All stories by Laura Collins-Hughes on BroadwayStars

Friday, August 31, 2018

Review: Death, Betrayal and Greed in a Gripping ‘Henry VI’ by Laura Collins-Hughes

The National Asian American Theater Company puts on a fast-paced and unusually lucid staging of the bloody history play.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:42PM
Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Review: In ‘1969: The Second Man’ Buzz Aldrin Is an Unhappy Runner-Up by Laura Collins-Hughes

The creators of this folk-rock musical about the second man on the moon want us to sympathize with his emotional wound.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:48PM
Monday, August 27, 2018

Review: ‘Sehnsucht’ Navigates the Inexact Science of Nostalgia by Laura Collins-Hughes

This dementedly daffy piece of fun, from the theater company TV, will give you a warm glow in the fleeting moment it’s here for a brief run.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:18PM
Sunday, August 26, 2018

Review: A Sprawling ‘Days to Come’ Has Everything Except Central Figures by Laura Collins-Hughes

The Mint Theater Company’s revival of Lillian Hellman’s 1936 play is a mishmash of acting styles, tonally uneven and frustratingly unfocused.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:24PM
Wednesday, August 15, 2018

In This ‘Oklahoma!,’ She Loves Her and He Loves Him by Laura Collins-Hughes

A production with same-sex leads is one of many signs that directors are approaching the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic with new eyes.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:48AM
Sunday, August 12, 2018

Review: ‘Pushkin’ Squanders a Russian Poet’s Real-Life Drama by Laura Collins-Hughes

Jonathan Leaf sticks close to historical fact in his ambitious new verse play, but the action in this production always feels removed, like a diorama.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:48PM
Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Review: In ‘The Saintliness of Margery Kempe,’ a Comically Restless Mystic by Laura Collins-Hughes

A play based on a confessional, self-obsessed woman’s memoir — from the 15th century — is back, at the Duke.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:06PM
Monday, July 30, 2018

Critic’s Notebook: After the Play, a Supreme Encore from Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Laura Collins-Hughes

Following “The Originalist,” the judge talked fondly about its subject: her frequent legal sparring partner Antonin Scalia.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PM
Sunday, July 22, 2018

Review: ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ Is a Feast of Pop Nostalgia by Laura Collins-Hughes

But, racing through 40 classic Leiber and Stoller songs in 90 intermission-less minutes, the show only occasionally slows down enough to breathe.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:18PM

Critic’s Notebook: Review: ‘Emojiland’ and a Graceful Elegy at New York Musical Festival by Laura Collins-Hughes

A show set inside a smartphone is silly, yet surprisingly resonant with contemporary politics.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:06PM
Sunday, July 15, 2018

Review: ‘Trainspotting Live’ Has (Gross) Humor but Not Enough Heart by Laura Collins-Hughes

This immersive British import at Roy Arias Stages puts a crusty toilet in the center of the audience, but it lacks the film version’s sense of seamy tragedy.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 08:18PM
Monday, July 9, 2018

Review: ‘Antigone’ Asserts Whose Lives Matter, With Modern Relevance by Laura Collins-Hughes

Defiance and justice drive this brisk staging from the Classical Theater of Harlem, directed by Carl Cofield.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PM
Monday, July 2, 2018

Review: 9 Brave Students and the Shame of ‘Little Rock’ by Laura Collins-Hughes

Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj’s visceral play with music explores an ugly historical chapter in the fight for school integration.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:24PM
Sunday, July 1, 2018

Review: ‘First Love’ for a Couple of a Certain Age by Laura Collins-Hughes

In this Charles Mee play, two sixty-somethings, who have never known true love, find the tender comfort of companionship.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:24PM
Thursday, June 28, 2018

Review: Joyously Rediscovering ‘Songs for a New World’ by Laura Collins-Hughes

There are shows that find their true best form in concert. “Songs for a New World,” which was Jason Robert Brown’s first musical, is one of these.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:32PM
Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Review: In ‘Scissoring,’ Visits From Ghosts of a Closeted Past by Laura Collins-Hughes

Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt are just a few of the apparitions in Christina Quintana’s bittersweet new comedy about a lesbian wrestling with her Catholic upbringing.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:12PM
Sunday, June 24, 2018

Review: In ‘Plano,’ Two Multiplying Husbands Outnumber Three Sisters by Laura Collins-Hughes

The women in Will Arbery’s funny, surreal, ultimately muddled play devote vast emotional acreage to men who don’t return the favor.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:42PM
Monday, June 18, 2018

Falling for the Lure of the Stage. The Backstage. by Laura Collins-Hughes

Natalie Soto and her brother, Christian, joined a training program at Roundabout Theater Company that aims to diversify the ranks of theater workers.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:54PM
Sunday, June 17, 2018

Review: ‘Fruit Trilogy,’ Eve Ensler’s New Show, Brims With Outrage by Laura Collins-Hughes

Certain moments are politically and artistically potent, but most of “Fruit Trilogy,” a program of three short plays, is pervaded by a curious flatness.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:04PM
Wednesday, June 13, 2018

A Broadway Marathon Survival Guide by Laura Collins-Hughes

In the middle of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and “Angels in America” are late-afternoon gaps to fill. We offer some ideas to pass the time.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PM
Tuesday, June 12, 2018

A Play Caught in the Crossfire by Laura Collins-Hughes

Antoinette Nwandu’s “Pass Over” considers the fate of young black men in a gun-torn city. Its first production caused a stir — and won a fan in Spike Lee.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:32PM
Monday, June 11, 2018

Review: ‘Exquisite Agony,’ a Heart-to-Heart With a Dead Man by Laura Collins-Hughes

In Nilo Cruz’s poetic tangle of a play, an opera star finds the recipient of her husband’s heart after he dies in a car accident.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:48PM
Friday, June 8, 2018

Review: Pulled Apart by ‘Love and Intrigue’ by Laura Collins-Hughes

Maly Drama Theater’s spare, subdued — and slow — adaptation finds dreamy lovers split apart by political schemers.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:18PM
Friday, June 1, 2018

the 25 best american plays: The Ones We Left Behind by Ben Brantley, Jesse Green, Laura Collins-Hughes, Alexis Soloski and Elisabeth Vincentelli

Majority rule (mostly). One play per playwright. How we put together the 25 Plays list, and a bid to remember notable writers and favorite works that missed the cut.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:48AM
Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Review: A Bus Crash, a Breakup and More Reverberations in ‘Tremor’ by Laura Collins-Hughes

Brad Birch’s psychological thriller finds former lovers warily circling each other in Wales.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:24PM
Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Review: In ‘Woman and Scarecrow,’ Female Fury Doesn’t Get Its Due by Laura Collins-Hughes

Marina Carr’s blistering play seems ideal for this cathartic cultural moment. Its Irish Repertory Theater production is a missed opportunity.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:12PM
Monday, May 21, 2018

Review: After the Earthquake, a ‘Room’ Haunted by Memories by Laura Collins-Hughes

The aftermath of the Fukushima disaster infiltrates the lives of a young couple in Toshiki Okada’s spare, affecting play

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:32PM
Thursday, May 10, 2018

Review: In ‘The Gentleman Caller,’ a Talky Tennessee Williams by Laura Collins-Hughes

Philip Dawkins’s play blends realism and campy melodrama as it envisions the fumbling beginnings of an affair between Williams and William Inge

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:18PM

Joshua Henry Does Whatever It Takes, in ‘Carousel’ and as a Father by Laura Collins-Hughes

As the first black actor to play Billy Bigelow on Broadway, Mr. Henry is changing theater, while a newborn son is changing him.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:18AM
Thursday, May 3, 2018

Review: ‘Unexpected Joy’ Is a ‘Me’ Generation Musical by Laura Collins-Hughes

The show had its premiere on Cape Cod two summers ago. It has been revised, but it retains its primary strengths and its fatal weaknesses.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:48PM
Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Review: In ‘Assembled Identity,’ They Laugh Alike, They Walk Alike, but They’re Not Twins by Laura Collins-Hughes

Twins who discover they’re far more than sisters are at the center of a high-tech sci-fi drama at Here.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:06PM