Thursday, March 16, 2023
Red Bull's fabulously entertaining production of Arden of Faversham, directed with a wry hand by Artistic Director Jesse Berger, tells the story of Alice (the terrific Cara Ricketts), a you…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:40PMFriday, March 10, 2023
I reviewed this show for Talkin' Broadway. The review can be accessed here.
I have very mixed feelings about this review, just as I had mixed feelings about the show.
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:59PMThursday, March 9, 2023
The press invitation to the The Bushwick Starr's open-hearted, funny, and smart Dark Disabled Stories, by Ryan J. Haddad and now onstage at Public Theater, offers detailed guidance on writin…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 08:31PMTuesday, March 7, 2023
In 1995, Lynn Nottage had her first professional production: Crumbs from the Table of Joy, at Second Stage in New York. The Keen Company is now presenting Crumbs' first New York revival, w…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:00PMFriday, March 3, 2023
An odd and lovely play is opening at Playwrights Horizons on March 5th and running through March 19th. Written by Agnes Borinsky and directed by Tina Satter, The Trees is the story of a bro…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:34PMTuesday, February 28, 2023
When Eulalie Spence died in 1981 at age 86, her obituary noted that she was a retired school teacher but didn't mention that she was also an award-winning playwright of the Harlem Renaissanc…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:38PMWhile Betty Smith is famous today for her novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, her great love was playwrighting; she wrote over 70 one-act and full-length dramas, some of which were performed in …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:21AMTuesday, February 21, 2023
As made clear in James Lapine's must-read Putting It Together (review here), the development of his and Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George was hectic, odd, and messy. In man…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:55PMTuesday, February 7, 2023
Among Václav Havel's extraordinary traits--talent, bravery, more bravery--his compassion is in some ways the most impressive. In his one-act play Audience, Havel's stand-in, Ferdinand Vaně…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:59PMThursday, January 19, 2023
It was sad to see Ain't No Mo' come and go so quickly, but was Broadway the right place for it?
I get the attraction of Broadway. It's the place. But was there ever a chance that Ain't No M…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:56PMMonday, January 2, 2023
My third viewing of the amazing Hadestown was from third row mezz on a Wednesday matinee. Although I have an aversion to Wednesday matinees going back to the 1970s, I was pleasantly surpris…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:27PMSunday, January 1, 2023
Here's the amazing thing: the musical 1776 is so solid, so excellent, that the creators of the current Roundabout production didn't manage to completely ruin it. Though they did try.
W…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:34PMMonday, November 14, 2022
I saw Some Like It Hot too early to give it a full review, but I do have some comments.
At first I was put off by the show. It's so energetic, and so enthusiastic, and so cheerful that…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:12AMFriday, October 28, 2022
Benjamin Franklin said that nothing is certain but death and taxes. However, he left out another important certainty: when MasterVoices puts on a show, it is always worth seeing.
Ginger Co…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:07PMThursday, October 27, 2022
Jill Sobule's terrific autobiographical rock-concert musical, F*ck7thGrade, traces her life from tomboy riding a Raleigh Blue Chopper, to junior high outcast, to accidental performer in a ni…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:33AMSunday, October 2, 2022
Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard's newest play, and possibly his last, offers a journey through the life of a Jewish family in Vienna, from 1899 to the 1950s. They are well-off and mostly happy. …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:19PMSaturday, October 1, 2022
My friend and I were psyched to go to the play King Charles III on Broadway in 2016. We had read the rave reviews and heard the buzz. Come intermission, we looked at each other and said, p…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:43PMWednesday, September 21, 2022
I remember learning in my teens that George Gershwin was only 38 when he died. I felt so sorry for him, but also for me. What music died with him? Gershwin had mentioned to a friend that he …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:19PMMonday, July 18, 2022
Caryl Churchill is a remarkable playwright. She's smart and funny and political and personal and humane and moving and very very entertaining. Reading her scripts reveals that she is also a …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:48AMSunday, July 17, 2022
It is difficult to review Reverse Transcription, an evening of plays covering AIDS and covid, as theatre. The first piece, Robert Chesley's Dog Plays, is a story of despair and death writte…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:37PMFriday, June 24, 2022
In Elizabeth Baker's play Chains, currently in a strong production at the admirable Mint Theatre Company, Charley recognizes that he has much to be grateful for. He loves his wife Lily. He …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:48AMSaturday, May 28, 2022
You have only a couple of days to catch the delightful and odd musical The Legend of the Waitress and the Robber, running at Dixon Place through Sunday May 29th. It's worth the trip.
Eun…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:18PMTuesday, April 26, 2022
The 2021-2022 Outer Critics Circle Award Nominations
Outstanding New Broadway MusicalMJ the MusicalMr. Saturday NightMrs. DoubtfireParadise SquareSixOutstanding New Broadway PlayBirthday Can…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:06PMMy review of The Skin of Our Teeth is up at Talkin' Broadway:
Thornton Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize three times: for the novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" and for the plays Our Town a…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:06PMMonday, April 25, 2022
In the tremendous production of The Skin of Our Teeth at Lincoln Center, directed with panache and gusto by Lileana Blain-Cruz, the Antrobus family is Black, and the script has been lightly …
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:03PMThursday, April 14, 2022
I was excited to see the York Theatre Company's new musical Penelope, Or How the Odyssey Was Really Written (book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg) because I had had sooooo much fun at Desperate…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:36PMMonday, April 11, 2022
By Linda Drummond Johnson, Guest Reviewer
Queens Girl in the World is an extraordinary one-woman play currently in its New York debut at Theater Row. It stars Felicia Curry, an actor wit…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:42PMFriday, March 11, 2022
The MasterVoices' concert of Anyone Can Whistle was a lovely and poignant reminder that although we have lost Stephen Sondheim, we will always have his work. And, oh!, that work!
Elizab…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:54PMTuesday, March 8, 2022
As I watched the annoyingly written, directed, acted, and titled JANE ANGER,or The Lamentable Comedie JANE ANGER, that Cunning Woman, and also of Willy Shakefpeare and his Peasant Companion,…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:48AMWednesday, February 23, 2022
The Mint Theater Company's production of D.H. Lawrence's drama, The Daughter-in-Law, so successfully evokes life in the East Midlands of England in 1912 that I was shocked when I glanced at…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:18PMMonday, November 22, 2021
Robert Frost once said, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation." To this I add, theatre is what gets lost in streaming. Please don't misunderstand: I am totally grateful for all the theatr…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:12AM 
