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Don’t believe all you hear: Damien Warren-Smith appearing as his alter ego Garry Starr in Classic Penguins is entirely in the nude. However, all the ads say he covers all 1,000+ Penguin pa…
Damon Horowitz as Hamlet Guide with Truman Gaudoin as Guildenkranz, Desirée Baxter as Gertrude, Jim Pratzon as Polonius and Tyler Moss as Horatio in a scene from The Directors Company prese…
This year’s Public Works’ production of "Public Record" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park is a tribute and celebration to New York and the people who live in all five boroughs, wi…
Not only is L. B. Browne’s play "Safe House" a very accomplished dramatic work, it also manages to be a play for our time including many of the themes of our daily life. Director Benjamin …
There is something wonderfully perverse about naming two sisters Kate and Bianca after the heroines of Shakespeare’s "The Taming of the Shrew" and then setting them loose in the 21st centu…
At A.R.T./New York Theatres, Smoking Mirror Theatre Company’s production of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," running through September 13th, offers the kind of theatrical esc…
The ability to see all five rooms in the house is par of the fun as you will find yourself constantly looking around to see where the next shock will occur from illusions designer Chris Fish…
Currently to be seen at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater, adaptor/director Laura Strausfeld has renamed her production "The Real Ivanov," a streamlined version which “preserves almost every li…
Sidney Hatcher, Wadiah Waliah and Benjamin C. Rowe in a scene from Terence Anthony’s “The House of the Negro Insane” at 59E59 Theaters (Photo credit: Steven Anderson) Terence Anthony�…
If Kelly can pare away the exposition, substantially tighten the second act, eliminate the extraneous political rhetoric, deepen the comedy through character rather than topical jokes, and g…
In benevolent, Sophie McIntosh turns a basement laundry room into a small theater of female confinement, where the dirty linens of respectable New York become both literal evidence and metap…
The directing is weaker than it could’ve been. The blocking is quite flat, even when it does make full use of the space. In particular, the restaurant scenes, meant to be so busy and manic…
"Isla," the new musical-theater piece from Hit the Lights! Company now at WP Theater, is one of those productions in which the eye is continually rewarded while the mind is left waiting for …
At first mention, a young woman suffering a stroke does not sound like a promising premise for a comedy, much less a musical comedy. It suggests frantic texts to a medically literate friend,…
In "An American Daughter," Wendy Wasserstein approaches a topic still relevant: how American women in public life are expected to be perfect in all things while the men are given a pass for …
Revivals today tend to come in several similar varieties: rewritten updates by famous contemporary playwrights, director projects that have high concepts, and entirely new plays inspired by …
John Donnelly’s "The Pass," which arrived at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2014 and now makes its American premiere at La MaMa, is the sort of play whose subject seems almost unnerving…
George's accomplishment lies in recognizing that public catastrophes reverberate far beyond the headlines. His protagonists are not heroes in any conventional sense but three hourly employee…
Melissa Maney’s "Hungry Women" has a fascinating premise: what would the world be like if there were no men? Obviously, things would be different, but would they be any better? However, th…
Famous pianist Hershey Felder has toured the world with his many shows about legendary composers from Chopin and Tchaikovsky to Gershwin and Irving Berlin giving over 6,000 performances. Now…
"The Saviors," Bubba Weiler’s second play to be produced in New York in the past year is a coming-of-age play about how to live your life as well as loss of faith. All of its four characte…
Feminism did not start in the 20th century. Three-times Grammy winner country singer-songwriter Jennifer Nettles has written an exciting new musical (book, music and lyrics!) inspired by the…
Kecia Lewis as Lurleen (foreground) and the cast of Whoopi Goldberg’s “The Whoopi Monologues” at the Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center Theater (Photo credit: Angela Marie Orellana) N…
Christopher Ryan directs with remarkable confidence in the material's stillness. Presented upstairs at Quick Eternity, a cocktail bar tucked into the Seaport, the production dissolves the cu…
Giovanna Yang as Despina, Lina Chung as Fiordiligi, Ricardo Diaz as Ferrando, Young Kwang Yoo as Guglielmo, Mairin Srygley as Dorabella and Nicola Ziccardi as Don Alfonso in a scene from T…
Don’t attend the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s new opera version of William Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" expecting to recognize the text or the characters. Both the libretto by Eve …
Matthew Leavitt’s "Sukkot" begins with a deceptively simple premise: a grieving widower builds a sukkah because he believes it is the closest remaining path to his late wife. From that pre…
In its second producing year, Ensemble Shakespeare Company is offering a fine staging of "Julius Caesar" with some debatable casting choices. As directed by Dylan Diehl, the use of theater i…
What ultimately distinguishes this production is its refusal to flatten Shakespeare into a contemporary thesis. It neither apologizes for the play's misogyny nor sensationalizes it. Instead,…
Eric Bentley’s 1972 docudrama "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" is a powerful play based on the original testimony of the artists, writers and performers who were called to testify befor…
Although the three plays have been reduced to two and many of the actors appeared previously in the 2018 production, Henry VI is still challenging for audiences unfamiliar with the Hundred Y…
César Alvarez's "The Potluck," directed with uncommon daring by Sarah Benson, is that increasingly rare theatrical achievement: a musical willing to risk confusion, contradiction, and forma…
The script from Marlin ("Shot List" at Baryshnikov Arts Center; "How to Mourn the Dead: a tragedy (in flux)" at Montclair New Works Initiative) is shaky at times but undeniably has some grea…
In the hands of avant garde director Daniel Fish, the world premiere of Courtney Bryan’s first opera "Suddenly Last Summer" derived from the one-act play by Tennessee Williams is more a pe…
Pamela Gray--an insightful writer with a terrific ear for dialogue--has turned her 1999 motion picture, "A Walk on the Moon," into a new musical with a knockout cast. The score is uneven,…
John S. Anastasi’s "Pied À Terre" is one of those small cast dramas with a lot of secrets to unload. Unfortunately, director Mitch Poulos has staged the play at so slow a pace that it see…
The new musical "A Walk on the Moon" by original screenwriter Pamela Gray and composer and lyricist AnnMarie Milazzo is pleasant but innocuous. Based on the hit 1999 movie set during the sum…
In the past year, Ethan Mathias has won one award and honor after another, from the Broadwayworld Award to the MAC Award, to first-place honors at the NATS. To learn more about this rising …
Dr. Arthur Benjamin is a charming, genial “math-e-magician” and professor of mathematics. Presented by Science Theater Company in association with the National Museum of Mathematics (MoM…
A theatrical audition has always carried the faint aura of ritual: a small room, a handful of strangers vested with authority, and an actor asked to compress talent, vulnerability, and despe…
Under Claudel’s direction, the four actresses are totally believable as teenage girls circa 2014, with Yoo’s Mal giving the most layered and mysterious performance. (Yoo had her big brea…
Walsh has long been fascinated by characters imprisoned within the architecture of their own memories, people condemned to relive the past not because they have forgotten it, but because the…
What emerges over time is not merely a friendship but one of the most intricate love stories currently playing in New York. Ari and Brit have been entwined since birth, neighbors in a traile…
Few musicals occupy quite the same place in the American theatrical imagination as "La Cage aux Folles." Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s 1983 landmark arrived disguised as an old-fashi…
Montaro’s career as an actor allows him to create a different voice and stance for each jockey, trainer and owner that he describes. That is enhanced by the atmospheric sound design by Bri…
June designated as Pride Month is a time when a great many plays and entertainments are geared specifically for the gay community. The latest is Mickey Gooch, Jr.’s "Silverback Mountain," …
Associate artistic director/resident director Saheem Ali of The Public Theater believes in updating Shakespeare in ways that modern audiences can identify with. His latest production of "Rom…
John J. Caswell’s "Jerome" is a lovely low-key play about a love, loss and illness. However, Dustin Willis who also directed Caswell’s "Wet Brain" at Playwrights Horizons never really le…
Throughout, Rice and Roland demonstrate extraordinary command of tone. They move effortlessly from slapstick to philosophical inquiry, from broad clowning to moments of startling vulnerabili…
Helen Banner’s "In the Devil’s Hands," receiving its haunting world premiere at Zoopraxic’s newly opened Long Island City performance space, is one of those rare theatrical experiences…
