Russ Rowland photographs everything from theater and corporate events to portraits, abstracts, street scenes, landscapes and images that he creates on the computer in various ways. Many things interest him visually, and he’s a relentless experimenter. http://www.rrsnapshop.com
Sketches are performed, in this case approximations of the originals, which is understandable (the authors Erik J. Rodriguez and Charles A. Sothers didn't have the rights to use the actual SNL material) but also a little odd for the more famous bits. It mostly doesn't matter though, and only hardcore fans will notice the difference. The women feel slighted, which makes sense if you watched the show in the 70s (and the 80s). [more]
Although the advance press materials suggest that Ali Keller’s "(un)conditional," the 2024 Lighthouse Series winner at SoHo Playhouse, is about wife swapping, it is, in fact, about two couples with different sexual problems that eventually become one story when it transpires that two of the people know each other from work. Director Ivey Lowe has used a suitably light touch to deal with this delicate and sensitive subject matter. While the play is never erotic, it may be the most intimate play you have ever seen so far. The actors playing the two couples are excellent at handling this tricky theme, one that cries out to be addressed more often even though it may make some uncomfortable. [more]
Among her most haunting and meditative works is the slim yet searing "From Trinity to Trinity," an autobiographical pilgrimage undertaken in 1999 to the Trinity Site in New Mexico where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested. It is, in essence, a journey back to the beginning of the end. Published in 2000 and rendered into English by Eiko Otake—half of the hauntingly expressive performance duo Eiko & Koma—the work was later published in 2010, bringing Hayashi’s voice to new ears, and new hearts. But it was in 2009 that Eiko, recognizing the performative potential and piercing immediacy of Hayashi’s words, reached out to the accomplished New York-based actress Ako—known for her roles in "Shogun," "God Said This," and "Snow Falling on Cedars," and the visionary founder of the Amaterasu Za theater company. Eiko posed a proposition: Could this text—so personal, so painful, so charged with historical weight—be embodied on stage as a one-person play? The answer, though tentative and reverent, was yes. It is Ako’s own adaptation for the stage that she performs today. [more]
Austin Phillips’s puppet design deserves special mention. His owlet creation is imbued with uncanny charm—Wesley is clearly an owl, yes, but one whose subtle articulation suggests personality rather than anthropomorphism. The puppet becomes a living character, thanks in large part to the finely tuned performance of Daniel Sanchez, making an impressive Off-Broadway debut. As Wesley, Sanchez navigates a delicate balance: he gives the owl presence, agency, even affection, without sacrificing the essential strangeness of the animal. His portrayal renders the owl’s devotion to Casey moving and believable, even as we are always aware that this is a bird, not a human in disguise. As he dances with Casey during the “Winter is Coming” sequence we are painfully aware of how little time they can expect to share together. [more]
Already seen at 200 venues across North America, "Bear Grease," the all Indigenous musical, arrives in New York for a three-month residency. While its subtitle declares that it is a “reimagining of the musical Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Carey told through an Indigenous lens,” it is more of a variety show with songs, dances, and video while including iconc scenes and songs from "Grease" paying tribute to Native American culture. Written and created by LightningCloud (Crystle Lightning and Henry Cloud Andrade,) the exuberant cast made up of members of the Enoch Cree Nation, Beaver First Nation, Big Stone Cree Nation, Frog Lake, Muskeg Lake, Gift Lake, Mvskoke and Navajo Nation makes this an entertaining evening in the theater. [more]
Each dancer contributes a unique personality and approach to the parade of styles, but when they all perform together it is as if they had been together forever. Each has a solo and a chance to speak about how they came to love hip-hop and how it changed their lives. Several impressed: Choung Woo Hyun has an elegance and lanky quality; Irina Brigita Laiciu’s bare midriff is as expressive as any ballerina’s toe-shoed feet; and Adrian T. Martin has a loose-limbed, easygoing quality. The other principal dancers are Jihad Ali, Messiah Brown, Kayla Muchotrigo, Rafaela Oliveira and Nicholas Porter, all displaying terrific individual qualities. [more]
At an hour and 40 minutes, "Cracked Open" is an earnest but often exhausting theatrical experience. Its heart is unquestionably in the right place—tackling the vital and still-stigmatized subject of mental illness with sincerity—but the journey can feel more dutiful than illuminating. Despite these shortcomings, the cast’s unwavering commitment and playwright Kriegel’s courage in confronting such difficult terrain deserve commendation. [more]
We get evocative shadow screens, puppetry and a silent-film fantasia. Heartbeat Opera’s two-hour whirlwind adaptation has everything—except an intermission. True to the company’s bold, iconoclastic style, this fiercely distilled staging trades grand opera’s lush orchestra for a lean, expressive band led by artistic director and violinist Ashworth. Brass and reeds give the score grit and immediacy, while the unexpected addition of a harmonium injects a raw, streetwise character—part cabaret, part back-alley prayer. The result? A "Faust" not of gilded prosceniums, but of shadows, sweat, and sharply focused vision. [more]
"Wounded," written by Jiggs Burgess, is a story using a cloak of humor to obscure the pain and dark feelings being hidden by the protagonists. Although referred to as a comedy or dark comedy, it should be noted that the simple addition of humor does not make it so. This play is a serious drama, in the full meaning of that form, with some humorous elements. Del Shores skillfully directs an excellent ensemble of three players to expose layers of emotional and physical wounds in the characters. Shores and the cast successfully create a deceptive cover for the story's final destination, with the dramatic tension slowly building to a surprising and unexpected ending. It is a play worth experiencing, even with a few issues concerning the logic in some of the characters' interactions. [more]
Urban Stages conducted a Dynamic Duos playwriting competition for one-act, two-character stories covering any subject during their 2023-24 season. Eight plays out of over three hundred submissions were chosen for staged readings. Two were selected for a full production as part of the current season. Those shows, "The Audit" by Lynda Crawford and 'The American Dream" by Juan Ramirez, Jr., opened on February 27 in a twin bill. They are both interesting stories told well with solid performances. [more]
Director Shira Milikowsky keeps increasing the tension as the 85-minute play peels away revelation after revelation. Each man has a guilty secret and may have betrayed a friend which is eating him up. Although there are never more than two men on Lawrence Moten III’s pitch perfect set for the rather shabby blue and white hotel room which suggests a dorm, we eventually witness and learn about two other stories that they are both stewing over: what happened between Teddy and Ed before Ed stormed out and Jeremy’s encounter in Uganda with Nicholas, a gay man in need of more than medical help. [more]
Director SuzAnne Barabas takes a muted approach, choosing to emphasize the intimacy of the narrative. Mags and Bernie are the only two characters in the play, and both are on stage nearly the entire time. There is little in the way of action, as the 80-minute runtime consists almost entirely of Mags and Bernie reading the letters they send to each other. Day and McKeon spend long periods sitting down and reading their letters out loud, and set designer Jessica Parks arranges the stage as two living rooms, separated by an invisible barrier that neither can cross. Maintaining the physical distance between the characters, the set and directing evoke the feeling of being in both living rooms at once, listening to Bernie and Mags casually read their letters out loud before mailing them. [more]
The trio demonstrates that their voices are as supple and fine as they ever were. Each gets to play their best suit: Winokur’s loud, clarion voice, Bundy’s wry wit and Butler’s recounting her hilarious but painfully missed opportunities even though she has appeared in 12 Broadway shows and been nominated for the Tony Award. Their patter and narration is entertaining and hilarious and the musical numbers are both tributes to their careers as well as songs we have not heard them sing before. [more]
We’ve come a long way from "Annie Get Your Gun" to the new musical "Distant Thunder" produced by Amas Musical Theatre at the A.R.T./New York Theatres. The Irvin Berlin song “I’m an Indian, Too” from "Annie" is filled with silly clichés about our indigenous people that "Distant Thunder" puts to rest. "Distant Thunder," written by Lynne Taylor-Corbett and Shaun Taylor-Corbett (book) and Shaun Taylor-Corbett and Chris Wiseman (music and lyrics), (with additional music and lyrics by Robert Lindsey-Nassif and Michael Moricz,) deals sensitively with issues facing Native Americans today. All of the actors are members or descendants of Native Americans and all give body and soul to their characters. [more]
"It’s Not What It Looks Like," is a two-hander, written by John Collins in collaboration with Chesney Mitchell. It is the winner of the 2023 Soho Playhouse Lighthouse Series competition for new plays. The play is a cleverly devised procedural drama that does justice to its title: somebody died, but the how and why are unknown. It is a mystery with which to spend a summer evening. [more]
"David" now at the AMT Theater is an ambitious Off Broadway musical dramatizing the story of the youth of the hero David, later second king of Israel. It has a bouncy contemporary score by Albert Tapper and a large talented cast. Somewhat indebted to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Biblical musicals, it is narrated by the older King David on his deathbed to the Prophet Nathan. Most of David’s adventurous exploits take place off stage, while the dramatized scenes are mainly political and dramatic. [more]
When it comes to coffee klatches, wine seems to be a good substitute, or at least that is the case with the women in "Winesday: The Wind Tasting Musical," with book and lyrics by Jenne Wason and music by Joseph Benoit. It is a show that could leave you tipsy at the end but generally satisfied with the experience. The songs are clever and well-sung by a solid group of five actors, and the book doesn't rely on a straightforward plot but provides a series of entertaining vignettes that help define the characters' lives with details about their ups and downs. Jamibeth Margolis's direction effectively guides the cast to deliver funny, well-integrated performances in a constrained setting. [more]
Dan Lauria’s "Just Another Day" is quite leisurely in its delivery but Lauria and McCormack inhabit their roles. While the play could use some pruning, it is a charming portrait of two elderly people drifting into an age when they cannot count on their memories but know that there is something important they wish to recall. Their hidden backstories and their changing recollections at times make this play like a mystery as well as a comedy. "Just Another Day" is a tribute to those people old enough to know that their pasts are slipping away unless they can pin them down. [more]
Enter young baritone Edwin Joseph. He has that dark curly hair and handsome face, yes, and the crucial understanding of the necessary swagger and selfishness that carries this character through the opera, yes. Mr. Joseph brings to mind the earthy and always sexy television star Shemar Moore, someone who has the confidence without even trying; it’s just there, and in spades. Joseph is helped with Mr. Wills’ ingenious staging. Tatyana’s letter scene is performed with Onegin perched on the top stairs of a stage ladder in full view just stage left of her bedroom space. The implication that he is well aware he is desired by Tatyana is there long before he reads the letter. He doesn’t need to read her outpouring of her soul to know he has that effect on her. In the birthday party scene, it’s not the flaunting of Onegin’s flirtations with Olga that sets the tone for Lensky’s challenge to a duel, it is a brazen handjob administered by Onegin to an already emasculated Lensky off in a corner where Lensky hopes no one sees that is the trigger for everything that follows. And throughout, particularly in his closing aria in Gremin’s palace, Joseph with his rich resonant baritone has this score in the palm of his hand. [more]
Christopher Rhoton's Double Dare-inspired set belies these weightier autobiographical details, offering enough of a time-warping simulacrum to help middle-aged members of the audience shed a few decades when Summers interrupts his fraught remembering to twice become a kid's game show host again. Those who legibly scribble their names on a piece of paper dropped into a fishbowl before the performance, eventually get the chance to head onstage (not sure if mezzanine ticket buyers are eligible), answer trivia questions, and launch pies on a catapult (a warning for the first few rows). Amid all the cheers, laughter, and chaotic fun, there's also an opportunity for the quick-witted Summers to go off-script, asking the theatergoers-turned-contestants trite questions like "Where are you from?" and "What do you do?" to set up a slightly mischievous back-and-forth. [more]
While we are presented with characters who are doing a noble thing and can be touched by what they go through to accomplish their task, Brian Belding’s book and lyrics repeatedly take us out of 1942. In breaking up a fight between her brother and her old flame, Sophie blurts, “Are we seriously doing this?!”…Seriously? The tone is not “then” in 1942, it’s a university student of present day. When Willi walks in on the scene, he asks “What the f*@k is going on?!” We don’t doubt the impulse behind it, but was that really the vernacular in 1942? Natalie Brice’s score has its moments with some of the solos, but the full company songs sound like retreads of "Les Miserables" chorus numbers. “Munich” sounds like “Blind Eye” sounds like “Why Are You Here?” sounds like “The Mess They Made” sounds like “We Will Not Be Silent.” All are full throttle songs with the same sentiment, so why are there so many? [more]
Through a technologically astute production and fine acting, their intertwining stories unfold in a dramatic tapestry that reveals the sad business of mail-order brides. Using an intricate combination of pre-recorded videos, live video feeds and “ghost voices” (Joy Tamayo), the live actors emerge as engaging and moving women, their fates becoming ever more fascinating and heartbreaking. [more]
How does a Holocaust-themed play land with such emotional impact as Leslie Epstein’s "King of the Jews" at the HERE Theatre? Based on his novel of the same name, "King of the Jews" is a searing, eye-opening glimpse of a dark period in world history. Set in the formerly elegant Astoria Café in 1939 and 1941 Poland, "King of the Jews" turns the employees and customers into a microcosm of Jewish society, a community being crushed under the boots of the invading Nazis. These trapped Jews emerge as real people. As the eleven p.m. curfew, enforced by Gestapo goons, approaches, they each react in their own way. [more]
Olson might very well be the three-way love child of Thomas Dolby, Bill Irwin, and Max Headroom. He carries the show with an unbridled, infectious, childlike enthusiasm, sharing what he knows and loves--science and music--using songs he wrote in his car and lyrics that support his storytelling. He puts on this show like a life-long project that he couldn’t wait to find the barn for. Olson reels us all in as he fills our minds with profundities in the same ease and flair he might have if he were telling us an evening of dad jokes. He shares postulates about time, space, color, light, thought, consciousness, love, and existence, in easy-to-grasp terms using purposeful words and with exquisite imagery. [more]
The Nazis persecuted not only Jews, political opponents and its own, but also homosexuals. Jews were forced to wear the infamous yellow stars; gays, the pink triangle. Alan Palmer, in his one-man show "Chanteuse" at HERE Arts Center, gives an intimate, heartbreaking look at one victim—fictional or not—that turns impersonal facts into passionate theater. [more]
"The Gospel According to Heather," with book, music, and lyrics by Paul Gordon, is a story about a teenager's struggles with fitting in with her contemporaries, finding a boyfriend, and dealing with the supernatural powers which she seems to have acquired after finding a Roman coin in a fish. On the surface, this show appears to be a coming-of-age tale with music, but it is much more: it is a cleverly done and, at times, pointed commentary on the socio-political nature of contemporary America, and of religion. [more]
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]
Just when you think you’ve seen an opera so many times you can’t imagine it being told anew along comes Heartbeat Opera with a riveting take on Puccini’s "Tosca." Director Shadi G. sets it as a thriller in Teheran, Iran with a cast of singers trying to get through a performance in defiance of the censors. The opera "Tosca" has always been set under a dictatorship of an authoritarian regime. It is usually set 1800 with the Kingdom of Naples’s control of Rome threatened by Napoleon’s invasion of Italy. The Heartbeat production underlines the usual terror with Irani police officers in shadows, hidden in stairwells and behind stage entrances ready to arrest the performers if they do anything outside the strict code of ethics and behavior in the Irani culture. This added layer to the story provides a lot of exciting running exits into the audience to avoid capture by the authorities. [more]
"War Dreamer" is a compelling exploration into the psychology of a female veteran who served in Iraq. It is a depiction of the struggles of a veteran to make sense of the memories, nightmares, paranormal events, and mental dislocations that intrude daily. Those experiences are more than a function of post-traumatic stress disorder. They result from a life lived in the alien world of war and all that is that experience. The play is a frighteningly accurate presentation of the process that some veterans must navigate as they try to return to a "normal" life. Written by Leegrid Stevens, "War Dreamer" has a storyline that is not straightforward in time and place. It is disconnected from a regular flow of action, with jumps in time, place and reality. However, he skillfully keeps the audience guessing what is real and what is not without losing the story's underlying thread. Stevens makes the audience both witness and participant as he brilliantly weaves his story of trauma and disassociation. [more]
The ensemble in this show does an outstanding job. Christina Bennett Lind as Annie gives us a direct and well executed view of a frightened, emotionally conflicted woman amid a psychological breakdown. Wilson convincingly plays Izzy, showing us a character who appears balanced and somewhat detached from the emotional conflict but still leaves room for questions about what may be behind that stable, rational façade. Eckert, as the Warden, plays a crucial part as the bridge to the understanding of the show's central theme and later provides a path to the ending. Finally, Ingulsrud is both Paul and Eddie, presenting characters who, although growing up together, developed radically different reactions to the dysfunction that was and is their family. His embodiment of the disturbed mental state of Paul is exceptional, as is his detached, somewhat arrogant depiction of Eddie. [more]
Rapp’s show—directed by Steve Maler, with musical direction/orchestrations by Daniel A. Weiss (who was the associate conductor/second keyboards player of the original Broadway production of Rent)—is quite moving. I was held by it throughout. And it is extraordinarily rich with Jonathan Larson songs, including “No Day but Today,” “We’re Dying in America,” “Rent,” “La Vie Boheme,” “One Song Glory,” “Seasons of Love,” “Without You.” Hearing these familiar songs—which I’ve heard so many times in Rent, performed by multiple singers—in new contexts, now sung solo—gives me an even greater admiration for them. They are such well-crafted songs, and they have enormous impact here, just as they did in their original contexts. Rapp has an especial affinity for Larson’s work; no one performs Larson’s songs more compellingly. He has long been the foremost interpreter of Larson’s music. He “gets” the music completely. It resonates for him. No one interprets Larson’s work better. [more]
