The setting is familiar: a 12-step-program-type support group. A woman stands, says, "Hello, my name is Mica, and I'm Z-positive," and everyone else says, "Hi, Mica." Does "Z-positive" perha…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:19PMSame as it ever was, same as it ever was.Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School For Scandal, first performed in 1777, reveals that humans have changed little over the centuries, clothing a…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:31PMThere's good news, and bad news, and good news again. The good news is that the Master Voices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale) production of Dido and Aeneas was lovely. The bad news is that…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:34PMThe earnest and well-acted Echoes takes place in two times and places: Victorian England and Afghanistan, and present-day England and Syria. In both situations, a young woman has&n…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:22PMFrom Art Times:Once upon a time, boys played the women’s roles in Shakespeare’s plays. Once upon a different time, Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor performed in blackface to great acclaim, and…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:58PMPerhaps the single most salient fact about theater is that it is ephemeral, evanescent. Even if you get to see a production 10 times, it eventually closes, and it's gone. Poof. But in some i…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:48PMThe Pearl Theater's production of Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner's 21st-century riff/recreation of The Seagull, is well-directed, well-acted, well-designed, and a great deal of fun. …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:24PMHere's what I liked about Dry Power, Sarah Burgess's predictable, unimaginative, and lame incitement of high finance, currently playing at the Public Theater: the women in the crew wore blac…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:15PMPlaywright Hazel Ellis seems to have had a low opinion of women, with an even lower opinion of powerless women stuck together in lives harshly circumscribed by need. Premiering in Ireland in…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:44PMIf you (1) love Stephen Sondheim; (2) adore A Little Night Music; (3) treasure gorgeous singing; and/or (4) value a bargain, get thee to Theatre 2020 in Brooklyn Heights. Running through Mar…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:22AMSam Shepard's Buried Child presents the American nightmare. Family is poisonous; religion is useless; ambition is pointless; nothing has been planted in over 30 years. A bizarre, rotted Norm…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:08PMThe Encores! presentation of Cabin in the Sky is over, so I'm going to limit this post to three comments:1. I am so glad that musicals have evolved over the years. Cabin in the Sky, whi…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:38PMChris (an unusually subdued James Kautz) wants Amber (the superb Vanessa Vache) to take him back. They've been together on and off since they were teens, and Chris admits that he's messed up…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:22PMDr. Seuss, renowned children's author, managed to tuck away some pretty radical thoughts in his accessible, funny, tightly rhymed, and sweetly illustrated books. Seussical, the musical based…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:52PMMy latest Art Times essay is up: Every now and then, a controversy breaks out about leaving shows during intermission. Is it fair, acceptable, reasonable, and/or kosher? (rea…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:46PMA short time into the future, Queen Elizabeth has died, and Charles is king. Lacking his mother's presence, popularity, and willingness to play the game, he initiates a national crisis by re…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:24PMIt's fitting that Marilyn Maye ended her recent show at the Metropolitan Room with "The Secret of Life" followed by "Here's to Life," since she clearly lives by both songs. At 87, she's dyna…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:44PMAlthough Ben Brantley's opinion can change the fate of a show, and yours and mine can't, in a deeper sense his is no more valuable than ours. Some of us may bring more experience to the tabl…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:28PMI share Liz Wollman's wonder at the sheer volume of art in this beautiful city of ours. In 2015, I saw 80 shows and there are easily 80 more I wish I had seen. But even with "only" 80 s…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:04PMIn the introduction to Ethan Mordden's On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide, Mordden writes, "My intention is to bring the reader closer to Sondheim's oeuvre, to explore his unique ap…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:58PMMy latest article is up at Art Times: An odd thing happens to some people when faced with the existence of musicals. They start saying very strange things:“I don’t like musicals, except …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:43AMSteven (Matt McGrath) and Stephen (Malcolm Gets) have been together 16 years. They have an amazing relationship and a fabulous son named Zack. But there are cracks in the plaster. The relati…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:21AMSometimes seeing a mediocre production of a play can be surprisingly elucidating. For example, the Onomatopoeia Theatre Company's version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:45PMPlaywright Jaclyn Backhaus is clearly fascinated with the past, factual and fictional, and how it reflects on the present. In You On The Moors Now, she examines romantic tropes as handed dow…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:58PMThe T. Schreiber Studio and Theatre is one of the undersung jewels of New York City theatre. Year after year, T. Schreiber presents solid productions, often featuring long-time dir…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:16AMSongbird, the new musical by Michael Kimmel (book) and Lauren Pritchard (music and lyrics), directed by JV Mercanti, brings The Seagull to Nashville in the 21st century. The b…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:15PMWilliam Finn, lyricist-composer of Falsettos, Elegies, and Little Miss Sunshine, writes at the corner of idiosyncratic and heartfelt. His topics range far and wide: e.g., a baseball game, tr…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:39PMSongbird, the new musical by Michael Kimmel (book) and Lauren Pritchard (music and lyrics), directed by JV Mercanti, brings The Seagull to Nashville in the 21st century. The book is eff…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:15PMFor its 38th season, the Big Apple Circus presents an frequently charming, often thrilling new show called The Grand Tour. Using large travel posters and appropriate scenery and costume…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:15PMHave you noticed that whenever someone announces a "re-imagining" of a musical, the show gets smaller? Why does no show ever get bigger? Why does no one add more instruments? Why doesn't Dam…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:56PMOn one hand, Mac Rogers' Honeycomb Trilogy is a highly entertaining sci-fi epic, covering over 20 years and an extraterrestrial invasion or two. It has everything you could ask for…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:09AM
