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Stockard Channing

Other Desert Cities

October 27, 2026

If "Other Desert Cities" has one silver lining, it's the play's uncanny ability to attract the type of star power that blinds audiences to a mundane narrative. For its Broadway debut fifteen years ago, Jon Robin Baitz's mix of leaden one-liners and soapy seriousness enticed a talented cast that included Stockard Channing and Judith Light. It was a rewarding seduction: critical and commercial success led to a handful of Tony Award nominations, with a nod for Channing and a win for Light. Thanks to this outsized success, we are now beset by director John Benjamin Hickey's revival, which strands us with a new set of popular faces, each undoubtedly hoping that a similar oasis of acclaim will emerge from the same dry dramatic well. [more]

Apologia

October 23, 2018

Channing is by turns aggressive, assertive, jittery, neurotic, imperious, and even petulant in the first act, only to become bewildered and subdued in the second. To rewrite Dorothy Parker’s notorious put-down of Katherine Hepburn, Channing runs the gamut of emotions from A to Z in "Apologia," even as she takes us along for the ride. [more]

Six Degrees of Separation

May 9, 2017

All the acting is sharp, from the upper-crusters taken in by Paul (Lisa Emery, Michael Countryman and Ned Eisenberg) to their kids (Colby Minifie, Keenan Jolliff, Ned Riseley, and Cody Kostro), Chris Perfetti as Trent who, sexually intoxicated by Paul, fills him in on the ways and means of all the people he will eventually swindle, and finally, to the young lovers (Peter Mark Kendall and Sarah Mezzanotte) whose fate reveals just how psychologically damaging Paul can be. [more]

It’s Only a Play

November 27, 2014

The revival of Terrence McNally's theater comedy, It's Only a Play, has the starriest cast in town. It reunites Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick for the third time, and throws in for good measure Oscar Award winner F. Murray Abraham, Tony Award winner Stockard Channing, Harry Potter regular Rupert Grint, and Emmy Award winner Megan Mullally. This is probably just as well as this 1985 farce was slight in its Off Broadway production and in its first Broadway appearance, drastically updated, it seems even thinner. Jack O'Brien, who usually directs stronger stuff, pilots the expert cast around their paces. [more]