Hunter Canning was born in Monte Nido, California. He studied photography at Santa Monica City College before moving to New York in 2005 and attained his BFA in Acting at SUNY Purchase. His surrealist photo-composite “landscapes” were featured in the exhibition PERMUTATIONS at EyeHeart Gallery in Chelsea alongside photographer Brett Lindell in October of 2014. Concurrently The Sheen Center presented a solo exhibition of his “Subway Series”, an originally web-based project which has attracted thousands of followers. Canning has extensively photographed for New York theater companies. He is the official photographer for The Flea Theater, and has worked with several other organizations including The Wild Project, Joe’s Pub and The Bushwick Starr. His images have been featured in The New York Times, TimeOut New York and Backstage Magazine.
While the ensemble is solid in their portrayals of the characters, the play lacks a clear dramatic line regarding the main point of the story. Bossert's portrayal of Disney and his emotional struggles appears to provide the scaffolding for a story that, in reality, is about Lillian Disney and her influence on the decisions that will ultimately be attributed to Walt. Her careful guidance of Walt's presentation style ultimately enabled him to speak in public with greater confidence and engage more effectively with his audience. Her conversations and skillful guidance of Mary Blair's view of herself as an artist, independent of her husband, led to Mary's increased confidence in herself and ultimately to Walt's recognition of her talent. [more]
The play is a nicely developing mystery fantasy story about the paranormal, but when the teenage boy is revealed as the Spirit Child, the show goes off track. The idea presented is that the Spirit Child is the child who would have been born except for the miscarriage. This idea is a stretch in believability for the dramatic structure of the show. It introduces the idea that a consciousness once attached to a developing embryo continues to be attached to the woman who was carrying that embryo even after the tissue has been expelled through a miscarriage. It turns on its head the whole idea of developmental psychology. How is it possible for the miscarried tissue that was not even old enough to definitively determine sex to become a spirit that ages as if it had been born? [more]
"Night Sings Its Songs" by Norwegian author Jon Fosse (pronounced FAH-suh), the 2023 Nobel Prize-winning playwright, explores alienation and emotional disconnection by a couple in a dysfunctional marital relationship. Fosse's works are often compared to those of Henrik Ibsen and Harold Pinter. His minimalist style fits into the Norwegian existential and psychological drama tradition. Fosse is one of the most performed contemporary playwrights globally, but he is not well-known in the United States. The play, directed by Jerry Heymann from a translation by Sarah Cameron Sunde, never engages the audience in caring about the characters' emotional struggles. There is a feeling of "so what” or “why should I care” rather than one of concern or empathic understanding. [more]
The title of Michael Aguirre’s "The Greatest Hits Down Route 66," the story of the Franco family’s road trip during the summer of 1999, refers to Carl Sandburg’s 1927 "The American Songbag,' a best-selling collection of early folksongs. Aguirre tells us that “the goal is to use music as a memory, an imprint, incidental. It should carry emotional weight but don’t depend on it to move the plot forward.” And that is the problem with the show: the songs are extraneous to the plot and have little impact as most of the 13 songs sung are so familiar, in the musical arrangements of Grace Yukich and Jennifer C. Dauphinais. There are no surprises in the music played by a three piece band and a lead vocalist, Hannah-Kathryn “HK” Wall. Occasionally, the narrator played by Joél Acosta joins in or sings a song himself. [more]
"The Lights Are On," written by Owen Panettieri and directed by Sarah Norris, is a psychodrama that plays with two ideas: are we really who we think we are, and what are the reasons we do what we do? It explores the light and dark of personal psychology, our perceptions of those around us, the events that shaped those people, and ultimately, ourselves. Panettieri’s script and Norris' actualization result in a solid theater piece. It is a well-conceived and solidly acted play whose every minute is worth experiencing. [more]
In what might just be the best stage role of her career, Jackie Hoffman plays the multi-faceted Ariana in E. Dale Smith’s "Fruma-Sarah (Waiting in the Wings)" at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre in Chelsea. Sitting in place, attached to a hefty rope, she takes the audience and her co-star, Kelly Kinsella as Margo Peterson, “substitute fly captain,” on a journey of a life not well, but interestingly, lived. [more]
“Producing theatrical works that feature compelling stories created by emerging theater artists” is from the New Light Theater Project’s self-description. Their vastly and thoughtfully entertaining presentation, "Brecht: Call and Respond (an evening of three one-acts)" achieves that aim. Bertolt Brecht may not be an emerging theater artist, but the other two playwrights certainly are. [more]
Stephen Brown’s "Everything Is Super Great" is a small, unpretentious play about an American family in crisis. That is not a novel theme, of course, but "Everything" rises gracefully to the occasion. Brown demonstrates his considerable skill for creating characters you can latch onto and root for. Director Sarah Norris—along with a gifted quartet of actors—has gently and thoughtfully taken Brown’s story up a notch, finding colors that may not have been evident on the page but that augment the script nicely. The resulting production is a lovely thing to behold. [more]
Halfway through the abstract hijinks there are fleeting references to terrorists, getting in trouble for bringing a little knife on an airplane and vague political debates as the tone grows more serious. Devotees of Mr. Wellman’s idiosyncratic style may be enchanted while anyone else could be baffled. Brevity, playfulness and presentational polish are its virtues. [more]
The perennial tale of a noble servant exploited by a self-absorbed upper class family is given a bewildering and tedious treatment by playwright Amina Henry in "The Great Novel." It’s an enervating 95 minute mashup of lesser Ionesco with helpings of Wes Anderson and the visual style of John Singer Sargent. [more]
There are many dimensions to Ray Yamanouchi’s "The American Tradition," directed by Axel Avin, Jr. for the New Light Theater Project. On one level, it’s an adventure story about a daring attempt to escape from American slavery. Eleanor (Sydney Cole Alexander) and Bill (Martin K. Lewis) are an enslaved married couple in the antebellum South. When they learn that he is about to be sold and separated from her, they seek a way to escape to the North. Eleanor proposes a wild scheme: A relatively light-skinned woman, she will disguise herself as Evander, a white male slaver. And Bill will pretend to be Evander’s slave and traveling companion. [more]
This setting and premise alone might suggest quite a dull evening of theater, except for the fact that from the moment these actresses converge on the stage, the subtle energies of their characters begin to intertwine and negotiate for space and position, piquing the interest of the audience. [more]
Do you have any objection to being touched?” asks the theater representative of audience members when they check in at the Brooklyn basement where British playwright Dan Ireland-Reeves’ "Bleach" is performed. That question is crucial as one attendee is called upon to silently portray a flashback character who has slight physical contact with the actor, and another gets a brief grinding lap dance. Those who state a negative preference are left alone. [more]
"Life X 3" was first seen in 2003 at the Circle in the Square. This revival is tauter and funnier. Perhaps this smaller venue refracts the play in a different way, but these four actors are more convincingly real, not to mention greater pains in the butt. As the title implies, they get three chances to reveal—and revel in—their egos and idiosyncrasies, each succeeding part bringing out both nuances and bombshells. [more]
“Hip hop gave me my name” says Peep One, a captivating young mixed race woman who is a beat maker; the one who crafts the tune for a hip hop song. This is one of numerous pertinent details imparted in playwright Idris Goodwin’s exhilarating drama "Hype Man: a break beat play." Mr. Goodwin’s vision is theatrical, his dialogue is sharp, and he crafts a clenching scenario. The title refers to the backup rapper who supports the star rapper by chiming in with his own declarations and stirring up the audience. [more]
Christopher Plummer’s guest appearance on a 1987 episode of "The Cosby Show" giving a Shakespearean mini-recital in the Huxtable living room had a profound effect on writer and performer Orlando Pabotoy. That clip is a highlight of Mr. Pabotoy’s marvelous solo show, "Sesar" that recounts his relationship with his heroic father. Opening with a furious recreation of a storm and closing with an enchanting visual surprise, it’s 65 theatrical and emotionally resonant minutes taking place in the family bathroom [more]
Though its title couldn’t be clearer or more transparent, "Hitler’s Tasters" proves anything but that, as it merges the past, when Hitler was still alive, with the present, when fresh autocrats are popping up all over the world, including in our neck of the woods. [more]
Unfortunately, Worsham’s efforts just confirm the play’s central problem: only the relationship between June and Charlie has any real depth. As for the rest of the characters, although McMullen’s writing is clever, too many of the lines are focused on eliciting laughs rather than explaining why these people are choosing to shelter together. It doesn’t help matters that the play’s lighting by Cheyenne Sykes and sound design by Daniel Melnick are wholly devoted to overdramatizing Charlie’s Asperger’s while failing to offer much-needed periodic reminders of the torrential plot device that keeps everyone from fleeing the cramped apartment. [more]
This production is presented by The Flea and the cast is drawn from their resident acting company, The Bats. Exhibiting heartbreaking resilience Alana Raquel Bowers as Aisha dominates the play. The captivating Tanyamaria is very funny yet conveys Adriana’s melancholy. With his lithe physique, sunniness and serene presence Michael Oloyede’s performance as Calvin is commanding. Roland Lane’s charisma and animation enrich his portrayal of the difficult role of Jean-Baptiste. [more]
Though there are recurring references to Woody Allen and more specifically to "Annie Hall" during the 90-minute piece, "Less Than 50%" bears as much resemblance to that Oscar-winning film as Gianmarco does to a matinee idol. (According to Gianmarco, his play is not a “rip-off” of "Annie Hall," as Laura says it is, but an “homage.”) It’s telling that instead of the hysterical scene with lobsters in the kitchen in "Annie Hall," we have to contend with a mouse and a mousetrap in "Less than 50%." [more]
Although the advance publicity for Ben Josephson’s "The Property" refers to it as a comedy, there is nothing funny about it, neither jokes nor comic situations. In fact, the heroine’s desperate need for security ends up destroying five people. The themes are relevant in an era when people are downsized after many years of work and have trouble paying their mortgages but the stilted artificial dialogue and the melodramatic events damage the serious issues at stake. While veteran director Robert Kalfin has staged the play as though it were a drawing room comedy, its content presupposed that it is a tragedy on the lines of such better plays as George Kelley’s Pulitzer Prize winning "Craig’s Wife" and William Inge’s "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs." [more]
Christopher McLinden as David and Patrick J. Ssenjovu as God’s Blessing are both personable but the material inspires their overwrought characterizations to be overwrought. Musician Farai Malianga and vocalist Sifiso Mabena are in the background smoothly providing aural atmosphere. [more]
Bit and Otto recall tomboy Frankie Addams and Berenice the maid from Carson McCullers’ "The Member of the Wedding" while Pigman and Missy parallel Pozzo and Lucky from Samuel Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot." There’s an arctic sequence out of Tony Kushner’s "Angels in America." The dialogue contains a lot of contemporary academic jargon and it all could be interpreted as some sort of Millennial exploration. [more]
Baker’s lines are spiky and colorful, often dark, sometimes banal, but his portrait of these two and the two lesser characters is always illuminating and full of real emotion. The fade-out, a quiet revelatory moment, is simply lovely—and sad. [more]
All the good jokes get lost in the onslaught of cast members vying for their moments and looking for the audience’s approval, which admittedly was offered freely. "Bitches" becomes chaotic, crude and in your face, not to mention clichéd, the clichés hiding behind dirty jokes and blatant shtick. Raine clearly can’t rein in the cast’s enthusiasm even though they are portraying animals with animal passions. [more]
Produced as part of the Flea’s Season of Women, Del Rosso’s freshman effort shows great promise. Under Marina McClure’s insightfully freewheeling direction the members of The Flea’s resident acting troupe, The Bats, takes the play and exuberantly runs with it with their usual unabashed energy and courage to expose themselves—right down to their underwear! [more]
The problem is that under Albert Bonilla’s stolid and matter-of-fact direction, Elizabeth Ingham and Zack Calhoon's characters never come alive. Just trading quips is not a sophisticated style and as all of their lines are said the same way without variety, it becomes tiresome quite soon. While Donze continually surprises us as Beth, Melissa and Dave remain the same throughout. And the production design doesn’t help much. While the couple discusses what good taste Melissa has in buying Dave’s shirt, Viviane Galloway’s costumes are extremely conservative and colorless, no proof of any special taste whatever. [more]
The new story concerns Wayne Hopkins, an American boy whose parents die tragically and his Uncle Dave informs him that he is a wizard and must attend a special school in England. Wayne is sorted into The Puffs which he discovers is the house for the losers, rejects and nerds who never win at anything. His one goal is to be a hero at something – eventually – while getting through magic school. There he meets the dashing older student Cedric (Andy Miller) several years ahead, as well as another American, the nerdy math prodigy Oliver Rivers (Langston Belton) who can’t seem to succeed at magic, and Megan Jones (Julie Ann Earls), who wears Goth make-up, all black clothing and resents being there. Megan is particularly angry because her mother is a prisoner and in thrall to the Dark Lord. [more]
In terms of the atmospherically detailed writing and Mr. Moad’s enjoyably intense performance that recalls a Sam Shepard hero, “Quittin’ Meth” is the most powerful of the program and its concluding play. It’s a poetically expressed evening’s odyssey of a 27 year-old Iraq War veteran who has returned to his Illinois hometown in 2007. Set in a rundown bar in this depressed steel mill neighborhood, we follow his memories of the war that contrast with his present observations and glimpses of the pitiful bar denizens . He encounters a war buddy who lost a leg and has descended into drug addiction. [more]
There are plentiful comic one-liners and also sharp observations in Mr. Giles’ well-crafted dialogue. Giles perfectly renders all four characters with personality details and traits. The tensions, concerns and sensibilities of the long-term gay couple all ring true, but interspersing these with the mildly entertaining hamster story feels like a strategic theatrical device that undercuts the main plot to no great effect. [more]
Performed by The Bats, the resident company of The Flea Theater, the world premiere of "Inanimate" is the inaugural production in their new home on Thomas Street, between Church and Broadway, several blocks south of their original premises. Performed in The Siggy, named after founder and patron Sigourney Weaver, a house with 46 permanent seats, it is the first of the three new theaters to open prior to the complex’s grand opening on September 28. It has been given a sharp, assured staging by director Courtney Ulrich with engrossing performances by its cast of seven. [more]
As in one of Alan Bennett’s "Talking Heads" monologues, Stapleton offers a richly detailed portrait of an ordinary person that revels in the mundane. She also adds the arresting device of having the inner life of the cow depicted in fantasy sequences. [more]
Told mainly in reenacted flashbacks, In a Word plays multiple language games. It also proves the limits of language. Can you really describe exactly what happens at any given moment? And if you misunderstand a word or take it to mean something else the whole meaning changes. After two years, Guy wants to know what Fiona didn’t tell him on the day Tristan disappeared. Fiona brings evidence to the detective but fails to be exact in her suspicions. Tristan misunderstands things he is not meant to hear and proceeds on his own explanations. [more]
An import from the United Kingdom, as part of the 2017 Brits Off Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters, Jon Brittain’s "Rotterdam" is not based on a true story relating to events in the eponymous Dutch city. It rather focuses on a British lesbian couple, one of whom decides at the beginning of the play that she’s really a man and really wants to become transgender. The crux of the drama is between Alice and her lover Fiona, who, in the course of the play, becomes Adrian. But why the two of them moved to Rotterdam seven years ago, is never really answered in the play--rather posed as a recurring question--along with the question of whether or not they’re going to remain there. [more]
This volatile quartet battle over the personal and the political during a Scotch-fueled weekend at Ira’s Fire Island house. There’s not much in the way of plot, but secrets are revealed, scores are settled and life goes on with new insights. It’s reminiscent of a Terrence McNally play but lacking in polish. [more]
A major flaw is Peer Gynt. Personable, co-composer Park plays the title role. When we first see him, he’s wearing a hipster wool cap, plaid shirt and eyeglasses. Possessed of a good singing voice, his acting ranges from pleasantly monotonous to ineptly excessive. He strains to be charismatic especially in his dance moves and doesn’t succeed. Park’s performance has stamina but lacks grandeur to carry the leading role of this full-length musical. [more]
Essentially it’s a glorified and arch 90-minute, scripted, sketch comedy show. The conceit is that it’s inspired by audience suggestions. The composition of the program changes from performance to performance. Throughout the show, slides are projected of printed extracts from online surveys of people’s theatrical preferences with the dates that they responded. These have been collected over a period of many months. The cast then performs a scene based on these answers. [more]
Besides achieving sensitive and strong performances from the cast, director David Drake masterfully fulfills the playwright’s intentions with his lively and brisk staging. The collaborative group UnkleDave's Fight-House’s fight direction is thrillingly realistic for several physical conflicts. [more]
These are among the choice zingers in playwright Anne Adams’ emotionally raw, earthy and often very funny contemporary dysfunctional Texas-set, family drama, "Strange Country." This entertaining piece of Americana has the humanity of Lanford Wilson, the quirkiness of Beth Henley and the unruliness of Sam Shepard. [more]
As Hungary took a turn to the extreme right in recent years, anti-Semitism and xenophobia not only raised their heads, but became de facto pillars of the new government. The Place We Built delves into the personal plight of an ad hoc blending of often contentious, mostly loving twenty-somethings who inadvertently wind up building and creating a meeting place of like minds in the old Jewish Ghetto and thereby defying and antagonizing the powers-that-be. [more]
Directed by the author, "Wolf in the River" is an environmental production as the audience is invited to sit in folding chairs around a mound of earth with forlorn flowers, garbage and debris. However, there are set pieces and props located in the four corners of the venue as well. When the play begins, a man sitting in the audience gets up, strips off his shirt and shoes, and becomes the play’s narrator and master of ceremonies, as well as one of the characters. In an unnamed Southern American location, we are on the banks of a river (the audience is the river) filled with alligators. Six actors in pasty make-up wander around the outer perimeter of the room. Although the program does not explain their presence, the script reveals that they are the ghosts of those who have perished in the river. [more]
"Connected" is a series of short plays, each tackling our always-connected culture from a different angle. The first of four stories is about Meghan, a high schooler with a crush on one of the most popular guys in school. Midori Francis, the charming actress playing Meghan, decides to ask her crush to the prom and, after her theatrical prom proposal gets caught on camera and uploaded to YouTube, Francis’s timid teen reaches web celeb status, with her video collecting one million views in 24 hours. This story has a lot to say about what it means to be popular, and the juxtaposition of a down-to-earth girl rising to celebrity status opens the door to a thought-provoking conversation about the fickleness of fame, and the isolation that ironically comes with it. [more]
safe guess would be that most audiences coming to see New Light Theater Project’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ "The Count of Monte Cristo," one of most classic and exhilarating works of all time, are quite familiar with the material. A tragic tale of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit leads sailor Edmund Dantes to seek justice as he becomes the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. [more]
Both teenagers are desperate for our approval and understanding of their lives and what they did, unlike the tabloids which have apparently had headlines branding them as monsters. Listening to their sides of their stories, we are initially conned into a false sense of security – always a dangerous thing to do in a Philip Ridley play. By the end, we discover these are damaged youth we would not want to know personally, but we understand their motives entirely from their point of view. [more]
"Fulfillment" by the always surprising Thomas Bradshaw is about anything but the contentment and success implied by its ironic title. The Flea Theater’s production, directed to emphasize its undercurrents of eroticism and anger by Ethan McSweeny, is both shocking and sad. The audience witnesses the almost classically Greek downfall of a man done in by his own weaknesses. Anger, lust, pride and greed does in the central character. [more]
Audiences will receive a refreshing and meaningful gift in "How to Live on Earth." This production sparks several of the big overarching questions, regarding the meaning of life and will also keep you chuckling throughout the 90 minutes. The mix of personalities blends really nicely together and ultimately proves that underneath it all we are all the same: human beings trying to figure out what will make us happy in this world (or the next!). [more]
Yussef El Guindi’s "Threesome" is really a political treatise in the guise of a romantic comedy. Engrossingly performed by Alia Attallah, Quinn Franzen and Karan Oberoi, it is in the end more than a bit superficial and unconvincing, though it will generate a good deal of diversion. Chris Coleman’s direction covers up some of the play’s flaws by keeping the pace moving swiftly along. [more]
Playwright Ross Howard’s new work illustrates the characteristically 21st Century sentiments of unbridled selfishness, feigned apathy, and perennial discontent. His pointed, political indictment of our skewed American values is simultaneously too hard to watch and too illuminating to ignore. "No One Loves Us Here" is an entertaining, engaging bloodbath that leaves its audience thinking lots and feeling little. Perhaps this is as it should be. [more]
Asking us to stoop down to the level of three women willing to do many ethically reprehensible acts in the pursuit of wealth, Cahn challenges the notions of playing fair and working hard. Who would you throw under the proverbial bus in order to protect your livelihood? Is it ever justifiable to fight crime with more crime? Villainous Company raises these questions and more in the form of a short, fun play that is worth a watch but ultimately not worth too much thought. [more]
Set in at ill-defined Halloween party raging somewhere in the universe between life and death, Back depicts numerous formerly living Greenwich Village icons, from founding father Alexander Hamilton to Flower Power movement leader George Harris, III. Cookie Mueller—writer, muse to the famous filmmaker John Waters, and AIDS victim—leads the proceedings as this scripted Pride Parade's grand marshal. Filled with recurring mantras, bizarre non sequiturs, and gratuitous nudity, the performance under review (the rotating script allows for different variations at different performances) followed—or, more appropriately—circled around the respective, untimely demise of both poet Frank O'Hara and actress Mueller. [more]
This was my first in-person experience of Finley's work, and unfortunately it was a shambles. What could have been forty intense minutes of poetry and music was padded with rambling introductions and mostly aimless patter to more than twice that. The night I attended she was nervous and flustered, repeatedly losing her place in the program, and allowing herself to be distracted over and over again by a leaky water pitcher. (Why didn't the stage manager just replace it?) [more]
Scenically the show is quite proficient, ingeniously using simple props with well-conceived wall projections and displaying funny animations and representing the locations of the town. A great detail is the reappearing small scurrying roach in Pedro's Café. Structurally the show is problematic. The second act is packed with action and revelations but at over two hours with intermission, it all feels too long, the length diluting its effectiveness. [more]
A diorama presents an obvious simulacrum of life at some period. The closest thing here is a simulacrum of a simulacrum. With embellishments by authors Jennifer Brown Stone and David S. Stone that took over whatever concept they had, presumably something to do with when a loony tune becomes a flat out loon and how to tell the difference. This is dangerous territory for experienced authors. The authors have rushed in. [more]
