Tuesday, June 4, 2019
The Broadway theater season, which ends in late April, culminates with the American Theatre Wing’s Antoinette Perry Awards – the Tonys. For the 2018-19 season 42 nominators considered 34…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 12:24PMThursday, May 30, 2019
A lot of stuff in plays happens offstage. Not just unsavory events, but things that are easier to tell than to show. (The plot of the play reviewed here last week, “Happy Talk,” turns on…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:59PMSunday, May 19, 2019
There is a limit to how much can be revealed about The New Group production of Jesse Eisenberg’s “Happy Talk,” without crossing into spoiler territory. That there are five characters i…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 05:09PMThursday, May 9, 2019
Any time someone appears on stage in tap shoes, I’m all in. Jodi Long brings that footwear and more to “Surfing My DNA,” world-premiering through May 26 at New Jersey Repertory Company…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:07PMSunday, April 28, 2019
Something special is afoot at Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, where Maureen Silliman is embodying Emily Dickinson in “The Belle of Amherst,” William Luce’s one-woman play ab…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 06:28PMMonday, April 22, 2019
Do you read a newspaper? Watch cable news? Discuss politics and world affairs with co-workers or friends (or former ones)? If you answered yes to any of the above, you could surely use an en…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:57PMTuesday, April 16, 2019
[In a departure from my usual content, below is a (lightly edited) re-print of a feature that appeared in The Palm Beach Post on April 1.] After surgery for brai…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 11:47AMWednesday, April 3, 2019
If your attention has wandered during the last third of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” you are not alone, but redemption is at hand. Theatre for a New Audience’s portrayal of the aft…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:32PMTuesday, March 26, 2019
Despite an occasional misfire, tailoring some shows to a performer in a particular role can be a gimme. Dolly Levi and Mama Rose, for example, come with the territory. Lilli Vanessi does not…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 06:13PMTuesday, March 19, 2019
Ever wonder what happens to the inhabitants of Anatevka after they are driven from their village at the end of “Fiddler on the Roof”? We know that some of Tevye’s family will be stayin…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 11:47AMFriday, March 15, 2019
There is some real good acting on display these days at New Jersey Repertory Company. Not only do the three cast members of “The Source,” Jack Canfora’s trippy excursion into the world…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:19PMWednesday, March 6, 2019
Criticizing a play for being too wordy might seem counter-intuitive. Character dialogue, after all, is words. But unlike narrative stories or essays, plays need to balance telling with showi…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 01:36PMThursday, February 28, 2019
I am a charter member of the Spoilers Avoidance Association, but it is impossible to write about “Merrily We Roll Along” without revealing – to those not already aware – that the 198…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 03:32PMWednesday, February 20, 2019
Something funny happened to “The Play That Goes Wrong” on the way from Broadway to off-Broadway. Fear not; everything that was funny during its nearly two-year run in the 922-seat Lyceum…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 03:07PMTuesday, February 12, 2019
My memories of seeing Nina Simone perform in Philadelphia and Atlantic City jazz clubs in the late 1950s/early 60s are soft-focus, because, well, do the math. What does remain sharp, though,…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 03:28PMWednesday, February 6, 2019
To describe a play or musical as ‘dated’ might indicate that the piece is no longer relevant by virtue of evolved social or moral standards. (You won’t see Neil Simon’s play about th…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:15PMTuesday, January 22, 2019
One can imagine the Two River Theater staff meeting to select a catch-phrase for their “Noises Off” advertising campaign. It is fitting that they settled on “One of the funniest plays …
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:23PMWednesday, January 16, 2019
At one point in E. M. Lewis’s “Apple Season” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, one of the play’s several contemporaneous ‘Rolling Premiere’ productions, Lis…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 05:04PMSaturday, January 12, 2019
A couple kissing in front of Macy’s in Herald Square is hardly newsworthy, but one at last year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade actually marked a milestone in live TV – and was also a spoile…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:05PMThursday, December 20, 2018
[Some of what follows was originally posted a few years ago. This holiday season, I invite new readers and returnees to share the memories.] Like many a New York actor back in the day, I dro…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:26PMThursday, December 13, 2018
The term ‘bromance,’ referring to a close, non-sexual relationship between men, had not been coined when French playwright Yasmina Reza wrote “ART” in 1994, but a bromance fuels her …
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 08:41PMWednesday, December 5, 2018
“American Son” premiered in 2016 at Barrington Stage in Massachusetts and was staged at George Street Playhouse in New Jersey in February 2017. In those recent years, its theme of racial…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 12:30AMThursday, November 29, 2018
The musical now officially titled “Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn” is based on the 1942 movie “Holiday Inn,” which was updated on screen as “White Christmas” in 1954, which in tur…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 03:14PMMonday, November 19, 2018
In the play running through December 16 at Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ, a 35-year old African-American woman defends her decision to terminate her pregnancy in an impassioned speech. …
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:01PMMonday, November 12, 2018
With a few minor (and one not-so-minor) modifications, producers Andrew De Prisco and Jess Levy and director/choreographer Al Blackstone have given “Annie” a fresh appearance without sac…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 05:39PMTuesday, November 6, 2018
You are unlikely to ever see the theatrical title “I’m Not a Comedian…I’m Richard Pryor.” Or George Carlin. Or Chris Rock. Or Sarah Silverman. But appending the name Lenny Bruce is…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 12:49PMWednesday, October 31, 2018
It is generally true that the decline into dementia is a gradual process. From early symptoms – forgetting names or dates or where one left the keys – to a failure to connect with the re…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 12:12PMMonday, October 22, 2018
Line readings are a generally under-valued (and under-credited) facet of the actor’s craft. As many times as you see “Hamlet,” for example, is how many different readings of the “To …
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 03:14PMFriday, October 5, 2018
In 2017, Elizabeth Marvel appeared as Marc Antony in the Free Shakespeare in Central Park “Julius Caesar.” In 2018 women are playing Caesar as well as Antony and Cassius at the Stratford…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 04:59PMWednesday, September 26, 2018
While some introductory background is a de facto requirement in a review of the “Phantom” musical that does not append “of the Opera” to its title, be advised upfront that the produc…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:28PMWednesday, September 19, 2018
With eight musicians and a cast of fifteen, “Pamela’s First Musical” is the most elaborate musical produced by Two River Theater Company over its illustrious twenty-five years. The Ste…
Linked From sceneonstage.com at 02:44PM 
