Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Gabe McKinley's thinly veiled fictionalization of the 2003 Jayson Blair journalism scandal rarely dips beneath the surface, playing more like an extended TV-drama episode than a thoughtful…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:50AMMonday, February 13, 2012
Despite a top director, a talented cast, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning script, this new production of Paula Vogel's 1997 drama never slips satisfyingly into gear.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:11AMSunday, February 12, 2012
Author-composer Eric Shorr's artistic reach falls considerably short of his grasp in this thinly written, musically derivative, and ultimately dramatically preposterous new culture-clash m…
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:05AMThursday, February 9, 2012
Adapter-director James Lapine's brilliant staging of this formerly problematic musical is quite simply one of the finest evenings of musical theater I have encountered. This "Merrily" is m…
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:27AMTuesday, February 7, 2012
Director Elizabeth Lucas has tried to turn Adam Guettel's 1998 song cycle into a musical by adding a narrative, but her ambitious and undeniably inventive attempt is not theatrically satis…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMMarius von Mayenburg's sharp satire on the nature of identity and the inescapable human bent for conformity is a wicked piece of japery that elegantly makes its points in one breezy hour.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMThursday, February 2, 2012
John Osborne's 1956 play, with its famous angry-young-man protagonist, is unquestionably a landmark work, having upended the dominance of genteel English drawing-room drama. That doesn't n…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMJohn Osborne's 1956 play, with its famous angry-young-man protagonist, is unquestionably a landmark work, having upended the dominance of genteel English drawing-room drama. That doesn't n…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMSunday, January 29, 2012
David Sisco's genial divertissement about two 30-something gay friends in Manhattan is both an acting showcase and a fun night out that even manages some unexpected poignancy and depth.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:44AMThursday, January 26, 2012
Under Pedro Pascal's studied, overly deliberate direction, Daniel Talbott's opaque play keeps its audience at such arm's length that we finally throw ours up in exasperation.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMWednesday, January 25, 2012
The celebrated English pop singer and actor is making her first NYC nightclub appearance since 1970. Still in superb physical and vocal shape, she delivers an unmissable evening of great s…
SOURCE: Backstage at 10:32AMSaturday, January 21, 2012
Darlene Craviotto's 1982 play is a preposterous concoction, so synthetic and phony that it makes "Three's Company" look like Molière, and Joan Kane's blaring direction doesn't mitigat…
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:28AMTuesday, January 17, 2012
Despite sterling performances from Carla Gugino, Jim Dale, and the luminous Rosemary Harris, Athol Fugard's 1984 drama has trouble punching its way across the footlights in the too-large A…
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMThursday, January 12, 2012
This romanticized, politically correct revision of George Gershwin's landmark opera attempts to turn it into a Broadway musical but only succeeds in significantly cheapening it.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMThis romanticized, politically correct revision of George Gershwin's landmark opera attempts to turn it into a Broadway musical but only succeeds in significantly cheapening it.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMTuesday, January 10, 2012
This avant-garde musical criticizing American capitalism comes into town trailing European praise and awards, but it's an awfully obvious and naive work that's no match for the voraciousne…
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMThursday, January 5, 2012
Catherine Trieschmann's new three-person drama hides behind a smokescreen of talk about the conflict between science and religion and suffers from blankly written characters far too remini…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMMonday, December 19, 2011
Though perfectly professional and generally well acted, Grant James Varjas' new play brings nothing new to either of the genres it occupies: the alcohol-soaked-group-in-a-bar drama and the…
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMSunday, December 18, 2011
Two fine actors bailing as hard as they can aren't able to keep Robert Farquhar's awkward two-hander, detailing a disastrous weekend fling, from sinking with all hands on board.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMThursday, December 15, 2011
Robert Brustein's 1994 musical adaptation of a 1974 Isaac Bashevis Singer play could be shorter and tighter, but it's still a quiet charmer well-suited to the holiday season.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMTuesday, December 13, 2011
This largely charming and touching 70-minute two-person stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's sequel to "War Horse" nevertheless doesn't transcend its origins as a children's novel.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMSunday, December 11, 2011
Director Michael Mayer's reconception of Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane's problematic 1965 musical comedy is a depressing misfire, starring a distinctly ill-at-ease Harry Connick Jr.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMThursday, December 8, 2011
Lydia R. Diamond's "comedy of manners" is not a good play, but it is an entertaining one, an exuberant work that will likely prove an audience pleaser.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMWednesday, December 7, 2011
Alan Ayckbourn is back in top form with this dryly hilarious comedy about vigilantism led by the brilliant Alexandra Mathie, a comic goddess if ever there was one.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:41AMSunday, December 4, 2011
Marc Castle's straightforward comedy-drama about a group of gay male friends living in Manhattan from 1977 to 1987 feels like one of those interchangeable TLA Video gay indie releases.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:20AMFriday, December 2, 2011
Playwright David Adjmi gives new meaning to the term "parlor trick" with this site-specifically staged 20-minute monologue, which the slyly insinuating Zoe Caldwell delivers superbly.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:59AMThursday, December 1, 2011
Whatever made Bonnie and Clyde special is missing from this sentimental musical, as are sufficient character development, adequate dramatic thrust, and any kind of subtext.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMWednesday, November 23, 2011
It's hard to believe that such an iconic American title hasn't had a New York staging since 1927, but Metropolitan Playhouse's sturdy production demonstrates the play's continued relevance.
SOURCE: Backstage at 01:47AMTuesday, November 22, 2011
Thomas Higgins' naive and glib comedy-drama about a sexually confused Boy Scout suggests that Higgins would be more at home on the small screen than in a small theater.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:17AMMonday, November 21, 2011
Playwright J.T. Rogers takes a bracing, multisided look at how America came to be mired in a war against fundamentalism in Afghanistan in this gripping and absorbing drama.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMSaturday, November 19, 2011
More than just a joyous musical revue, "Cotton Club Parade" is permeated with a sense of legacy, of hometown performers honoring a fabulous past while creating their own ecstatic present.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:19AM 
