1,428 stories by "Ben Brantley"
Mike Bartlett's "Cockfight Play," directed by James Macdonald, centers on a sexual triangle.
I would like to make the case, officially and urgently, for the return of the sitting ovation. Because we really have reached the point where a standing ovation doesn't mean a thing.
Megan Hilty stars in the red-blooded Encores! concert staging of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
When a production moves to a Broadway house, it can seem different " even if the script, director and actors haven't changed.
The Broadway season that ended recently has shown that the art of eloquence in theater is very much alive.
Paul Weitz's "Lonely, I'm Not," a damaged-boy-meets-defensive-girl story, stars a wonderfully matched, mismatched Topher Grace and Olivia Thirlby.
The Target Margin Theater production of "Uncle Vanya" suggests a group of passionate college students who, after a long night of punch-drunk debate, have decided to act out one of their favo…
The current revival of "Gore Vidal's The Best Man" is a reminder of the joys of smart-talking stage characters, also on display in the new works "Other Desert Cities" and "The Lyons."
"An Early History of Fire," a tumultuous work that has been given a surprisingly flat production by the New Group, is the first new play in a decade from David Rabe.
"Leap of Faith" is this season's black hole of musical comedy, sucking the energy out of anyone who gets near it.
"The Columnist," by David Auburn, stars John Lithgow in the title role, portraying Joseph Alsop, who wielded power in mid-20th-century Washington.
"Nice Work if You Can Get It" is a homage to a host of Jazz Age musicals in which outlandish plots were mere pegboards for songs, dances, gags and idiosyncratic star turns.
"The Lyons," Nicky Silver's acerbic comedy about an aging dysfunctional family, features Dick Latessa as the father who's dying, and Linda Lavin as the mother who seems O.K. with that.
TR Warszawa's troupe brings "Festen" to St. Ann's Warehouse, with a set that " appropriately enough " conjures the hotel from "The Shining."
A poker game provides one of the few moments approaching excitement in the torpid revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Bruce Norris's "Clybourne Park," a sharp-witted comedy of American uneasiness, is on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theater.
"One Man, Two Guvnors," a splendidly silly import from London, is an adaptation of Goldoni's 18th-century "Servant of Two Masters."
"In Masks Outrageous and Austere" is a late Tennessee Williams play that appropriates themes and characters from earlier works.
"Peter and the Starcatcher," directed on Broadway by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, delivers locomotive Steampunk in the origin story of Peter Pan.
David Harrower's new play is about a grudge-bearing, middle-aged brother and sister.
Michael Grandage's revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's "Evita" at the Marquis Theater is stately, sincere and sober-sided.
Sometimes shows are better the second time around.
As befits a play about Judy Garland, a woman known for liberally mixing her pills, Peter Quilter's "End of the Rainbow" is a jolting upper and downer at the same time.
"Newsies the Musical," based on a 1992 Disney movie about the 1899 New York newsboy strike, teems with defiant ragamuffins, anthems and back flips.
In "'Tis Pity She's a Whore," all the action takes place in bed in a way that might surprise the playwright, John Ford.
