All stories by Wendy Caster on BroadwayStars

Monday, November 29, 2010

Short Takes by Wendy Caster

Nyack High School presented an excellent production of The Laramie Project for two performances this month. The pacing could have been quicker, but many of the performances were top-notch, a…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:36PM
Friday, November 19, 2010

The Merchant of Venice by Wendy Caster

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is a choleric, cynical play.First, of course, there is the ugly anti-Semitism. Shylock, more frequently known as "The Jew," has spent his life being called "…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:12PM
Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (DVD Review) by Wendy Caster

Wow!Last March a few thousand people were lucky enough to experience the truly staggering Sondheim birthday celebration at the New York Philharmonic. Many who saw it (most?) judged it one of…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:08PM

One Night With Joan by Wendy Caster

Photo: Holly CasterJoan Collins is a force to be reckoned with. She turned down Darryl Zanuck's (staggeringly coarse) sexual advances, even though she knew she might be risking her career. S…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:16PM

All the Things You Are: Jerome Kern by Wendy Caster

The Broadway Close Up series at Merkin Hall presented a lovely evening of Jerome Kern songs last Monday. There was no patter--just luscious singing. Director Denis Jones set up some of the s…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:45AM
Sunday, November 14, 2010

Ghosts in the Cottonwoods by Wendy Caster

Photo: Annie ParisseAs The Amoralists' production of Ghosts in the Cottonwoods begins, we see Bean Scully sucking venom out of her son Pointer's leech bites. He is 18 years old and nude, and…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:27PM

Mistakes Were Made by Wendy Caster

Photo: Michael BrosilowIt is a theatre season of prodigious feats of memory. Mark Rylance in La Bete. Belle Caplis is Balm in Gilead. Bill Camp in Notes From Underground. And now Michael Sha…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:05PM

Notes From Underground by Wendy Caster

Photo: Joan Marcus"I am a sick man. I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts." With these classic opening lines of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground, actor and co-ada…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:10PM
Thursday, November 11, 2010

Short Takes by Wendy Caster

Elling. Elling is a little play. A very little play. A teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy play. Brendan Fraser and Denis O'Hare play odd-couple roommates, both recently out of a psychiatric hospital. Ev…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:17PM

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown by Wendy Caster

I've read the reviews, and it's hard to argue with them. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is indeed sloppy, uneven, and unfocused. The score by David Yazbek is only amiable. The boo…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:42PM
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Balm in Gilead by Wendy Caster

Photo Credit: Torso XXI by Colm McCarthyThe people at the T. Schreiber Theatre are doing something amazing over on 26th Street. In their production of Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead, on the…

SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:49AM

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