A LOVELY INNOVATIVE STAGING OF AN OLD FAVORITE Theater artistry overcomes budgetary constraints in Jessica Burr's delightful, poignant and absorbing staging of A Christmas Carol, from an adm…
A BEAUTIFUL SHELL WITHOUT A NUT A show can be forgiven many things when its characters are compelling and its dramatics are solid; if the audience is emotionally involved in the fate of the …
YOUNG, BEAUTIFUL, TALENTED AND NAKED Directed by Russell Dobular and written by him and the Naked Holiday Ensemble, with additional material by Stacy Lane, Endtimes Productions' annual Chris…
THE GOOD WASPS There's nothing especially remarkable about A.R. Gurney's latest offering Family Furniture, a play that investigates a family of 1950s WASPs spending the summer at their Lake …
WHAT'S FUNNIER THAN MURDER? As a critic I'm embarrassed to gush but I must confess I gave my first standing ovation last night to honor Jefferson Mays who plays all nine unfortunate members …
NOTHING IF NOT INTENSE The night their shelter burns down, two homeless Iraqi war veterans, Horace and Alicia, both suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, are given vouchers to stay …
TWO PLAYS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE Many plays begin comically and end in tragedy. Rarely though does the trajectory go in the other direction, as it does with Fredrik Brattberg's fascinating, mu…
THE SHACKLES OF RADIO ARE LOOSENED A BIT FOR THE STAGE Michael Gambon is tremendous in Trevor Nunn's staging of Samuel Beckett's radio play All That Fall. The drama, first performed on BBC r…
SOUTHERN NOIR The narrative of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian orbits a murder in 1964 Jackson, Mississippi. Susan Perch (Amy Madigan) kicks her husband Bill (Ed Harris), a respected dentist, o…
OOFTA, INDEED The premise of C. Denby Swanson's black comedy The Norwegians is that two women Minnesotan women, Texas transplant Olive (Veronica Cruz) and Kentucky transplant Betty (Karla He…
EAGER FOR MORE A farcical, semi-interactive burlesque fairytale " complete with girls in g-strings and tassels, a pun-spewing, corny joke-telling MC, a Jazz combo, and a working bar inside t…
BACK TO THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS Definitely thoughtful, at times charming, occasionally compelling, but mostly tedious, Adriano Shaplin's new play Sarah Flood in Salem Mass, tells of two girls…
SOMETIMES LONGER WOULD BE BETTER Anxious to have a child with the best possible genes and distrustful of sperm from anonymous donors, Gretchen (Halley Feiffer) convinces her "gold-star" lesb…
A DRAGON IN BROOKLYN A true auteur and renaissance man of the theater, Robert Lepage returns with his troupe Ex Machina to The Brooklyn Academy of Music for its 2013 Next Wave Festival, this…
STORY-LESS A rubber knife jiggles and bends during an ostensibly dramatic stabbing scene. Characters' "trumpet playing" is out of sync with the actual trumpeter. Performers struggle to remem…
HELLO, GORGEOUS Jonathan Tolkin's keen and tremendously funny new show Buyer & Cellar, performed by Michael Urie, imagines what it would be like for Alex More, a young gay man struggl…
LOVE, SEX AND POETRY Thoroughly delightful and hilarious throughout, Dirty Great Love Story, which is part of the Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, is just what its admittedly c…
REASONS TO SEE THIS SHOW Neil LaBute's explosive and wildly funny new comedy Reasons to be Happy, which Mr. LaBute also directs, starts off with a bang as Steph (Jenna Fischer), having stalk…
SOME PLAYS ARE "FORGOTTEN" FOR A REASON Part of the Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, Finborough Theatre's classic staging of J.B. Priestley's Cornelius, under Sam Yates' expert…
LOVE AS A MYTHICAL BEAST Compelling performances and Cat Parker's surefooted direction overcome budgetary and other constraints associated with short-run, theater-festival productions, makin…
CHILD’S PLAY Adapted by Jeremy Bloom from J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy and A Little White Bird, Peter/Wendy, which Mr. Bloom also directs, is a charming, semi-interactive theatrical …
A CURE FOR INSOMNIA Dan Frost's evocative performance as the artist Roger Hilton isn't enough to save Botallack O'Clock, written and directed by Eddie Elks and currently being performed as p…
SKETCHY BLUEPRINT The great John Turturro stars as the architect Halvard Solness in David Edgar's translation of Ibsen's enigmatic chef-d’oeuvre The Master Builder, which is currently …
A PLAY CANNOT LIVE ON CONCEPT ALONE Works of art in themselves " namely Nicole Pearce's lighting and Katie Down's sound design and musical compositions — go a long way in helping make …
WHAT MAKES A FAMILY What makes a family? What keeps one together? And what do you do when you're stuck in one that doesn't fit in with how you want yourself or your life to be? These are the…