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Ron Rifkin

Awake and Sing!

October 19, 2025

The play is about a Jewish family, the Bergers, who live together in a small apartment in the Bronx. The Sea Dog production features color blind casting, so almost every Berger is a different race or ethnicity. This could be jarring but as the play settles in it becomes a non-issue. It's the play's 90th anniversary but many of the themes feel contemporary. [more]

The Collegiate Chorale: The Road of Promise

May 30, 2015

On May 6 and May 7, 2015 at Carnegie Hall, presenting a concert version of Franz Werfel and Kurt Weill's 1937 The Road of Promise, (Der Weg der Verheissung), The Collegiate Chorale conducted and directed by Ted Sperling undertook a near-daring project … and failed. The performance was uneven at best. The work was more interesting for its problems than its ultimate beauty or success. [more]

The Substance of Fire

May 5, 2014

Time has caught up with Jon Robin Baitz’s 1991 play and bankrupting one’s company over issues of integrity no longer seems quite admirable. Jon Robin Baitz writes literate, thoughtful plays like his 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Other Desert Cities. However, like the revival last fall of his earliest play The Film Society showed, plays may date badly or their attitudes become artifacts of another generation. [more]