Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Seth Rudetsky and Jack Plotnik's disaster-movie spoof wrapped in a '70s songbook is amusing in a cheap way and helped immeasurably by a large, gifted cast.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:19AMSaturday, January 7, 2012
Ken Simon's adaptation of Evelyn Piper's novel is an awkward mix of incompatible media, a long evening even at a little more than an hour.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:51AMSunday, December 11, 2011
A fun Summer of Love nostalgia fest and a labored metatheatrical present-day whimsy constitute Michael Weller's one-acts, which are sometimes amusing but always lightweight.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:13AMSunday, December 4, 2011
Kaufman and Hart's satire of celebrity and self-reinvention still amuses, but Jim Brochu's blustery Sheridan Whiteside doesn't reverberate as fully as one would like.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:56AMWednesday, November 9, 2011
Milan Stitt's dimly remembered 1970s success is historical drama, courtroom nail-biter, whodunit, and religious meditation rolled into one, and Retro Productions mostly does it proud.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:28AMSunday, November 6, 2011
Elaine Jackson's two-hander about white and black disaffected youth suffers from uneven and often unclear writing, but while Yasha Jackson struts the stage, you're riveted.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:00AMWednesday, October 12, 2011
Tor Hyams' and Adam LeBow's musical about a reunion at a musical theater camp plays by the rules and does everything competently, but without excitement or individuality.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:46AMMonday, October 10, 2011
T. Sivak and E. Gelman's riffing on a 1962 bad-movie classic is mostly bad puns and feeble joking, partly redeemed by well-crafted music and an excellent cast.
SOURCE: Backstage at 04:04AMMonday, October 3, 2011
Aron Eli Coleite's dramedy about psychiatrists and how they affect their families is smart and perceptive, but also heavy and frustratingly unresolved.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:36AMSaturday, October 1, 2011
A couple of flaws aside, the Seligmann Brothers' corporate satire is big old-fashioned musical-comedy fun, with Klea Blackhurst a top banana for the ages.
SOURCE: Backstage at 09:00AMFriday, September 30, 2011
Drew Gasparini and Louis Sacco's bromance musical has fine moments, provided mainly by Andy Mientus and Andrew Kober, but it's severely credibility-straining and weighted with a so-so scor…
SOURCE: Backstage at 01:48AMSaturday, September 17, 2011
Christopher Kipiniak is still excellent, but C.S. Hanson's extension of a one-act about a Russian emigrant investor traffics in needless detail and wild coincidence.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:00AMMonday, August 22, 2011
Andrew Belcher's scattered satire of immigration law, government inefficiency, and much else lacks clarity, humor, resolution, and anyone on stage to root for.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:19AMBrian C. Petti's Irish drama is an ungimmicky, affecting exploration of a sad chapter in his family's history that avoids clichés as it keeps us pulling for its likable hero.
SOURCE: Backstage at 02:54AMThursday, July 21, 2011
This whirlwind musical tour through Wonderland, while not particularly well-wrought, does convey a childlike wonder and benefits from an imaginative small-scale staging and short running t…
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:05AMFriday, June 10, 2011
An often lovely score gives Joshua Salzman and Ryan Cunningham's extremely generic, haphazardly structured musical about 20-somethings in Manhattan what individuality it has.
SOURCE: Backstage at 03:20AMWednesday, May 18, 2011
This new Antony and Cleopatra musical comedy wants to be a burlesque laughfest in the style of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," but it's deficient in pretty much every dep…
SOURCE: Backstage at 08:00AMTuesday, May 10, 2011
Overacting and a too-frantic pace do not entirely obscure the charms of Norman Krasna's smart, easygoing World War II comedy.
SOURCE: Backstage at 06:01AMSunday, April 10, 2011
Maxwell Anderson's classic look at evil veiled by innocence needs better production values and a more calculating murderess, but it's an enjoyable old-fashioned well-made play.
SOURCE: Backstage at 07:02AM 
