The Cherry Orchard
The production by Adult Film, in association with BKE Productions, incorporates a multimedia approach to telling the story, based on a translation and adaptation by John Christopher Jones, w…
The production by Adult Film, in association with BKE Productions, incorporates a multimedia approach to telling the story, based on a translation and adaptation by John Christopher Jones, w…
"Blood Orange" by Abigail Duclos is a play dealing with the ultimate consequences of trauma in the lives of two adolescent girls, with a third acting as a contrast. Vernice Miller skillfully…
The background on the story indicates that "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain was an inspiration for the story, but the only connections to that book seem to be the idea of t…
An element of the story is the behavior of the English noblemen. They switch allegiances depending on the behavior of either King John or King Philip II. It is not easy to follow these shift…
The two characters at the center of the story are Owen (D.B. Milliken) and Jaki (Mia Sinclair Jenness). Owen is a man in his late 20s who works as the roadkill collector in a rural county in…
While the ensemble is solid in their portrayals of the characters, the play lacks a clear dramatic line regarding the main point of the story. Bossert's portrayal of Disney and his emotional…
The show deals with the emotional impact of their not being able to have children after a series of miscarriages, and finally leading to the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. Gitter adds emotiona…
"Open" is an award-winning love story by Crystal Skillman that uses magic as the emotional hook, taking an audience on a journey through the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the challen…
The idea presented in this prologue is that Holder, after 20 years in his theatrical life, has reached a dead end in his interest in playwriting. He is looking for something to re-energize h…
A famous line from the John Ford film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is spoken by the newspaper reporter character, Maxwell Scott, near the end of the film, after hearing the true story …
"A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First" is a gem of a play written, directed, and performed by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland. This two-hander makes a connection betw…
Manuel Ortiz's masterful play "Manifest Destiny" lays bare the complicity of the United States in the overthrow of the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende and the authoritarian repression…
Wolf's direction skillfully manages the emotional tension to maintain the horror element of the story while also paying homage to B-movie scare tactics and tropes. Mulligan uses a device bet…
A scene from the Epic Players' production of Flaherty and Ahrens' musical "Seussical" at the Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres (Photo credit: Zui Gomez) A man of whimsy on a path…
"The United States vs Ulysses" by Colin Murphy is a multi-layered play about a seminal case concerning censorship in publishing. The story is set in 1933 in the studios of the CBS radio show…
The play is a nicely developing mystery fantasy story about the paranormal, but when the teenage boy is revealed as the Spirit Child, the show goes off track. The idea presented is that the …
Clarke's direction is uneven, giving the show a rehearsal or community theater vibe. The narrative line is unclear as to whether the main characters are real or a hallucination of one of the…
"minor'ity" is a wonder of a play written by francisca da silveira and skillfully directed by Shariffa Ali telling a tale of clashing artistic egos encompassing issues of Black identity, cul…
Although there are humorous moments, the production doesn't work for various reasons, including characterizations and technical issues with sound reproduction. None of the eight songs are me…
Jack Serio directs a strong cast of seasoned actors whose personal chemistry gives the ensemble a solidly believable portrayal of their characters. Juan Castano is Edwin, a mid-30s man marri…
"Remembrance" by Patricia GoodSon is a story about her journey, for more than a decade, in dealing with her mother's Alzheimer's disease. As directed by Joan Kane, it is told from the perspe…
"Maybe Tomorrow," written by Max Mondi and directed by Chad Austin, is a play about such a place and the person who created it. Inspired by a true story, Austin directs a cast of two in an e…
The scene with Adam and Eve establishes the structure for the show, with each of the ensuing vignettes being conducted in a call-and-response format. The second explores a list of rules esta…
It is essential for the audience to become fully engaged with the story and to care about the characters. When that does not happen, the show falls flat. While Homeyer and McGrath make an ef…
"Wounded," written by Jiggs Burgess, is a story using a cloak of humor to obscure the pain and dark feelings being hidden by the protagonists. Although referred to as a comedy or dark comedy…
"Avalona, A Musical Legend," created by Dina Fanai, with music and lyrics, is a concept album with elements of modern opera. While not a musical in the usual sense of that form, it fits in a…
Urban Stages conducted a Dynamic Duos playwriting competition for one-act, two-character stories covering any subject during their 2023-24 season. Eight plays out of over three hundred submi…
"Safe House" is an amorphous mosaic of sight and sound just out of reach of being any one thing. It is at once a song cycle, memory play, comedy, tragedy, a visual and aural potpourri of sen…
Doyle's storytelling skillfully blends didactic commentary with humorous anecdotes, holding the audience's attention throughout and resulting in a thoroughly satisfying evening of entertainm…
"Night Sings Its Songs" by Norwegian author Jon Fosse (pronounced FAH-suh), the 2023 Nobel Prize-winning playwright, explores alienation and emotional disconnection by a couple in a dysfunct…
In reading the script, I didn't see how the story made any sense or could have been given a reasonable life on stage. I was very wrong on both scores. The four actors of the ensemble breathe…
The modern verse translation reasonably maintains a semblance of the Elizabethan iambic pentameter form supported by the ensemble's solid delivery of the lines. People familiar with Elizabet…
"Sheltered" by Cate Wiley is a story about what it is to be a homeless woman in a city in the United States. As directed by Liz Peterson, this play tells the stories of these women trapped b…
"January" presents a story about the emotional impact of the killing of one child by another by weaving together the thoughts and actions of the two single mothers involved and how the natio…
Charlotte Bennett directs an exquisite cast of three in an exploration of these themes. Nicole Sawyerr solidly leads the ensemble in the lead role of Abigail Waller, a working-class playwrig…
There are a number of problems with these vignettes, ranging from the individual characterizations of the men involved to the superficial nature of the historical details of the events being…
Sarah Blush directs a cast of five in the story of a father and daughter on a road trip from New York City to a storage unit in California. It is a trip that is both se in the present and pa…
"Welcome to The Big Dipper" is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Jimmy Roberts and a book by Catherine Filloux and John Daggett (inspired by the play "All Dressed Up and Nowhere to G…
"Woman on a Ledge" is an adaptation by Hershey Felder of harpist Rita Costanzi's writings about her life. Ms. Costanzi is a world-renowned harpist whose life experiences have been woven into…
Ako's portrayal of Izumo no Okuni combines traditional Japanese dance movements with Western-style acting. The nature of the script limits the impact of her performance. The dialogue is simp…
"Café Utopia" by Gwen Kingston and directed by Ashley Olive Teague tells the tale of a juice bar that, on the surface, appears to be socially progressive, but behind the scenes, is a differ…
Haller has created a world where robots have conquered all of humanity through the ability to copy, with precision, the technical aspects of a functional society. The lack of understanding o…
Fisher directs a solid ensemble through a production of "Medea" that is a spoof of a college production with a gay man in the role of Jason and a feminist as Medea. It takes place from the l…
"Rawshock" is a powerful, insightful, compelling play that lays bare the craven manipulation of corporate healthcare in the name of profits. It is beautifully written by Rita Lewis and super…
The story weaves together the group's history with flashbacks to their childhood, high school years, and a time immediately after college. It is a show that tries to cover too much territory…
Welcome to 'Lakeplay," a character study-play written by Drew Valins and directed by Hamilton Clancy. It is billed as "a terrifying adventure" but does not live up to that description. There…
"Dickhead," written by Gil Kofman and directed by Richard Caliban, is a story about the patriarch of a dysfunctional family in the midst of a near-total disintegration. The action is centere…
"Honor," a one-act play, written and superbly directed by T.J. Elliott, explores the conceptual nuances of "honor" within the context of a corporate investigation into a case of harassment a…
This adaptation, directed by John Hickok, uses the Fitzgerald story as a counterpoint to a tale of a couple caught in the legal vagaries of the United States and Canadian immigration laws. T…
"In Search of Elaina" is a story by Kara Ayn Napolitano that digs into the weeds of a remembered past. It explores what happens when the life left behind catches up and crashes into the care…