Tuesday, August 14, 2012
The Fringe's "Gay Camp" is an entertaining if erratic romp that's distinguished by the comic agility of its three-person cast juggling multiple roles.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:42AMActor-adapter Lee Meriwether's "The Women of Spoon River," a Fringe entry, focuses on the distaff population of Edgar Lee Masters' epitaphs to vivid effect.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:03AMMonday, August 13, 2012
Josh Billig's "After the Circuit," a Fringe Festival show, is overloaded with backstory as it depicts a vaudevillian's struggles during the Depression.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:03AMSunday, August 12, 2012
Gay actor-author Josh Mesnik's autobiographical Fringe comedy "Have I Got a Girl for You" details his adventures working for a Florida prostitution ring.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:40AM"Danny Visconti Is Hill-bent: My Night With Hillary Clinton," a musical standup act in the Fringe Festival, is too self-consciously outrageous to succeed.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:35AMMario Correa's Fringe concoction "Tail! Spin!" arranges the comments of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Mark Sanford, and Anthony Weiner for big if cynical laughs.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:28AMJeff Seabaugh's inspiring one-man play "We Crazy, Right?," a Fringe Festival entry, tells how he and his husband created a family through adoption.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:21AMThursday, August 9, 2012
Brit helmers Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel have enthrallingly re-imagined Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's "Into the Woods" for Shakespeare in the Park.
SOURCE: Backstage at 09:00AMWednesday, August 8, 2012
"Bullet for Adolf," a two-and-a-half-hour stoner-slacker-dude screwball comedy from first-time playwrights Woody Harrelson and Frankie Hyman, is painful.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMSunday, August 5, 2012
Elizabeth Ashley, Cybill Shepherd, John Stamos, and Kristin Davis join the cast of Michael Wilson's riveting production of "Gore Vidal's The Best Man."
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:00AMWednesday, August 1, 2012
"Bring It On: The Musical," "inspired" by the Universal Pictures' franchise about cheerleaders, is generic but vigorous and aimed squarely at teenage girls.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMThursday, July 26, 2012
"A Letter to Harvey Milk," at NYMF, mixes the Holocaust, political assassination, cute Yiddish humor, and earnest Hallmark sentimentality to queasy effect.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:57AMWednesday, July 25, 2012
"Living With Henry," which comes to NYMF from Canada, is Christopher Wilson's heartfelt attempt to examine his experiences of living with an HIV infection.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:24AMTuesday, July 24, 2012
"Swing State," a NYMF show about the unlikely friendship that arises in Ohio between a gay chiropractor and a born-again kindergarten teacher, is specious.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:48AMSaturday, July 21, 2012
"Monty Clift, the Rarest of Birds," a one-man show in the Fresh Fruit Festival starring its co-writer Omar Prince, has potential but needs more work.
SOURCE: Backstage at 09:26AMFriday, July 20, 2012
Manuel Igrejas' "Miss Mary Dugan," in the Fresh Fruit Festival, is a slight but charming metatheatrical diversion featuring two winning performances.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:31AMWednesday, July 18, 2012
Michael Ogborn's frantic "Baby Case," a New York Musical Theatre Festival entry about the infamous 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping case, trivializes tragedy.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:19AMTuesday, July 17, 2012
"Tiny Bubbles," Richard Willett's new alcoholic comedy from New Directions Theater, raises some interesting questions but seems afraid to explore them.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:59AMMonday, July 16, 2012
Gratifyingly intelligent, richly observant, and immensely enjoyable, the new musical "Dogfight," at Second Stage, directed by Joe Mantello, is a stunner.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMFriday, July 13, 2012
Prospect Theater Company's production of Rob Urbinati's adaptation of Cole Porter's "lost" musical, "Nymph Errant," directed by Will Pomerantz, doesn't fly.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMMonday, July 9, 2012
Alan Cumming's almost one-man "Macbeth," in the Lincoln Center Festival, is undone by its undercooked conceit of being delivered by a psychiatric patient.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:17AMThursday, July 5, 2012
When author-actor Cheryl Howard's "The Sensational Josephine Baker" debuted Off-Off-Broadway in 2010, it had promise, but the right work hasn't been done.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:23AMSunday, June 24, 2012
Jim Henry's "7th Monarch," on Theatre Row, is a mightily stale mystery-thriller with big credibility issues, despite a fine cast including Michael Rupert.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:33AMMonday, June 18, 2012
"Love Goes to Press," the sole play by noted war correspondents Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles, at Mint Theater Company, is an uncertain affair.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:01AMGreg Pierce’s uneven two-hander "Slowgirl" inaugurates Lincoln Center's inviting Claire Tow Theater with a voice that's clearly worth cultivating.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:01AMThursday, June 14, 2012
Director Scott Ellis' production of Mary Chase's classic comedy "Harvey," at Roundabout Theatre Company, starring Jim Parsons, is a hell of a lot of fun.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMWednesday, June 13, 2012
Patti LuPone christens the snazzy new nightclub 54 Below with an evening of songs structured loosely on the idea of travel, and the result is magic.
SOURCE: Backstage at 10:00AMTuesday, June 12, 2012
Playwrights Horizons has another winner with Gina Gionfriddo's "Rapture, Blister, Burn," a caustic and moving examination of the state of feminism today.
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMThursday, June 7, 2012
Kenneth Lonergan’s thudding comedy “Medieval Play,” at Signature Theatre, wastes the talents of Josh Hamilton, Tate Donovan, Halley Feiffer, and more.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:30AMThursday, May 10, 2012
Encores! fizzy concert staging of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” is enjoyable, with an efficiently professional turn from Megan Hilty as the iconic Lorelei Lee.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:13AMSunday, May 6, 2012
This 92nd Street Y Lyrics & Lyricists series look at Noël Coward and Cole Porter is undercooked, faring best when Edward Hibbert and Harriet Harris perform.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:35AM 
