Tuesday, April 26, 2016
While many of the scenes are right on target, others seem too metaphoric and anarchic to make much impression, while others take on too many targets to make their point. The best ones deal w…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:52PMThursday, April 21, 2016
You might wonder why Morag, Fiona’s mother, in Sharman Macdonald’s groundbreaking Scottish play, "When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout," is so repressive about sex. What the prog…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:45PMWednesday, April 20, 2016
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s "King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings" is a magnificent achievement and a fitting tribute in this 400th anniversary of the bard’s death.…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:02PMVan Hove sets his version in a modern classroom. When the curtain goes up we first see the girls who will later accuse various people in Salem, Massachusetts, of having bewitched them, seate…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:10PMMonday, April 18, 2016
Florian Zeller is the most famous French playwright you probably never heard of. He won France’s highest theatrical honor, the Moliere Award, in 2011 for his play, "The Mother," and the Mo…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:35PMThursday, April 14, 2016
The problem with the staging begins from the outset. Daniels' Ray, tense and rigid, pushes demanding, triumphant Una into a corporate break room. He is upset to see her, and she is all confi…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:22PMTuesday, April 12, 2016
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s "Head of Passes" is an advance over his earlier work seen in New York ("The Brother/Sister Plays," "Wig Out," "Choir Boy") in its attempt to take on bigger themes a…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:45PMFriday, April 8, 2016
"The Effect" investigates the emotional, physical and ethical effects of drug testing, certainly a hot button issue in our time when we have come to expect a pill to solve all of our problem…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:29PM"Wonderful Town" is one of those musical comedies which seem to get better as they age due in this case to the classic quality of the Bernstein/ Comden & Green score and the witty book …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:55PMSunday, April 3, 2016
Thomas Kail (one of the geniuses behind Hamilton) has staged the world premiere of Sarah Burgess’ riveting "Dry Powder" in as cool a fashion as Rachel Hauck’s cobalt blue set with its cu…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:55PMFriday, April 1, 2016
Posner has turned Chekhov’s four-act play into two-part meta-theater: not only do the actors acknowledge the audience and solicit our participation, but they each have a monologue addresse…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:35PMThursday, March 31, 2016
In the hands of someone other than Timothy Olyphant, Strings McCabe might be a self-pitying monster too extreme to take seriously. However, this brilliantly accomplished actor has just the r…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:47PMThe authors of "Straight" would have you believe that in 2016 26-year-old straight- acting investment banker Ben, living in Boston where same sex marriages have been legal for the last eight…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:04PMSunday, March 27, 2016
The staging is unusual in that no punches are thrown. When the actors are supposed to be delivering their blows, they stamp their feet which is actually more sinister and startling. The cast…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:33PMSaturday, March 26, 2016
Directed by the author, "Wolf in the River" is an environmental production as the audience is invited to sit in folding chairs around a mound of earth with forlorn flowers, garbage and debri…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:34PMFriday, March 25, 2016
One problem with reviving musicals from the pre-Sondheim era is that they were often created around the talent of a big, unique star like Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, Mary Martin, Al Jolson, Fann…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:00PMSunday, March 20, 2016
"Southern Comfort" is an ambitious and admirable attempt to depict a community that till now has been left off of our stages. Though the material at times seems tamer that the content would …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:55AMSaturday, March 19, 2016
"Hungry" is both an occasional play (written for this moment in time) and a chamber play. Not much happens but a great deal is implied. It will not please all theatergoers. However, it will …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:16AMFriday, March 18, 2016
The play is made up of a series of six confrontations in which the dialogue is delivered like bullets flying back and forth. While the story is engrossing, the individual conversations all g…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:39AMTuesday, March 15, 2016
Thompson’s direction is taut, nuanced and compelling and she found the ensemble to not only make their characters entirely distinct but to make us feel these women have lived together for …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:03AMMonday, March 14, 2016
Imani’s production of 'Walk Hard" for Metropolitan Playhouse is an exciting piece of theater from an eye-opening rediscovery. Historically, it comes nine years after Clifford Odets’ 'Gol…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:25PMThursday, March 10, 2016
The musical known for its “Let’s put on a show!” plot has a great deal more going for it than one might expect. First off, it has one of the greatest scores ever written for a Broadway…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:42PMWednesday, March 9, 2016
The inspiration for the play began when poet and playwright Dan heard the Fresh Air interview. Paul was already famous as the photographer who took the now iconic 1993 picture of U.S. Staff …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:16PMTuesday, March 8, 2016
The most colorful character in more ways that one is Uncle Jackie (Cantone) who lives upstairs. A closeted gay man in a society that doesn’t accept him, he has become an angry, self-loathi…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:50PMMonday, March 7, 2016
Nunn’s adaptation rearranges some of the scenes and adds material from a prose version of the work by George Wilkins, believed to be Shakespeare’s collaborator. Using music, song, dancin…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:02PMFriday, March 4, 2016
Todd Rosenthal’s remarkably atmospheric and evocative setting is waiting for the audience when they come into the theater: a huge expanse of a corrugated ice flow in Northern Minnesota in …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:13PMWednesday, March 2, 2016
The play seems to be saying that life is full of suffering but love will conquer all, not a very new or profound message. One flashback (Violet and Daniel’s first date) is replayed at leas…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:49PMTuesday, March 1, 2016
Under the umbrella title "Tennessee Williams 1982" (the year of both play’s composition the year as well as that of playwright’s death), The Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company is presen…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:53PMWednesday, February 24, 2016
The satire begins early: it turns out that although the department likes having Brian doing his research proving that whites are genetically racist, they are not happy with his conclusions. …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:32PMTuesday, February 16, 2016
Television and film actor Timothée Chalamet (Showtime’s "Homeland" and Christopher Nolan’s "Interstellar") makes an impressive New York stage debut as the play’s young protagonist. Th…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:44PMMonday, February 15, 2016
The forest setting by Ortiz seems to envelop the audience as does the sound design which is created by the actors in tandem with violinist Naomi Florin who plays Edward W. Hardy’s melancho…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:57PM 
