1,791 stories by "ELISABETH VINCENTELLI"
'i could be arrested for theft, fraud and murder, and it's not even 4 o'clock."
This isn't a hardened criminal talking, but a frazzled mother and home-care attendant named Loretta Mackey. S…
Anticipation always runs high in September. Yay, a new season! Tons of new shows to look forward to!
But while there are promising offerings this year, we may have to dig a little deeper to …
It's tough going for a comedy like "Mary Broome," which revolves around a spectacularly unsympathetic lead character. It's not Mary herself, by the way " because this 1911 play really is abo…
It's not a great sign when you leave a musical thinking more about the visuals than the songs " which is exactly what happens at Broadway's new "Chaplin."
The show about the silent-film icon…
It's been a good year for the South African playwright Athol Fugard, what with the Broadway revival of "The Road to Mecca" and the Signature company dedicating a whole season to his work. To…
When Broadway goes wrong " and sometimes when it goes right " it's a gaudy, tacky, self-important moving target. And for 30 years, Gerard Alessandrini has been taking shots at it in his belo…
Nothing much happens in Horton Foote's plays, yet you leave feeling satisfyingly full. He may skimp on the whiz-bang action, but Foote manages to say a lot about his characters " and you alm…
The Public Theater's new "Richard III" " Shakespeare's most violent tragedy " has been streamlined to the max. Edited down to 90 minutes, it has no set and few props.
But director Amanda Deh…
For its outdoor program's 50th- anniversary season, the Public Theater put the park back into Shakespeare in the Park.
In June, we were treated to a lovely production of "As You Like It," w…
Just because a play is brief doesn't mean it has to fit a mold. The three entries in "Summer Shorts Series B" show the many shapes and forms a miniature can take " but then, they're by write…
'Bullet for Adolf" has all the markings of a cult show " it could be theater's answer to a midnight movie.
Directed and co-written by Woody Harrelson, this new off-Broadway play is often ine…
True to its title, "My Mind Is Like an Open Meadow" meanders gently. It's not so much a play as an impressionistic travelogue back in time.
Though this is a solo piece, writer-performer Erin…
Provocation isn't easy. The guys from "South Park" and "The Book of Mormon" make it look that way, but it's really not.
Case in point: The new musical "The Last Smoker in America," which tr…
Mikhail Baryshnikov may be the star of "In Paris," but there's no dancing here, just a bit of mimed bullfighting " choreographed by American Ballet Theatre's Alexei Ratmansky " as striking a…
Every year, the "Summer Shorts" series introduces six new American one-act plays. While the three pieces in this season's first batch are, by definition, brief, two are so slow that you may …
"Don't worry," Mike Tyson told us, "you'll leave with two ears tonight, I promise."
Which is more than Evander Holyfield got, but at least he wasn't in the audience Tuesday night for "Mike T…
Imagine a musical called "Twilight" that had generic vampires instead of Bella and Edward. That's pretty much what happens with "Bring It On " The Musical," which has little in common with t…
Ask anybody about great but gone music venues in New York, and they'll go on and on about CBGB, the Fillmore East, Max's Kansas City and the Savoy Ballroom.
But the Continental Baths? Thoug…
Don't kick yourself if you've never heard of "New Girl in Town." Only a regular at Marie's Crisis or another show-tune piano bar would know this 1957 musical. Bob Merrill's genial score didn…
A political campaign is great background for a play. And the vetting of a candidate is particularly juicy: After all, you're dealing with someone's potentially explosive past, and the tempta…
It's not often that a Chekhov play is almost drowned by laughter.
Yet that's exactly what happens at the Sydney Theatre Company's "Uncle Vanya," which just opened at City Center as part of …
It hits you when the angel puppet with the Queen fixation starts warbling "We Will Rock You": The Lincoln Center Festival brings us shows from all over the world for its annual showcase, and…
When in doubt, just throw stuff. It's a tried-and-true approach, and "Re-Animator: The Musical" revels in it.
The first four rows of the theater are covered in plastic. Seats aren't assigne…
Here's a new show that has a lot going for it, including a wonderful performance by star Lindsay Mendez and swift staging by Joe Mantello ("Wicked," "Other Desert Cities").
But "Dogfight," w…
Besides an ode to bodacious bosoms, Cole Porter's "Nymph Errant" features white slavery, lesbianism and a heroine who desperately " and unsuccessfully " tries to get laid.
Yet despite all t…
