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Friday, December 20, 2024

Review: Audra McDonald Is One Mother of a Rose in a Stupendous Gypsy

by David Cote

Audra McDonald is the first Black actress to play Madame Rose on Broadway, and she and director George C. Wolfe deliver what may be the most heartstopping 'Gypsy' you’ll ever see.

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Review: Libs Own Themselves in the Sharp and Infectiously Funny ‘Eureka Day’

by David Cote

Jonathan Spector’s play, about vaccine politics splintering a school board, is one big Learning Moment that pretty much everyone fails.

Friday, November 15, 2024

Review: Kenneth Branagh’s ‘King Lear’ Howls Into A Stormy, Rushed Muddle

by David Cote

The great Kenneth Branagh leads and co-directs a decidedly not-great production of the Shakespeare tragedy.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Review: ‘Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!’ Is A Crazy Avant-Garde Flashback

by David Cote

This absurdist comedy—the final production to run at Soho Rep—has a hallucinogenic plot that brings to mind the days when artistic risk was the norm and downtown performance art was in high ferment.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Review: ‘In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot’ Tries to Think Outside the Box

by David Cote

Set about 15 years from now, this future fable takes place in and around a shipping center in Wyoming as rising sea levels are swallowing American states east and west.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Review: Juliet Is Fire, Romeo Got Mad Rizz In This Shakespeare Glowup

by David Cote

Characters vape, gender is fluid, desire bi, and death assured in director Sam Gold's hyperpop reimagining of 'Romeo + Juliet.'

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Ready For Its UHD 4K Close-Up

by David Cote

This revival of the 1994 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is full of modern eye-candy and a few surprises. Among them, how Nicole Scherzinger commands her scenes in her Broadway debut.

Thursday, October 10, 2024

McNeal

by David Cote

It’s hard to tell what’s real in Ayad Akhtar’s play starring Robert Downey Jr. as an alcoholic novelist who turns to AI. Robert Downey Jr. as Jacob McNeal (right) and cast of McNeal. Photo: Matthew Murph…

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Review: Long, Bumpy Ride to Sisterly Reconciliation Over ‘The Hills of California’

by David Cote

An excellent cast and direction from Sam Mendes keep the action driving in this nearly three hour family drama from playwright Jez Butterworth.

Friday, September 20, 2024

Review: Forbidden Broadway Mercilessly Mauls the Hits

by David Cote

Now 42 years old, the Forbidden Broadway franchise remains Mad Magazine with jazz hands, and the latest edition, 'Merrily We Stole a Song,' features a cast of wildly talented mimics skewering the current Broadw…

Monday, September 9, 2024

Review: Ex-Lovers Eat Their Hearts Out in Savory Romantic Comedy ‘Table 17’ 

by David Cote

A couple gropes toward honesty and clarity about how they drifted apart in this fast-moving comic showcase.

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Theater Fall Preview: Women Are Taking Charge, On Broadway And Off

by David Cote

Women are center stage this fall in shows that highlight reproductive rights, consent and motherhood or showcase a powerful female lead. It can’t possibly have anything to do with a certain November election,…

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Review: The Gaudy, Immersive ‘Life and Trust’ Is Part Theater, Part Stunt

by David Cote

This Choose Your Own Adventure fable about American innovation and greed fills six floors and 100,000 square feet, with 24 characters and enough plot lines to drive an HBO season.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Review: That Internet Can Drive a Person Crazy in the Gimmicky ‘Job’

by David Cote

It's Boomer versus Millennial in this one-act play that involves a gun, life online, and a therapist who's both hostage and hostage negotiator.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

‘Oh, Mary!’ Is a Splendidly Nasty Farce You Will Not Want to Miss

by David Cote

Cole Escola plays Mary Todd Lincoln in drag in this delightfully campy queer romp, which has moved uptown to goose a sleepy Broadway summer.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Review: Women’s Work Is A Bloody Business In ‘The Welkin’

by David Cote

Sandra Oh leads a talented cast in this Lucy Kirkwood play—set in 18th century England—that's both a murder mystery and an exploration of the moral rot of misogyny.

Thursday, June 6, 2024

Review: At the Roundabout, A Luminous Revival of Samm-Art Williams’ ‘Home’

by David Cote

This rollicking memory play treats one man's life as an epic journey, and this production—starring Tory Kittles, Brittany Inge and Stori Ayers—is epic indeed.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Review: In ‘Breaking the Story,’ Maggie Siff’s TV War Reporter Lives With Scars

by David Cote

A talented cast outshines the material in this examination of a war correspondent's trauma and the ethics of journalism.

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Review: ‘The Lonely Few’ Mixes Bona Fide Rock Concert With Angsty Love Story

by David Cote

This rock musical begins in glorious dive-bar grunge mode, and Lauren Patten and Taylor Iman Jones radiate so much charisma you may not care if the story feels a little generic.

Monday, May 20, 2024

Review: Pandemic Meltdown Musical ‘Three Houses’ Finds Song in Solitude

by David Cote

Dave Malloy juggles book, music, lyrics, and orchestrations in this musical triptych about Covid Times. The score is entertainingly eclectic, but the dramatic tension and character development are wobbly.

Monday, May 13, 2024

Review: ‘Here There Are Blueberries’ Studies Holiday Photos from Hell

by David Cote

This interview-based docu-play revolves around a mysterious photo album donated to the Holocaust Museum that showed the lives of those running Auschwitz.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Review: Flashy and Fake ‘Great Gatsby’ Caps a Weak Season

by David Cote

The jazz-based score ventures into funk, Disney princess ballad, and a touch of Britpop. But none of the songs stick, and the staging is busy yet unfocused.

Monday, April 29, 2024

Review: ‘Staff Meal’ Offers Seven Courses of Tasty Disorientation 

by David Cote

It’s hard to describe exactly what happens in this show. Scenes zig and zag in dream logic. But the acting and staging are impeccable. Book a table now.

Friday, April 26, 2024

Review: Steve Carell Is a Lovable Loser in a Fragmentary ‘Uncle Vanya ‘

by David Cote

Steve Carrell and a stand-out Alison Pill lead a strong cast in a modern-dress revival of Chekov's 'Uncle Vanya' that never quite gels.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Review: Volunteers In A Drug Trial Just Say Yes In ‘The Effect’

by David Cote

Is it love or a side effect? Lucy Prebble’s 2012 play interrogating the difference between spontaneous emotions and drug-induced moods is given a cool, minimalist makeover in a revival at the Shed.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Review: New Drama About the Murdoch Phone Hacking Scandal

by David Cote

This ripped-from-the-headlines story has a strong cast and a worthy message. But it ought to be more thrilling than it is. 

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Review: A Priest and a Nun Walk into a War in Contemporary Classic ‘Doubt’

by David Cote

'Doubt,' one of the top ten American dramas of this century, is now back on Broadway in an impressive revival.

Monday, March 4, 2024

Review: It All Comes Out in the Wash at John Patrick Shanley’s ‘Brooklyn Laundry ‘

by David Cote

The veteran playwright-director tosses together two soiled souls—played by Cecily Strong and David Zayas—adds softener, and gives ’em a whirl.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Spring Theater Preview: Navigating a Flood of Shows on Broadway and Off

by David Cote

Between now and the end of April a whopping 18 plays and musicals will open on the Great White Way. Here's the best of what's coming, both on and Off Broadway.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Review: Unwinnable Wars Lead to Impossible Debates in ‘The Ally’

by David Cote

Page-filling blocks of strong words are unfurled in this campus drama, as playwright Itamar Moses articulates—passionately and eloquently—each side of weighty issues of the moment, from Israel and antisemit…

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Review: Second Stage Theatre’s ‘The Apiary’: Stinging or Sweet As Honey?

by David Cote

Set 22 years from now — as climate change has doomed the bees and thus humanity — this high-concept play mixes sci-fi with black comedy.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Review: Fake News Makes Musical Headlines in ‘The Connector’

by David Cote

This musical about a fabulist at a magazine draws on the Stephen Glass scandal of the ‘90s, but it’s more than a bit of stretch itself.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Public Obscenities

by David Cote

All in the family: a PhD student visits India to film a documentary about queer life in Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s vibrant and charming debut play. Abrar Haque as Choton, Debashis Roy Chowdhury as Pishe, and J…

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

‘The Animal Kingdom’ Review: This Family Therapy Weepie Is a Flat Zoo Story

by David Cote

Set entirely at group therapy sessions, this 80-minute exploration of psychodynamics and healing may leave you wishing for characters with more interesting problems.

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Review: Don’t Sleep on Splendiferous Sutton Foster in ‘Once Upon a Mattress’

by David Cote

Foster generates waves of zany ecstasy in this delightful concert version of this fractured fairytale for City Center Encores.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Review: ‘Prayer for the French Republic’ Is One of Broadway’s Best New Plays

by David Cote

A Jewish family — shaken by a recent rise in European antisemitism — uproots itself in Joshua Harmon's passionately argued play.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Review: ‘Appropriate’ Is a Family Album of White Supremacy 

by David Cote

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s slow-burning satire of white privilege arrives on Broadway in an impeccable production with a dream cast, led by Sarah Paulson.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Review: Cuba’s Past Sings Out in ‘Buena Vista Social Club’

by David Cote

This jukebox musical alternates passionate renditions of Afro-Cuban son, danzón, and bolero with scenes in English that chart the lives of musicians across four decades of love and loss.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Review: ‘How to Dance in Ohio’ Welcomes Autistic Youth Under the Disco Ball

by David Cote

'How to Dance in Ohio' was clearly made with love, but this musical adaptation of an HBO documentary about autistic people learning to dance tries to balance good intentions and razzle-dazzle will mixed results…

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Review: An Earnest Yet Awkward Land Acknowledgement for ‘Manahatta’

by David Cote

Mary Kathryn Nagle’s play shifts between the Dutch colonization of Manhattan and the subprime mortgage crisis, a concept that looks good on paper but diminishes the characters and their choices.

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Review: Alicia Keys Is in a ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ State of Mind at the Public

by David Cote

Part juke-box musical and part feel-good empowerment fable, this musical from Alicia Keys hungers for a home on Broadway.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Review: Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks Are Well Worth Waiting for Godot 

by David Cote

In the Theatre for a New Audience production of 'Waiting for Godot,' Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks bring uncommon clarity to Beckett's classic.

Review: Stage Newbie Aubrey Plaza Dips Her Toe Into ‘Danny and the Deep Blue Sea’

by David Cote

Packed with profanity, anguished sexuality, and high-decibel meltdowns, 'Danny and the Deep Blue Sea' has been drama department fodder since its 1983 debut. Only this time, the acting students are Hollywood sta…

Monday, November 13, 2023

Review: Barry Manilow Writes the Songs That Make ‘Harmony’ Sing

by David Cote

The story of the Comedian Harmonists—the German (and Jewish) singing sensations forced to break up due to the Third Reich—is told in this amiable if derivative musical.

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Review: Danny DeVito Hoards Laughter And Tears In ‘I Need That’

by David Cote

This tale of grief and release is the sort of crowd-pleaser that used to be common fare on Broadway but has long since migrated to small screens.

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Review: ‘Stereophonic’ Has the Vinyl Word on ’70s Rock Drama

by David Cote

This portrait of a Fleetwood Mac-like band slaving over an album is full of novelistic detail and luxurious fly-on-the-wall beauty.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Review: Sondheim’s Swan Song Is Goofy, Satirical, And A Joy to Hear

by David Cote

The one-percenters of Stephen Sondheim’s final work, 'Here We Are,' are living a life of pleasure, beauty, and infinite possibility. Until Act II, that is.

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Review! Of! Gutenberg! The Musical! Print Is Hilariously Not Dead

by David Cote

It the hilariously desperate 'Gutenberg! The Musical!' two would-be Broadway composers pitch their show about the 16th-century German inventor of the printing press.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Review: Irish Joy and Pain Come to Life in Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy

by David Cote

The Druid company's marathon of three plays from Sean O’Casey offers the chance soak up an Irish master who combined gimlet-eyed humanism with corrosive social critique.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Review: Melissa Etheridge Rocks and Reminisces on Broadway

by David Cote

In no way does Etheridge reinvent the solo theatrical memoir. But she performs with a natural ease, like your wild aunt telling stories over beers one Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Review: Satire Comes in All Colors in Ossie Davis’s ‘Purlie Victorious’

by David Cote

At the center of a prodigious cast and Kenny Leon’s clockwork staging are Leslie Odom Jr. and the astonishing Kara Young.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

‘Swing State’ Review: Small-Town Drama Shows Heartbreak in the Heartland 

by David Cote

Playwright Rebecca Gilman's keenly observed drama arrives Off Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater from Chicago’s Goodman Theatre for a limited run.

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Review: Annie Baker’s ‘Infinite Life’ Turns Chronic Pain Into Complex Pleasure

by David Cote

The most satisfying new work since last season’s 'Downstate' has an obscenely gifted cast, led by Christina Kirk.

Friday, September 1, 2023

Fall Theater Preview: A Dozen Shows Gets You Back to (Drama) School

by David Cote

Experiments, parodies, Sondheim, Godot, and much more await you this fall.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Review: Savor High-Def Chekhov in a Marvelously Intimate ‘Uncle Vanya’

by David Cote

What’s gained by staging Chekhov in the round, with actors just feet away, sometimes lit only by a candle? It’s what you’d expect: a wonderfully intense experience of the text.

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Review: Does ‘The Shark Is Broken’ Have Much Bite on Broadway?

by David Cote

Robert Shaw's son Ian cowrote this behind the scenes look at the filming of 'Jaws,' and plays his father.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ Review: The DeLorean Flies, The Songs Sink

by David Cote

This Broadway adaptation of the 1985 movie has some four-wheeled spectacle to offer. But not much else.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Review: To Be or Not to Be at the Public’s ‘Hamlet’ in Central Park? 

by David Cote

Singing! Rapping! Demonic possession! Kenny Leon's direction of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy has welcome, lively touches, but overall the staging feels undercooked.

Monday, June 26, 2023

Review: Alex Edelman Noshes With The Enemy In The Hilarious ‘Just For Us’

by David Cote

In this one-man autobiographical show, an Orthodox Jewish comic attends a white supremacist meet-up and comes away with thoughts (and jokes) about “the way the world is right now."

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Review: ‘Once Upon A One More Time’ Won’t Leave Britney Alone!

by David Cote

This family-friendly jukebox musical cobbled around Britney Spears songs see a group of classic fairytale princesses rebelling against a faithless Prince. But it's more marketing gimmick than fractured, feminis…

The Doctor

by David Cote

Extremely loud and incredibly verbose: a new play from Robert Icke forgoes the subtleties of showing for too much telling. Juliet Stevenson as Ruth Wolff and Juliet Garricks as Charlie in The Doctor. Courtesy …

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Review: Broadway’s ‘Grey House’ Raids the Grave for Horror Clichés

by David Cote

There's a point here — men do terrible things and the universe will have revenge — but it's buried in a pretentious trauma-drama using horror tropes to diminishing effect. 

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Review: In ‘Primary Trust,’ Grief Is the Thing with Tiki Bars

by David Cote

Eboni Booth’s portrait of one man's loneliness and the danger of coping mechanisms will restore your faith in theater’s elemental storytelling powers. And make you cry.

Monday, May 22, 2023

Review: Soggy Film-to-Stage ‘Monsoon Wedding: The Musical’

by David Cote

Director Mira Nair turns her own layered 2001 film into a sitcom that transitions awkwardly into musical numbers.

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Review: Jodie Comer Sees Both Faces of the Law in the Powerful Prima Facie  

by David Cote

Comer’s astoundingly fluid, musical and passionate performance leaves nothing on the field. 

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’ Is a Magical Comedy Disaster 

by David Cote

This play-within-a-play is full of topsy-turvy chaos that makes you think of Basil Fawlty stumbling into a community theater. Comparisons to British comedy icons—from Monty Python to Mighty Boosh— are inevi…

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Camelot’s Round Table Looks Pretty Square at Lincoln Center 

by David Cote

This revival — with a new book by Aaron Sorkin — is spare, drab and somehow takes the Lerner and Loewe classic both too literally and not seriously enough.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Review: “Shucked” Pops Loudly on Broadway, Despite Some Empty Calories

by David Cote

In this — wait for it — corny new musical, the score makes a case for country as a natural Broadway genre and the cast turns in strong performances. Shame about the plot, though.

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Review: Bad Cinderella’s Glass Slipper? More Like a Moldy Croc

by David Cote

A book by Emerald Fennell (who wrote and directed 'Promising Young Woman') and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber must have screamed cross-generational synergy on paper. But it’s TikTok meets grandfather clock.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Review: Off Broadway Sways to Reggae Beat in ‘The Harder They Come’ 

by David Cote

Suzan-Lori Parks reshapes the 1972 Jimmy Cliff movie into a jukebox musical, but its outlaw charge has gone missing.

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Review: A Decluttered Doll’s House Speaks to Our Alienated Times 

by David Cote

A chilly, restrained minimalism marks this Broadway adaptation of Ibsen, starring Jessica Chastain.

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Review: Adult Fairytale ‘The Trees’ Gets to the Root of Modern Angst 

by David Cote

Existential upheaval is fun in this magic-realist mini-epic from Agnes Borinsky that moves the beyond theatrical binaries of comedy and tragedy.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Review: Anton Chekhov Gets An R Rating With ‘The Seagull/Woodstock, NY’

by David Cote

Chekhov’s 1895 comedy gets a cheerfully vulgar refurbishing (and a perfect Parker Posey), but part of the shock is how by-the-book Thomas Bradshaw's rework is.

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Spring Theater Preview: A Dozen Great Shows Bloom On Broadway (And Off)

by David Cote

A pop star becomes a demon barber, a TV assassin turns attorney, and Hamlet gets a Black, queer makeover — those are just a few of the miraculous transformations the theater has in store the next few months.

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Review: Send West Village Café Musical ‘Cornelia Street’ Back To The Kitchen

by David Cote

A talented cast is trapped by cringe material in this show about quirky urbanites trying to survive in New York City, with songs from Mark Eitzel of American Music Club and a book by British playwright Simon St…

Thursday, February 9, 2023

‘Pictures From Home’ Review: Unfocused And Underexposed

by David Cote

Sharr White's Broadway adaptation of Larry Sultan's photo memoir is part sitcom — with laugh lines for Nathan Lane — and part family weepie. There's no intimacy amidst the broad strokes and bathos.

Monday, January 23, 2023

Review: God And Man At Applebee’s In ‘Field of Mars’

by David Cote

Riffing on the origin of humanity, Richard Maxwell crams a lot into a family restaurant.

Monday, December 12, 2022

Review: Sondheim’s Brilliant Flop ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ Is Smartly Revived

by David Cote

Thanks to superlative casting (including Daniel Radcliffe) and canny direction, this elegant, emotionally searching production may be the finest 'Merrily' you’ll ever see.

Monday, December 5, 2022

Review: ‘A Beautiful Noise’ Is A Portrait of The Rock Star As Depressed Senior Citizen 

by David Cote

This sloppy Broadway embrace of Neil Diamond is a jukebox musical in search of a plot.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Fall Arts Preview 2022: Theater You Won’t Want to Miss

by David Cote

New York theater rolls into fall again with a packed schedule of Broadway, off-Broadway, and experimental theater.

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