Monmouth County no less, to haunt a bevy of what can best be summarized as “New Jersey Housewives.”
[more]
«
1
…
49
50
51
52
53
…
114
»
Copyright Jack Quinn, 2001-2023
