First Nighter: Samuel D. Hunter Puts Pocatello on the Theater Map by David Finkle

Throughout Samuel D. Hunter's play The Whale, at Playwrights Horizons in 2012, the main character is a gay man isolating himself by virtue of his obesity. Now back at PH with Pocatello, Hunt…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:14pm on December 15, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Jonny Donahoe's Brilliant 'Every Brilliant Thing' by David Finkle

Even before Every Brilliant Thing began I realized the spunky, balding fellow racing about the in-the-round Barrow Street Theatre to hand out sheets of paper and chat with audience members w…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 9:57pm on December 14, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Bradley Cooper in Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man by David Finkle

By dint of calling his play The Elephant Man, Pomerance irrevocably establishes that Merrick is his focal figure and for much of the two acts deftly presents the character study of an unforg…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 3:31pm on December 11, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: "El gato con botas," "Le Nozze di Figaro," Carlisle Floyd One-Acts as Opera Magnets by David Finkle

Since perfect things come along infrequently, it's absolutely required that when they do, a whole lot of carrying on attends them. The perfect thing about which I'm now holding forth is the …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 5:20pm on December 9, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: 'Send for the Million Men,' 'The Invisible Hand' Ripped From Headlines by David Finkle

The 90-minute undertaking is a call for justice when it's become shockingly clear that injustice looks to be a national scourge no less potent now than it was nine decades ago.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 8:25am on December 9, 2014☆⚑

Let Us Now Praise Mary Testa by David Finkle

Mary Testa and Michael Starobin offer "Have Faith," a superlative concept album.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 9:49am on December 8, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Capote's 'Christmas Memory' Set to Sweet Music by David Finkle

Come Christmas every year, new offerings are presented with the hope they'll become holiday perennials.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 6:52pm on December 4, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: The Bedlam Company Shoots and Wounds Chekhov's 'Seagull' by David Finkle

Throughout The Seagull, the characters talk about happiness and of what it's constituted. They all want to be happy. Not one of them is. At this revival, I was in their unhappy number.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 5:08pm on November 30, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: 'Tamburlaine Parts I and II,' 'Tristan & Yseult' Blood Spillage by David Finkle

The blood in Kneehigh's Tristan & Yseult is less than what's in Tamburlaine Parts I and II and is stylized. Emma Rice, the company founder and adapter here of the Cornish myth has someth…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 5:45pm on November 28, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Frederick Douglass, Simon Wiesenthal and Mat Smart's 'Naperville' on Stages by David Finkle

More specifically, these five are all psychologically and physically damaged. What Smart is up to is constructing a play -- it's another intermissionless 90-minuter -- in which the impaired …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:29pm on November 26, 2014☆⚑

In Remembrance of the Great Mike Nichols by David Finkle

Endless reasons to mourn the superb director-actor-comedian.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 3:34pm on November 24, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Shepard's "A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)," Behar's "Me, My Mouth and I" by David Finkle

Sam Shepard and Stephen Rea have collaborated on projects for 40 years, ever since Shepard directed Rea in a Royal...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:06am on November 24, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Albee's 'Delicate Balance' Not Entirely Balanced by David Finkle

Scrutinized closely, which it's easy to do during director Pam McKinnon's Delicate Balance revival, at the Golden, Tobias and Agnes are very much a George-Martha do-over.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:04pm on November 20, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Revised Side Show Musical Still Side-Tracked by David Finkle

As they used to say in the '20s and '30s and often on the midway, "Nice try, but no cigar."

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 2:47pm on November 20, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Sharyn Rothstein's "By the Water" Makes Strong Waves by David Finkle

Not that this'll ease those still suffering the devastating Hurricane Sandy effects, but it turns out the monstrously...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:48pm on November 18, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Simon Stephens's "Punk Rock" Rocks Steady and Unsteady by David Finkle

Without an excessive amount of ballyhoo, Simon Stephens has become one of the most important contemporary English

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 6:34pm on November 17, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Heidi Schreck's 'Grand Concourse, 'En Garde Arts 'Basetrack,' Alda and Bergen in 'Love Letters' by David Finkle

What Heidi Schreck's Grand Concourse, at Playwrights Horizons, is really about is only revealed in the final minute. So be assured the wonderfully eye-widening revelation won't be described …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 9:46pm on November 12, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: David Auburn's "Lost Lake" Not Fully Found by David Finkle

Logan (John Hawkes) and Veronica (Tracie Thoms) don't exactly meet cute. They meet awkward. They meet uncertain. They...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:08pm on November 11, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Has Her Way at the Met by David Finkle

When in 1934 Dmitri Shostakovich, not yet 30, composed Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, he provided music for all sorts of special occasions.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 2:59pm on November 11, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: "The Band Wagon" is Worth Jumping On by David Finkle

The list of delightful ingredients in the Encores! Series revival of The Band Wagon with its Arthur Schwartz-Howard...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 1:22pm on November 9, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: London Gets Musicalized With Sunny Afternoon, Made in Dagenham, Shakespeare in Love" by David Finkle

You can't beat a combination of romance, humor, music and charm, and that's what Lee Hall has marvelously whipped together from the Marc Norman-Tom Stoppard Shakespeare in Love screenplay.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 4:34pm on November 7, 2014☆⚑

Finally! Some Good Musicals on Broadway by David Finkle

"On the Town" and "The Last Ship" start a hot tuner season.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 2:15pm on November 3, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Bloody, Bloody London Stages Rule by David Finkle

London--In all my theater-going days, I don't remember seeing a production that would likely give me nightmares. ...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 5:56am on November 1, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Stoppard's 'Real Thing,' McNally's 'Lips Together, Teeth Apart' by David Finkle

This week we get the revivals of Tom Stoppard's somewhat autobiographical The Real Thing (1982), at the American Airlines Theatre, and Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), a…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 7:53pm on October 30, 2014☆⚑

First Nighter: Sting's 'The Last Ship' in Full Sail by David Finkle

Not to be foolishly subtle about it: If a better new musical than The Last Ship appears on the horizon this Broadway season, tuner lovers best consider themselves extravagantly lucky.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:48pm on October 26, 2014☆⚑