698 stories by "David Cote"
Explaining why a thing is funny is hard enough. Trying to account for something you know is hilarious"but then isn't"is tougher still. Case in point: The Roundabout Theatre Company has reviv…
Although the titans Zero Mostel, Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince are reflexively linked to this 1964 classic, there's another, uncredited, father of Fiddler on the Roof. It's Marc Chagall, …
Mamet and Pacino hand over an ungainly and pretentious monologue.
Despite the built-in obsession with gadgets, science fiction always orbits back to a familiar subject: human psychology. All those robots, rockets and aliens are just shiny metaphors for our…
New York Theatre Workshop's sold-out, buzzy Lazarus is hard to describe. Blame the holiday season, but I feel it's like one of those old-timey TV Christmas specials, in which an isolated cel…
Ever see the pitch-perfect 2003 Jack Black comedy School of Rock? Then you know what to expect from the musical version: fake substitute teacher Dewey Finn frenetically inspiring his charges…
At-risk, education-deprived teens in one of Africa's poorest nations. Frustrated musical-theater creators living in Queens. You wouldn't expect these demographics to meet, much less improve …
Early in Misery, ex-nurse Annie Wilkes (Laurie Metcalf) informs novelist Paul Sheldon (Bruce Willis) that after a horrible car accident, he's been in a coma for four days. Make that four day…
Shatteringly tough revivals such as A View from the Bridge can inspire dueling emotions. First, obviously, there's immense satisfaction and gratitude that Belgian director Ivo van Hove digs …
Sweetly traditional grandfather Ojii-chan (George Takei) practices Japanese customs, such as hanging wind chimes, tending his garden and origami. As an example of the last, he folds a page f…
Mike Bartlett s audacious verse drama appropriates the style of Shakespeare.
For the living playwright working in English, William Shakespeare vexes. Whether you think his global stature oppressive or admire the works as antique phenomena with little bearing on today…
"Never work with animals or children," W.C. Fields famously warned, but no one told Matthew Broderick. As midlife-crisis-stricken Greg in the urban fable Sylvia, the actor must keep a straig…
Inspired by Oregon Shakespeare Festival's radical Shakespeare translation project, a theater critic updates classic passages of the Bard
In this retro-utopian concert turned musical, Civil War solider Julian (César Alvarez) and British mathematician Ada (Sammmy Tunis)Â muse rapturously on brain mechanics and consciousness…
Since her star-making turn in 2010's Venus in Fur, Nina Arianda has established a reputation for being irresistibly sexy on stage. Emotional intensity and comic agility only burnish her palp…
Harold Pinter’s gripping 1971 drama still cuts with force, drawing new blood.
The first word spoken in Harold Pinter's gripping 1971 drama about a man, his wife and the wife's visiting friend is "dark." Deeley (Clive Owen) was presumably curious about the hair of soon…
If we handed out stars based solely on scenes that were probably awkward to stage in rehearsal, Thomas Bradshaw's new play might rate four (lots of ultra-realistic sexy time). Alas, there's …
A segment of the American population seems to believe that Christianity is under attack from godless socialists, gay-marriage supporters and rival creeds trying to impose theocracy on our fa…
The Acting Company’s evening of adaptations is satisfying in small, intense doses.
Andrew Lloyd Webber v Stephen Sondheim, We Will Rock You v American Idiot " the West End's offerings pale beside Broadway's glorious historyBroadway habitués are looking ahead to a bu…
Lin-Manuel Miranda has built a monument by combing hip-hop with American history.
Annie Baker's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Flick (also now playing) is built on a similar scale: John runs three hours and 15 minutes over three acts and two intermissions. I …
What is left to say? After Founding Father Alexander Hamilton's prodigious quill scratched out 12 volumes of nation-building fiscal and military policy; after Lin-Manuel Miranda turned that …
