All stories by David Finkle on BroadwayStars

Monday, November 2, 2015

The Crowning Achievement of Broadway: “King Charles III” by David Finkle

Where this all leads is too thought-provoking, too explosive and too outright entertaining.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 10:30PM
Thursday, October 29, 2015

First Nighter: Keira Knightley as Emile Zola's "Therese Raquin," Chekhov's "Seagull" Countrified as "Songbird," "Ca by David Finkle

Apparently, director Evan Cabnet believes the difference between comedy and tragedy is that the former is played fast and...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:03PM
Tuesday, October 27, 2015

First Nighter: Annaleigh Ashford as A. R. Gurney's Talking Dog Runs Away With 'Sylvia' by David Finkle

The comedy winks at a particular instance of a dog being man's best friend -- but not, as Gurney writes it, a woman's best friend. What the prolific playwright has here is the study of one g…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 07:27PM
Friday, October 23, 2015

First Nighter: Michael Mayer's Casually Histrionic Take on Verdi's Rigoletto Back at the Met by David Finkle

Michael Mayer's updating Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto in a more or less contemporary Las Vegas setting of Christine Jones's devising lends the histrionic drama an alluring air of 21st-century …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 01:14PM
Monday, October 19, 2015

First NIghter: "Trip of Love" Revue Trips Up, César Alvarez's "Futurity" is Promising by David Finkle

In a Trip of Love program note, creator-director-choreographer James Walski asserts that his expensive-looking...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:12PM
Thursday, October 15, 2015

First Nighter: Topher Payne's "Perfect Arrangement" Less Than Perfect by David Finkle

Topher Payne sets Perfect Arrangement, directed by Michael Barakiva at the Duke, in 1950 Washington, D. C. when Commie baiting and routing out supposed deviants of any stripe were becoming f…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 07:05PM
Wednesday, October 14, 2015

First Nighter: James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson Play "The Gin Game"; Oren Safdie's Unseemly "Unseamly" by David Finkle

If you think you're about to hear anything critical of the two old pros James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in director...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:57PM
Tuesday, October 13, 2015

First Nighter: Marlo Thomas Strong in Joe DiPietro's "Clever Little Lies," Clive Owens, Eve Best, Kelly Reilly Undone in Harold Pinter's &qu by David Finkle

When Joe DiPietro's Clever Little Lies gets going at the Westside Theatre, it almost immediately gives the impression that...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:50AM
Thursday, October 8, 2015

First Nighter: Robert O'Hara's "Barbecue" Sizzles a Bit, Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love" is Catnip for Actors by David Finkle

The first act of Robert (Bootycandy) O'Hara's Barbecue consists of four scenes, two each in alternation, depicting a...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:33PM
Wednesday, October 7, 2015

First NIghter: Two Big Treats at London's Globe, Two Mistreats Elsewhere by David Finkle

Even before William Shakespeare's so-called "problem play" Measure for Measure gets properly underway at the Globe, director Dominic Dromgoole has loosed on the audience what looks…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:27PM
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

First Nighter: Simon Russell Beale and Other London Come-Ons by David Finkle

LONDON--Though Samuel Foote is not remembered today and therefore another instance in the annals of the millions once famous and...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 05:34AM
Saturday, September 26, 2015

First Nighter: Nicole Kidman in "Photograph 51" and Other London Recommendations by David Finkle

LONDON--By now it's well known to theatergoers that Nicole Kidman is back on stage and in Anna Ziegler's Photograph...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 05:29AM
Wednesday, September 23, 2015

First Nighter: The Royal Shakespeare Company's Outstanding "Othello" is Screened by David Finkle

About that embroidered handkerchief so crucial to Othello's undoing in the William Shakespeare tragedy that takes his name: When it's...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:10AM
Tuesday, September 22, 2015

First Nighter: The Mint Rediscovers Harold Chapin's 'The New Morality,' Thomas Bradshaw's 'Fulfillment' Somewhat Unfulfilled by David Finkle

Mint Theater Company producing artistic director Jonathan Bank continues apace his compulsive rooting around for overlooked playwrights.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:15AM
Friday, September 18, 2015

First Nighter: MJ Kaufman's Imposing 'How to Live on Earth,' Michael Laurence's Bed-Ridden 'Hamlet in Bed,' Yvan Greenberg/Laboratory Theater's Dispos by David Finkle

Give playwright MJ Kaufman and director Adrienne Campbell-Holt abundant credit for writing a compact and understanding study of isolation in How to Live on Earth, at HERE.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:04PM
Sunday, September 13, 2015

First Nighter: Matthew-Lee Erlbach's "Sex of the Baby," Phil Blechman's "The Black Book" by David Finkle

Although Matthew-Lee Erlbach appears to have written myriad plays and tele-whatevers, I've only seen his one-man Handbook for...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:25PM
Thursday, September 10, 2015

First Nighter: The Acting Company's Irresistible "Desire," Max Posner's Completely Resistible "Judy" by David Finkle

It was Margot Harley, just leaving her lengthy tenure as The Acting Company producer, who came up with the...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 07:17PM
Wednesday, September 9, 2015

First Nighter: Donal O'Kelly's Exciting 'Little Thing, Big Thing,' Alan Hruska's Patience-Trying 'Laugh It Up, Stare It Down' by David Finkle

A thriller about corruption in Ireland and Nigeria involving a large cast of characters isn't the sort of thing you'd expect to turn up as the 80-minute two-hander Little Thing, Big Thing.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:18PM
Friday, September 4, 2015

First Nighter: Karen Ludwig Recalls Her Substantial Acting Career in Where Was I? by David Finkle

In the English theater there's a term for it: jobbing actor. It's used to indicate actors who are regularly employed but infrequently achieve star status. They're typically extremely talente…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:10PM
Thursday, September 3, 2015

First Nighter: Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence Light Up TV Screens by David Finkle

The convolutions Harris and Wilson conjure in their separate diversions earn a high hair-raising quotient, but perhaps even more irresistible are the Walliams and Raine performances -- perfo…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:25PM
Wednesday, September 2, 2015

First Nighter: Joan Beber's "In Bed With Roy Cohn" Falls Out of Bed by David Finkle

You could say that Joan Beber's In Bed With Roy Cohn is a fantasia about the notorious Joe McCarthy-period lawyer. It features the alienating figure experiencing nightmares during his death …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:32PM
Thursday, August 27, 2015

First Nighter: Sherie René Scott's "Whorl Inside a Loop," Ken Regan's "Sense of an Ending," Anna Ziegler's "A Delicate Ship& by David Finkle

Actors Silverman and Dellapina, who plays guitar and sings nicely along the way, perform well together, and Westrate has some effective stretches. If on arrival he were to play Nate as less…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 08:31PM
Monday, August 24, 2015

First Nighter: A. R. Gurney's "Love & Money" Doesn't Buy Happiness by David Finkle

When Love & Money begins with Cornelia Cunningham (Maureen Anderman) confronting lawyer Harvey Abel (Joe Paulik) over...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:40PM
Sunday, August 23, 2015

First Nighter: The Royal Shakespeare Company's Outstanding 'Merchant of Venice' Is Screened by David Finkle

Shylock's inflexible insistence on the bond he made with Antonio for a pound of flesh were the 3,000 ducats not repaid -- that's to say, Shylock's unrelenting stance as a broader revenge on …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 01:24PM
Wednesday, August 19, 2015

First Nighter: Philip Ridley's "Mercury Fur" Has a Dyspeptic Future by David Finkle

Fiction set in the future never seems to have nailed it right when the actual future rolls around. Maybe Jules Verne hit on...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:32PM
Tuesday, August 18, 2015

First Nighter: Deborah Zoe Laufer's "Informed Consent" Gets Awfully Cute About Troubled Genomes by David Finkle

Playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer and director Liesl Tommy want to assure you that science can be fun. In pursuit of the noble...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:03PM
Monday, August 17, 2015

First Nighter: McDonald, Swenson in O'Neill's "Moon for the Misbegotten," Yasmina Reza's "The Unexpected Man" by David Finkle

As far as I know, the most chillingly romantic scene in American dramatic literature occurs in the second half...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 07:18PM
Wednesday, August 12, 2015

First Nighter: Kevin Kerr's Affecting Period PIece Unity (1918) by David Finkle

Kerr focuses on Unity, a small Saskatchewan town, during the unhappy year when the world-wide-epidemic threatened at the same time as World War I soldiers damaged by mustard gas began to ret…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 03:34PM
Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Where Do You Work a “John”? by David Finkle

On the surface, things couldn’t be more ordinary.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 08:57PM
Monday, August 10, 2015

First Nighter: William Shakespeare's and Daniel Sullivan's 'Cymbeline' Lights up Central Park by David Finkle

There's a reliable rule of the stage according to which, if the actors are having fun, the audience absolutely will. That's what's rambunctiously going on throughout Daniel Sullivan's fooli…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:23PM
Friday, August 7, 2015

“Hamilton” Makes Musical History by David Finkle

That a musical -- a musical! -- should recount a gritty slice of American history so beautifully is singularly moving.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 01:03PM

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