All stories by Howard Miller on BroadwayStars

Monday, July 11, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Richard III" - 7/11/22 by Howard Miller

... an inconsistent mix of Shakespeare and modern cadences that fails to help the audience to see the play as a full-bodied classic or as a satire with contemporary touches. By trying to be …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:24AM
Sunday, July 3, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Hamlet" - 7/3/22 by Howard Miller

This is a production that mixes art with artifice, with an overlay of quirky design elements that, even when they clash with the onstage action, rarely fail to engage. Both Shakespeare afici…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:23PM
Friday, June 24, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Epiphany" - 6/23/22 by Howard Miller

Playwright Brian Watkins has dipped his quill into the inkwell of James Joyce and has come up with a variation on Joyce's "The Dead" with his play Epiphany, opening tonight at the Mitzi E. N…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:56AM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Chains" - 6/23/22 by Howard Miller

Which of these quotes best describes your degree of contentment with your lot in life? "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," or "A bird in the hand is worth two in th…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:56AM
Friday, June 17, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Hooded; Or Being Black for Dummies" - 6/17/22 by Howard Miller

The play, a production of the aptly named Undiscovered Works (because this one really does deserve to be discovered by a wide audience), takes us on a smartly crafted journey from cartoonish…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:49PM
Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Bedwetter" - 6/13/22 by Howard Miller

Your appreciation of the show will depend a lot on your regard for her unconventional comedy style that is streaked with four-letter words and fart jokes. Personally, I loved it. But then, I…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:23AM
Thursday, June 9, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Soft" - 6/9/22 by Howard Miller

Other than the plethora of flowers that are integral to the production, there is nothing remotely soft about Soft, Donja R. Love's hard-hitting play about a group of students at a correction…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:13PM
Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Mr. Parker" - 6/7/22 by Howard Miller

... all told, Mr. Parker is a genuine audience pleaser, filled with humor and warmth. It makes for a wonderfully engaging 90 minutes, thanks to the playwright's insightful dialog, the not-al…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:49PM
Thursday, June 2, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "... what the end will be" - 6/2/22 by Howard Miller

A singular spellbinding performance and a beautifully scripted, deeply moving story of self-determination, redemption, and love lie at the heart of Mansa Ra's ... what the end will be, a pla…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:59PM
Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "A Kid Like Rishi" - 6/1/22 by Howard Miller

Running 80 minutes, the production, translated into English by Tom Johnston from a script by Dutch playwright Kees Roorda, a one-time apprentice to director Ivo van Hove, delves into intervi…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:11PM
Friday, May 27, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Fat Ham" - 5/26/22 by Howard Miller

... the newly crowned Pulitzer Prize winner Fat Ham uses Shakespeare's play to kickstart the plot. Our stand-in for the Prince of Denmark is "Juicy" (Marcel Spears), a barely-out-of-his-teen…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:54AM
Saturday, April 30, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Macbeth" 4/30/22 by Howard Miller

Sometimes, the entire production comes off as if it were being performed by a high school class of mixed talents, assigned to read Macbeth by their popular English teacher. Indeed, that role…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:47PM
Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Mr. Saturday Night" 4/27/22 by Howard Miller

The main plot may be melodramatic, even corny at times, but mostly Mr. Saturday Night is filled with joy: Crystal's joy of performing for us (the one-liners crackle and gleam), and our joy i…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:17PM
Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "A Strange Loop" 4/26/22 by Howard Miller

"Write what you know" is advice that is given to all new writers. But first you need to "know what you know," and what better place is there to find that out than inside your own head? That'…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:51PM
Monday, April 25, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Funny Girl" 4/24/22 by Howard Miller

When you are dealing with an outsize character like Fanny Brice, a certain amount of chutzpah comes in handy. But to be effective, that kind of audacity needs to have a big payoff, with some…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:03PM
Friday, April 22, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Hangmen" 4/21/22 by Howard Miller

A talented cast, funny bits of dark humor, a clever set design, and a dash of Alfred Hitchcock-style suspense add up to an unexpectedly tepid production of Martin McDonagh's Hangmen, opening…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:39AM
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "How I Learned to Drive" 4/19/22 by Howard Miller

Parker and Morse and Day and Brokaw are back, revisiting and digging ever more deeply into their original roles.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:13PM
Sunday, April 10, 2022

Talkin' BroadwayBroadway Review: "Birthday Candles" 4/10/22 by Howard Miller

... much of the play consists of a ticking off of biographical events. By necessity or by design, it is incumbent on members of the audience to find a personal connection to the ups and down…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:23PM
Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Talkin' Broadway on Broadway Review: "Take Me Out" 4/4/22 by Howard Miller

Go for the naked guys if you'd like, but stay for the wonderful weave of stories performed by a terrific ensemble of actors.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 04:11AM
Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Chinese Lady" - 3/8/22 by Howard Miller

"... Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady, a cleverly conceived satire that stirs its gentle humor with a cutting edge in a beautifully rendered production..."

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 09:21AM
Monday, October 11, 2021

Talkin' Broadway Review: "Chicken & Biscuits" by Howard Miller

"Family is a loaded word," to quote one of the characters in Douglas Lyons' Chicken & Biscuits, a mashup of broad comedy and domestic drama opening tonight at Circle in the Square. If the pa…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 01:25PM
Friday, March 6, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Review: "Girl from the North Country" 3/5/20 by Howard Miller

... a perplexing amalgam of thin-as-a-reed storytelling and powerhouse performances of reimagined tunes from the vast songbook of America's Nobel Prize-winning troubadour, Bob Dylan.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:50AM
Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Coal Country" - 3/3/20 by Howard Miller

Coal Country, then, is the forum through which their voices are finally allowed to be heard. And we are there to listen in fellowship to their disquieting recollections.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:06PM
Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "The Headlands" - 2/24/20 by Howard Miller

,,, an inventive mix of gradually darkening humor, family drama, and the vicissitudes of memory,

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 05:46AM
Thursday, February 20, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Review: "West Side Story" 2/20/20 by Howard Miller

... t for anyone willing to separate the wheat from the chaff, there is a great deal of enjoyment to be found by focusing on the performances on the stage.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:30PM

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Mack & Mabel" - 2/19/20 by Howard Miller

... Encores! at New York City Center is back on top, doing what it does best with a beautifully rendered Mack & Mabel...

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:03PM
Monday, February 17, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Animal Farm" - 2/17/20 by Howard Miller

Pulling off Animal Farm with four actors is just the kind of dare Seeing Place would gravitate towards.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 03:55PM
Monday, February 10, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Off-Broadway - "Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories" - 2/10/20 by Howard Miller

... a partial success for the Mint. If nothing else, Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories offers the opportunity to view these rarely seen works based on stories by two giants of Russian literatur…

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:34PM
Thursday, January 23, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Review: "Grand Horizons" 1/21/20 by Howard Miller

The play is often quite funny in the way that a well-written sitcom can be, but a thick layer of jokes and punchlines cannot cover up the fact that there is little of credible substance here.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:23PM
Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Review: "A Soldier's Play" 1/21/20 by Howard Miller

A rock solid cast and a spit-shine production make for a gripping and altogether outstanding revival of Charles Fuller's 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play...

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:13PM
Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Talkin' Broadway Review: "My Name Is Lucy Barton" 1/15/20 by Howard Miller

... as it stands, the production seems like a staged book-on-tape.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:26PM

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