All articles by Elyse Trevers
It had been raining off and on for several days. The air was thick and the sky slightly grey. Yet in the distance, there was a patch of blue. Fingers crossed, we set out for the second Free …
I’ve long been an admirer of playwright Wendy Wasserstein but had never seen her 1997 play An American Daughter. So I looked forward to the recent revival by LaFemme Theatre Productions. A…
For 25 years, Birthright Israel has sent young Jewish adults to Israel to experience the culture and values of the country from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and places in between. For ten days at n…
In 1984, years before she became a one-name star, Whoopi Goldberg wrote and starred in a one-woman show called The Whoopi Monologues. The show and her unique name garnered lots of attention …
photo by joan Marcus While the war in Vietnam raged on, the summer of ‘69 distracted Americans with the Apollo 11 moon landing and walk by Neil Armstrong and later, the joyous gathering of…
No place lends itself better to see Shakespeare’s story of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet than Central Park on a starry night. When Juliet stands on her balcony and the two young lov…
At the final curtain of the revival of Arthur Miller’s classic play Death of a Salesman, Nathan Lane comes out to take a bow. He looks exhausted after giving the 3 hour award-winning perfo…
In Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, the second of August Wilson’s 10 play Century Cycle, all the action occurs in a boarding house run by Seth Holly (Cedric the entertainer) and his wife Bert…
Shows can have ornate settings and special effects like those in this season’s The Lost Boys; now playing at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village, KENREX only uses an open door …
Y You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your neighbors, that is unless you are Elliot Emerson (impressive Richard Thomas,) real estate agent and president of the Vernon Point Homeo…
From show to movie and back to show. The cult 1975 movie Rocky Horror Picture Show is on Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54. Directed by Jim Sharman, the film found its …
It takes a while for the title character to appear in the revival of Gina Gionfriddo’s play Becky Shaw. When Becky does appear, she changes the dynamics of the play. Becky is a catalyst wh…
Is madness inherited? Is genius inherited? Are the two connected? These are some of the questions posed in Proof, David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning play in 2001. When an aging…
I’m a musical theater nerd and love classic Broadway musicals. Even though they may be dated now, I still have an affection for them. So when the television show called Schmigadoon aired i…
What is comedy? Countless books have been written describing, explaining, analyzing and dissecting the genre. Yet we know it when we see it and Fallen Angels, the Noel Coward 1952 comedy of …
Young girls often have BFFs (best friends) with whom they share everything. They swear to be besties forever, and sometimes they actually remain friends over the years. Through school, jobs,…
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13 and one of the vocabulary words prison inmate Nick Yarris learned during the years he was on Death Row. It is also the name of his memoir – T…
From Off-Broadway to the West End to Broadway, the ship Titanique has traveled a long way. The musical parody of James Cameron's epic movie Titanic has delighted its audiences so much that i…
"Cats:The Jellicle Ball" at the Broadhurst Theatre is not your mother's "Cats," the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. In the origina…
In Dog Day Afternoon, playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis has adapted a play from a movie based on an actual event. I knew nothing about the movie except that it starred Al Pacino, and nothing a…
Sometimes an actor gives such a commanding performance that he will always be that character. So it was with John Lithgow portraying Roald Dahl in the Olivier award- winning play Giant, rece…
The play Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) by Anna Ziegler is not the play you and I read in high school. Although the major characters are the same, the play, directed by Tyne Rafa…
In my role as a critic, I see a lot of shows. While I enjoy many of them, I rarely leave planning to buy tickets for my family. However, by the end of Every Brilliant Thing starring Daniel R…
We've all heard of the mythical Bigfoot. He's a huge creature covered in fur and a popular figure in American and Canadian folklore. Now we can see and hear him at New York City Center Stage…
The post Chinese Republicans appeared first on StageBuddy.com.
How do you spell " enjoyable. Definition, please -The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The revival of the musical at New World Stages, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tony awa…
The intimacy of Bug makes the revival of Tracy Lett's play moving and powerful. Waitress Agnes White (Carrie Coon) lives in a seedy Oklahoma motel. Except for a certain amount of clutter, th…
Tartuffe, the womanizing fraud in the eponymous comedy by Molire, is like the man who came to dinner. It's next to impossible to get him to leave. In Moliere's play, Orgon, a wealthy man, is…
When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, just think about June Squibb, the 96 year old actress onstage each night performing 8 shows a week in Marjorie Prime at The Hayes The…
In Sophocles' classic play, Oedipus tries to circumvent the fate the gods have ordained for him. He will kill his father and marry his mother. Tragically, he can't because he has already ful…
The musical Chess premiered in London in 1986 and then on Broadway two years later. Despite its gorgeous score with music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (of ABBA) and Tim R…
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) He's the son of the groom he has never met. She's the sister of the much-younger bride. Together they are the main characters in Two Strangers (C…
Picture a small blonde tornado " bursting with energy and dressed in hot pink wearing high heels. That's Kristen Chenoweth portraying the real-life Jackie Siegel in The Queen of Versailles. …
With only two main characters and a beige couch, Little Bear Ridge Road, a new play by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale and FX's Emmy Award winning show Baskets) depends entirely on language, scr…
This Fall theater season presented two productions dealing with Archduke Ferdinand. At the end of Ragtime, he is assassinated, setting off the war to end all wars. More recently, I saw Archd…
In his 1975 novel Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow offers a panorama of Americana. He uses real-life personalities, including magician Harry Houdini, radical militant Emma Goldman, starlet Evelyn Nesb…
Is it Gah-Doh or GOD-dot? That was my first question upon receiving the invitation to see the revival of Samuel Becket's classic play, "Waiting for Godot." Director Jamie Llloyd opted for th…
Hispanics comprise about 20.0% of the total U.S. making up the largest ethnic minority in the US. Yet, in the new drama "The Other Americans" written by John Leguizamo playing at The Public …
My friend's daughter had a 10 year old named Serena with long curly hair who wore frilly dresses like her older sister. One day she showed up at school with short hair and wearing overalls a…
Years ago the fictional TV journalist Murphy Brown (played by Candy Bergen) showed her contempt for pretentious modern art lovers by sneaking a picture drawn by her toddler onto the wall of …
Rishi Varma, playwright of the new Off-Broadway show "Sulfur Bottom" has an important message to deliver to his viewers. Factories that promised to bring jobs and prosperity to communities a…
What makes you laugh? For me, it's often recognizing a familiar situation that ends with a surprise twist. I wasn't familiar with the work of comedian Jeff Ross, except that he's called "The…
According to magician Jamie Allan in Amaze Magic, New York, his transplanted show from London's West End, there are two types of people when it comes to magic -dreamers and skeptics. I am a …
Four men gather in a small Irish pub. One is the young owner and the other three are regulars with a long history together. Jack (an impressive Dan Butler) regrets choices he made as a young…
JOY A New True Musical The story of Joy Mangano, a single mom from Long Island who through her tenacity and ingenuity, becomes a millionaire, is inspirational. She created household products…
Rolling Thunder :A Rock Journey How do you describe the horrors of war to an audience through the music of its time? Australian journalist and writer Bryce Hallett undertook the difficult ta…
Four privileged young men from an elite school are about to participate in the most important debate of their high school career. They will be competing against the girls from their own scho…
I rarely go to see a show without having a good sense of what it's about. Yet that's exactly what happened recently when I saw the revival of "Heathers The Musical" at New World Stages. I ex…
At the end of Season 4 of "Hacks," there's a rumor that Debra Vance (played by the incredibly funny, talented Jean Smart) is dead. I'm here to report that she isn't dead. In fact, Smart is a…
When we first meet Ralph, the main character in "Angry Alan," the 85 minute play by Penelope Skinner at the intimate Studio Seaview, he isn't angry. Portrayed by John Krasinski who played th…
