Sunday, September 9, 2012
You walk into the theatre carefully, skirting the floor-level stage, which is covered with gorgeous patterned silks and parasols and glittering chains of reflective circles. You take your se…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:00PMFriday, August 24, 2012
The Original Cast Recording of The Queen of the Mist, Michael John LaChiusa's tale of the stubborn Anna Edson Taylor and her trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1901, is a well-done repre…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:05PMFriday, August 10, 2012
I once saw a demonstration of second-tier gymnasts, people who were just below Olympic level. Watching their strengths and weaknesses made me understand and appreciate gymnastics more deeply…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:18PMFriday, August 3, 2012
Slowgirl is a lovely piece of theatre, small, quiet, simple-yet-complex, and real.Photo: Erin BaianoA 17-year-old goes to visit her uncle in the jungles of Costa Rica. She hasn't seen him si…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:26PMWhen it comes to making theatre--or any sort of art--sometimes "no" is even more important than "yes." Take The Last Smoker in America, an amiable, mediocre musical that opened last night at…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:23PMSaturday, July 21, 2012
Thirty-two separate characters are listed in the program for Baby Case, and I didn't care about any of them. The show is a descendant of Chicago, Ragtime, and Assassins, but without any cent…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:30PMSunday, July 15, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed Triassic Parq: The Musical in an earlier incarnation, when it was known as Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical. This time around I enjoyed it less. Part of the pro…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:15PMSunday, July 1, 2012
It's always dangerous to see a show after hearing weeks of hype. Expectations are tricky things. But Tribes is every bit as good as everyone says it is. Billy is the only deaf person in his …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:03PMThe Columnist, by David Auburn, is a smart, straightforward bio-play, with the juicy, juicy starring role of Joseph Alsop, the nationally syndicated columnist who both reported and made hist…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:29PMI love gossip. I love knowing who's sleeping with who and why X isn't talking to Z. But there is a limit. And, in his new memoir, Dropped Names, Frank Langella goes well past it.The book is …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:55PMFriday, June 29, 2012
What were they thinking?There are two ways to interpret this question. In the first, it's preceded by a silent "Are they nuts?" And that interpretation is certainly apt in relation to David …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:15PMMonday, June 25, 2012
Jordan Tisdale, William Apps Photo: Monica Simoes The Amoralists love to yell, and they do it well. In their shows, usually written by the smart and wry Derek Ahonen, people live operaticall…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:26PMStephen Heskett, Hanna CheekPhoto: Deborah AlexanderWith Sovereign, playwright Mac Rogers and director Jordana Williams bring home the wonderful Honeycomb Trilogy with verve, humor, and a b…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:26PMSaturday, June 23, 2012
The InViolet Rep is presenting a little gem of a play down at the Cherry Lane. It's called This Is Fiction, and it's written by Megan Hart and directed by Shelley Butler. It's not a perfect …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:00PMWednesday, June 20, 2012
If you are a Kaye Ballard fan and didn't get to see her Sunday, now is the time to bug her and Feinstein's about her coming back for a week or two. Because, really, you have to see her.From …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:32PMMonday, June 18, 2012
Imagine that someone told you that you were about to see a play about female war correspondents in World War II, written by Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles, who had actually been female …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:30PMMonday, June 11, 2012
If anyone had any lingering doubts that the real theatrical action is Off-Broadway, the New York Theatre Workshop's well-deserved 13 wins last night (eight for Once and five for Peter and th…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:54PMSaturday, June 9, 2012
We're proud and excited to announce that our own Sandra Mardenfeld won first place in the "Online, Arts" category of the Press Club of Long Island Media Awards for her wonderful review of Sn…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:02PMThursday, June 7, 2012
Sometimes it's possible to confuse an event and a show, and it is only when the event disappears that the show's full merits can be judged. Take The Lion King. Would it have run for more tha…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:36PMPatrick Lee, a Founderof ITBA and This Blog--AndMuch MissedThe Independent Theater Bloggers Association (the “ITBA”) is proud to announce the 2012 recipients of the Fourth Annual Patrick…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:30PMTuesday, May 29, 2012
The Drafts, the acting company of the Horse Trade Theater Group, recently presented When Half the Sphere Is Visible, an unusual collaboration among four playwrights, five directors, and nine…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:39PMFriday, May 18, 2012
Lorinda Lisitza is amazing. And she was born to sing the songs of Joe Iconis and Robert Maddock, who are pretty darn amazing themselves.
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:57AMMonday, May 14, 2012
Tom Dudzick's lovely and touching comedy, Miracle on South Division Street, focuses on the working-class Nowaks of Buffalo--Clara and her three adult children--a close-knit family who nevert…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:46PMThursday, May 10, 2012
John Jasperse's one-hour dance piece, Fort Blossom Revisited, begins when an attractive, curly-haired, and completely nude white man walks calmly onstage and lies face down, hands at side. H…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:30PMSunday, May 6, 2012
In northern Michigan in 1911, a nun was found murdered. In the early 1970s, playwright Milan Stitt wrote a murder mystery/courtroom drama based on this story and used it to examine love, rel…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:08PMWhile watching the not-particularly-enthralling New Group production of David Rabe's new play, An Early History of Fire, I had to wonder if we really need yet another coming-of-age story in …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:53PMWednesday, May 2, 2012
Today's Tony Award nominations underline that, in its own way, the Fabulous Invalid isn't dead yet, despite its attempts to commit suicide via obscenely high ticket prices. It has recreated …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:36AMRachael Hip-Flores, Isaiah Tanenbaum Photo: Justin HochIn August Schulenburg's wonderful new play, DEINDE, a Flux Theatre Ensemble production, it's 2051, and a virus is decimating the human …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:04AMSunday, April 29, 2012
A Midsummer Night's Dream may be William Shakespeare's most indestructible play. The plot is so solidly silly, the characters' desires and dreams so clearly etched, that the show is always f…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:29PMSaturday, April 28, 2012
In contrast to, for example, Liv Ullman's version of A Streetcar Named Desire (or David Cromer's or Edward Hall's), Emily Mann's version respects and serves the play. It is clear and straigh…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:34PMFriday, April 20, 2012
Really? Clybourne Park? This is the play that won the Pulitzer? That has a good chance at the Tony? That is receiving raves? Really?Let's take the depiction of the deaf character Betsy as a …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:55AM 
