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Tuesday, February 1, 2022

'MJ' Review: Michael Jackson Musical Won't Look in the Mirror by Jesse Green

A new jukebox musical tells the story of Michael Jackson. Except for the big story.

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Monday, January 31, 2022

Review: In 'Intimate Apparel,' Letting the Seamstress Sing by Jesse Green

Lynn Nottage's play about a Black woman in 1905 becomes an opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon, that forefronts voices ignored by history.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:06PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Review: In 'Skeleton Crew,' Making Quick Work of Hard Labor by Jesse Green

Dominique Morisseau's 2016 play, now on Broadway, is a swift, well-crafted look at factory workers trapped in an economic "dumpster fire."

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:33PM[SHARE]

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

Review: A Shorter 'Long Day's Journey,' Now With N95s by Jesse Green

The Eugene O'Neill classic, set in 1912, is just as powerful in Robert O'Hara's revival, set in our own age of disease and lockdown.

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Monday, January 17, 2022

In a Double Bill, the Avant-Garde Meets a Very Good Girl by Jesse Green

Excellent performances, including one by a well-behaved dog, warm up two experimental plays upstate.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

'Intelligent Life' Review: Cecily Strong's 'Awerobics' Workout by Jesse Green

Taking Lily Tomlin's roles in a revival of Jane Wagner's metaphysical comedy, the "Saturday Night Live" star is put through her paces.

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Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Welcoming Back Live Theater Doesn't Mean Agreeing About All of It by Jesse Green and Maya Phillips

Two critics on the joys (and pains) of a tentatively hopeful fall season.

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Thursday, December 30, 2021

On Broadway Stages, the Beautiful Rooms Are Empty by Jesse Green

In recent musicals, hyperdesign is outstripping writing and direction for clarity, expressiveness and excitement.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:36AM[SHARE]

Monday, December 13, 2021

Review: In 'Flying Over Sunset,' Getting High With the Stars by Jesse Green

A new musical imagines the all-singing, all-dancing LSD trips of Aldous Huxley, Clare Boothe Luce and Cary Grant.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:12PM[SHARE]

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Review: In a Gender-Flipped Revival, 'Company' Loves Misery by Jesse Green

Bobby is now Bobbie in this confusing, sour remake of the 1970 musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

'Kimberly Akimbo' Review: What's an Anagram for 'Wonderful'? by Jesse Green

Victoria Clark stars in a playful yet powerful musical about a girl who is aging too fast among adults who behave like children.

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Friday, December 3, 2021

Best Theater of 2021 by Jesse Green, Maya Phillips, Laura Collins-Hughes, Scott Heller, Alexis Soloski and Elisabeth Vincentelli

Digital innovation continued this year, but experiencing plays in isolation grew tiring. Then came an in-person season as exciting as a child's first fireworks.

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Friday, November 26, 2021

Stephen Sondheim: The Essential Musical Dramatist Who Taught Us to Hear by Jesse Green

With a childlike sense of discovery, Stephen Sondheim found the language to convey the beauty in harsh complexity.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

'Clyde's' Review: Sometimes a Hero Is More Than Just a Sandwich by Jesse Green

In Lynn Nottage's bright new comedy, cooks at a greasy spoon dream of remaking the menu " and their lives.

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Thursday, November 18, 2021

Review: 'Trouble in Mind,' 66 Years Late and Still On Time by Jesse Green

Alice Childress's 1955 play about power and race in the theater is a satire and a tragedy that deserves to be a classic.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:32PM[SHARE]

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

'Diana, the Musical' Review: Exploiting the People's Princess by Jesse Green

The tabloid press and the monarchy used the Princess of Wales for their own purposes, and now a new Broadway show does the same.

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Thursday, November 11, 2021

Review: In 'Nollywood Dreams,' a Star and an Industry Are Born by Jesse Green

Jocelyn Bioh's new comedy about making movies in Nigeria throws some side-eye on Hollywood as well.

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Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Review: 'Trevor' Is a Musical That Dare Not Speak Its Theme by Jesse Green

In this bizarrely cheery adaptation of the Academy Award-winning film, suicide among young gay people proves difficult to sing about.

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Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Review: Edie Falco Shines as an Everywoman in 'Morning Sun' by Jesse Green

A new play by Simon Stephens has hearty performances but a nearly undetectable pulse.

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Monday, November 1, 2021

Review: Embodying Justice in 'Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992' by Jesse Green

Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman play about the aftermath of the Rodney King case gets a cast of five in an updated Off Broadway revival.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Review: 'Caroline, or Change' Makes History's Heartbreak Sing by Jesse Green

An electrifying revival of the 2003 musical, featuring a titanic performance by Sharon D Clarke, follows the money to the source of American inequality.

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Sunday, October 24, 2021

Review: In 'Fairycakes,' the Woods Are Campy, Dark and Daft by Jesse Green

Douglas Carter Beane's winky fantasia finds Pinocchio, Puck and other unlikely characters meeting cute in a storybook setting.

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Sunday, October 17, 2021

Review: In the Disturbing 'Dana H.,' Whose Voice Is It Anyway? by Jesse Green

Deirdre O'Connell brilliantly lip-syncs the testimony of a woman abducted by a white supremacist in a play by Lucas Hnath.

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Monday, October 11, 2021

'Is This a Room' Review: A Transcript Becomes a Thrilling Thriller by Jesse Green

Beneath the dry words of an F.B.I. interview, a new play unearths a world of interior terror.

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Sunday, October 10, 2021

Review: In 'Chicken & Biscuits,' a Sweet but Dated Comedic Recipe by Jesse Green

Squabbling siblings, familiar stereotypes and a chorus of amens: A new play aims for the pleasures of Broadway's traditional family sitcoms.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:18PM[SHARE]

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Review: In 'Six,' All the Tudor Ladies Got Talent by Jesse Green

The exuberant queenhood-is-powerful pageant about the wives of Henry VIII was shut down on opening night by the pandemic. Now it's back, and it totally rules.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Review: Tracy Letts Brings Out the Long Knives in Short Plays by Jesse Green

It takes 15 minutes or less in each segment of "Three Short Plays by Tracy Letts" for the bard of male moral decrepitude to skewer his subjects.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:54PM[SHARE]

Monday, September 27, 2021

For a Broadway Torn by a Pandemic, a Split-Personalities Tonys by Jesse Green, Elisabeth Vincentelli and James Poniewozik

The streaming part of the ceremony actually did a better job conveying the electricity of being in a theater than the CBS special billed as "Broadway's Back!"

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:18PM[SHARE]