Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Theater Review by Adam Cohen . . . . Diane Wiest returns to the stage in Vineyard Theatre’s production of John J. Caswell’s play Scene Partners. Set in 1985, the play features Wiest as a…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 10:45PMTheater Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . . Rider McDowell’s stingless Ode to the Wasp Woman, Off-Broadway at the Actors Temple Theatre, dramatizes the sad, tawdry fates of four Hollywood …
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 10:07PMTheater Review by Ron Fassler . . . . “I have been acting all of my life! It’s about time I get paid for it!” So says Meryl Kowalski, the protagonist of John J. Caswell’s world-pre…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:09PMTheater Review by Ron Fassler . . . . Being read to at night is basic to a child’s needs once tucked in and ready for bed. If one is lucky, their parents are adept at storytelling. The bes…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:25PMSunday, November 12, 2023
Theater Review by JK Clarke . . . . Considering the dearth of intellectually challenging plays on New York City’s vaunted stages in recent years, the staging of one of the most intelligent…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 11:26PMSaturday, November 11, 2023
Theater Review by Marcina Zaccaria . . . . In honor of Veteran’s Day, the stage was set at Carnegie Hall for November 1918: The Great War and The Great Gatsby. Katie Couric announced this …
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:22PMWednesday, November 8, 2023
By Ron Fassler . . . When I first saw the musical Ragtime in Los Angeles, prior to Broadway twenty-six years ago, I had chills up and down my spine at the opening number and tears streamin…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 06:21PMMonday, November 6, 2023
By Ron Fassler . . . One of the true oddities in the long and versatile career of Stephen Sondheim, The Frogs is like no other show in the canon. In 1974, he created a few songs at the req…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:05AMSunday, November 5, 2023
Irving Berlin’s Musical Soundtrack to Everything Wonderful in Many/Most/All 20th Century American Lives – By Myra Chanin . . . At least three cheers, once again, for Marilyn Wick, the e…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:46AMSaturday, November 4, 2023
By Carole Di Tosti . . . Playwright David Adjmi (The Evildoers, Stunning and Other Plays), has struck platinum with his astounding Stereophonic, a hybrid comedy/drama/musical, currently ru…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:20PMFriday, November 3, 2023
By Carole Di Tosti . . . Material possessions can interfere with healthy family relationships. This is especially so for Sam (Danny DeVito), a “quasi-hoarder” with a purpose, and daugh…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 05:50PMBy Carol Rocamora . . . A crosscurrent of compelling themes run fast and deep in the turbulent, terrific revival of I Can Get It For You Wholesale. Directed with ingenuity and flair by Tri…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 02:18PMBy Brian Scott Lipton . . . There are two questions on the lips of almost every patron entering New York City Center this week for its “revisal” of the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical Pa…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 01:55PMThursday, November 2, 2023
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Philip Roth, the prolific novelist who died in 2018 at 85, saw eight of his books adapted for movies and TV, but very few for the stage. However, John Turturro ha…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:30PMWednesday, November 1, 2023
By Myra Chanin . . . I moved to Florida during the plague and, for a short while, felt like a Manhattan snob that left paradise for a cultural desert . . . until I attended my first Boca S…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 03:15AMTuesday, October 31, 2023
By Carole Di Tosti . . . In his play, Translations, Brian Friel uses language to underscore a thematic message about power, control and domination. As the first play in the three-play seri…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:30AMMonday, October 30, 2023
By Ron Fassler . . . Christin Milioti has achieved a solid reputation in her more than twenty-year career as an actress. She’s given terrific performances in everything from romantic com…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 03:54AMSaturday, October 28, 2023
By Stuart Miller . . . Eric Anthamatten seems to have been an amazing guy: a sixth-degree black belt who taught martial arts, a musician, a Ph.D. in philosophy, a professor, a writer about…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:00PMThursday, October 26, 2023
By Walter Murphy . . . A play about war. Really? Bombarded, of late, with news blasts about Russia/Ukraine and most recently Israel/Hamas, I wondered what insights about war George Bernard…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:00PMBy Yani Perez . . . Telling Tales Out of School, written by Wesley Brown, with Direction by Woodie King Jr., is an elegantly written play about an afternoon meeting between Nella Larsen, Jes…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 06:23PMWednesday, October 25, 2023
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . Patrick Olson may not be a preacher and the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre may not be a church, but it’s hard to deny that Emergence, the high-powered, occasiona…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:05PMBy Ron Fassler . . . In March of 2011, The Book of Mormon arrived on Broadway and has been entertaining audiences and taking up real estate on West 49th Street ever since. It made stars out …
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:00PMBy Stuart Miller . . . At first glance, Patrick Olson may remind you of Dean Pelton from “Community”: the bald pate, the black glasses and the overly enthusiastic hand gestures and bod…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:59PMTuesday, October 24, 2023
By Adam Cohen . . . For 85 years, Paper Mill Playhouse has presented musicals and plays with loving flair. The house is saturated in history—near financial ruin, fire, and a devotion to th…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 02:11PMMonday, October 23, 2023
By Myra Chanin . . . The warm, convivial audience who welcomed the introductory remarks by William Hayes, the Producing Artistic Director of the Palm Beach Dramaworks, on the opening night…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 04:03AMSunday, October 22, 2023
By Carol Rocamora . . . Theater history was made this week when a new Stephen Sondheim musical opened at The Shed, New York’s exciting new cultural center. It’s a cause for celebrati…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 09:00PMFriday, October 20, 2023
By Myra Chanin . . . Girl Crazy, the birth mother of Crazy for You, opened on Broadway in 1930 with spectacular songs by George and Ira Gershwin, and two unknown young performers who becam…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 06:12PMThursday, October 19, 2023
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . The Mint Theatre is widely lauded for reviving modern plays that, while long forgotten, appear to be worthy of another look. Often, the revivals uncover shiny tre…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:00PMWednesday, October 18, 2023
By JK Clarke . . . There’s been something of a drought in New York when it comes to Shakespeare plays over the past several years. Sure, there are the requisite Shakespeare in the Park p…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 11:35PMBy Carol Rocamora . . . Theater has always reflected the “zeitgeist”—at least that’s been my experience. It’s the most admirable mission of our art form—the “holding of the mir…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 07:52PMMonday, October 16, 2023
By Samuel L. Leiter . . . If there were a Central Casting list of American classical actors, Patrick Page would be near or at the top. At 61, the popular Broadway star possesses all the re…
SOURCE: Theater Pizzazz at 08:05PM 
