Afsoon Pajoufar

The Tragedy of Coriolanus (Theatre for a New Audience)

February 19, 2026

Tata’s staging is also problematic making almost every scene look like every other. The mob scenes have been reduced to five actors (other than the lead characters) which does not suggest any threat whatever. Afsoon Pajoufar’s unit set is an attempt to create a Roman building and then put scaffolding around it to suggest modern renovations. However, using it for almost every scene which is just under three hours becomes monotonous and uninspired. The acting doesn’t help much with each actor seemingly having chosen one single character trait so that all are one-note in this blank-verse drama. Only Roslyn Ruff as Volumnia, the title character’s mother, shows any variety or range. (Volumnia has always been the best role in the play.) [more]

Practice

December 4, 2025

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]

Other

October 23, 2025

Ari’el Stachel in his one-man show “Other” at Greenwich House Theatre (Photo credit: Ogata [more]

Lady M (Heartbeat Opera)

April 22, 2023

Heartbeat Opera seems to have found the way to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of alternative opera companies here in New York. Their way is to inject the standard repertory of grand opera with fresh ways of presenting the rich beloved scores. Enter music director Daniel Schlosberg, a Brooklyn-based composer-pianist who is their ingenious arranger for both Puccini's "Tosca" and Verdi's renamed "Lady M," and conductor and pianist for "Lady M." He arranges "Tosca" for a band of eight, "Lady M" for a band of six. Consider both of these Herculean feats with sumptuous results. [more]