Ricky Lurie

Burning Leaves

October 11, 2026

In Tom Rowan’s "Burning Leaves," a play of considerable tenderness and moral complexity, the distance between being someone’s inspiration and becoming someone’s responsibility proves both exhilarating and perilous. Presented by The Other Side of Silence (TOSOS), the long-running LGBTQIA+ theater company whose work has consistently illuminated lives too often pushed to the margins, this production finds an abundance of humanity in a story about a young teacher, a vulnerable teenager, and the sometimes treacherous territory between emotional intimacy and professional obligation. Set in 2007, in a small Illinois town where acceptance of gay identity is hardly a civic virtue, the play examines what it means for a young person to encounter, perhaps for the first time, an adult who makes a more expansive future seem imaginable. Its achievement lies in recognizing that the need for such a connection is real, even as the consequences of acting upon it can be devastating. [more]

A Walk on the Moon

July 5, 2026

The new musical "A Walk on the Moon" by original screenwriter Pamela Gray and composer and lyricist AnnMarie Milazzo is pleasant but innocuous. Based on the hit 1999 movie set during the summer of 1969 that starred Diane Lane, Liev Schreiber, Viggo Mortensen, Tovah Feldshuh and Anna Paquin, the stage musical feels like a watered-down version of the film. While the film had time appropriate songs from the 1960s, the stage version has new bland, unmemorable songs that do not forward the plot. The hard-working cast headed by Talia Suskauer, Max Chernin, Sam Gravitte and Andréa Burns under the direction of Sheryl Kaller never make us forget the performances from the film. [more]

Harmony

November 17, 2023

The musical "Harmony," the lovechild of pop music greats Barry Manilow (music) and Bruce Sussman (lyrics and book), has opened at a time when anti-Semitism has peaked once again and lessons to the contrary are in short supply. Harmony’s dive into Nazi era anti-Semitism, though, may fall on deaf ears, but Harmony is also very much an entertainment, not a message show. Certainly, Manilow and Sussman couldn’t have predicted the “perfect timing” of this staging, the last in a long line of productions, most recently at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in April, 2022. The current iteration is basically that production with most of the cast intact and a classier, mirrored set by Beowulf Boritt. [more]

Harmony

April 18, 2022

Although 25 years have gone by since "Harmony" first tried out at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, the Barry Manilow/Bruce Sussman musical about the Comedian Harmonists is still relevant and timely. This historical musical based on true events which took place mainly in Germany from 1927- 1935 is a necessary reminder of the rise of Nazism and the naïve people who thought it would blow over. Produced by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, "Harmony" could not be in a more fitting setting to tell this story. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, the musical has been given a big Broadway-style production for its first New York appearance starring Chip Zien and Sierra Boggess as well as a cast of featured players. [more]