1,809 stories by "ELISABETH VINCENTELLI"
The key character in "What the Public Wants" is a driven media tycoon who reaches millions via dozens of publications. Through them, he seeks to entertain the many and influence the mighty. …
When you think about David Auburn, author of the math-and-madness hit "Proof," farce isn't the first thing that comes to mind. So his decision to overhaul "The New York Idea" -- an obscure 1…
MoliÈre's dark com edy "The Misan thrope" is one of the most cynical and twisted works in the canon, and deserves to be better known in America.
Maybe we need a Hollywood update to sho…
After the critical success of his epic "The Lily's Revenge" last year, all eyes were on Taylor Mac. Amid a cast of 40, the strikingly made-up and costumed writer-performer blossomed in the r…
The new "Room 17B" is like an anthology of clown haikus -- a se ries of self-contained routines, each one brief, elegant and perfectly balanced.
Presented by the physical-comedy company P…
A charismatic, seductive tycoon is key to Scott Brooks' new comedy, "ScreenPlay." Had a charismatic, seductive leading man been cast, this wan Hollywood satire might have gone somewhere.
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Ibsen's "John Gabriel Bork man" is nowhere near as popu lar as his "Hedda Gabler" and "A Doll's House." Yet crowds are flocking to this obscure 1896 play at BAM. What gives?
One reason is…
Misery springs eternal. We've seen dozens of fictional families clash be cause of a Big Traumatic Past Event, but that didn't deter Jon Robin Baitz ("The Substance of Fire," TV's "Brothers a…
A lot of energy is spent setting up an explo sive situation in the family drama "Blood From a Stone." But despite the efforts of a strong cast led by Ethan Hawke -- giving his best performan…
Location, location, location: That motto applies not only to real estate but to theater. Tennessee Williams' one-act play "Green Eyes" may be slight, but staging it in an actual hotel room -…
When we first meet Emily Bridges in the new play "A Small Fire," she's wearing a hard hat and chewing up her second-in-command.
The head of her own construction company, this no-nonsense …
The woefully inept drama "Dracula," which opened off- Broadway last night, is as close as we get to dinner theater in New York. There's no prime rib, but plenty of grating cheese.
While i…
Just when Broadway and off- Broadway go into their post- holiday hibernation, Performance Space 122 steps in with out-there productions aimed at the head, the guts and the heart.
No wonde…
How tepid was Broad way this year? The most talked-about show didn't even open.
While waiting -- and waiting, and waiting -- for "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" to take flight, we watched…
It's not often that you hear Schubert's melan choly song cycle "Win terreise" ("Winter Journey") in a down town theater. And not with classical musicians, either, but with three scruffy dude…
You can take Donny and Marie Osmond out of Vegas, but you can't take Vegas out of them. Or is that Branson, Mo.?
No matter: The siblings' holiday concert at the Marquis delivers everythin…
A waitress silently prepares for work. Her black-and-white uniform in place, she counts her teeth. No. 31 is AWOL, but she finds it somewhere behind her neck, and slides it back in place. To…
Irish novelist Edna O'Brien wrote a plum part for Brenda Blethyn in "Haunted," an oblique, wordy play about a waning marriage. The actress returned the favor by grounding the piece with real…
Central Asia is a hair-pulling mess. And as we see in "The Great Game: Afghanistan," it's been a mess for a long time. Covering the years 1842 to the present, this London import tracks a sit…
Sausage, anybody? Actually, John Kelly's "Pass the Blut wurst, Bitte" has nothing to do with meat products and everything to do with Austrian painter Egon Schiele.
A skilled chameleon, wr…
The head writer for "SpongeBob SquarePants," Steven Banks also moonlights as the dark and twisted Billy the Mime. Now, he tries to reconcile his sugar-and-spice sides in a new play, "Looking…
IT'S a good time for pe riod pieces -- espe cially wacky ones.
On the Great White Way, the rambunctious "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" is a bio-musical that's part Looney Tunes, part emo …
The best fairy tales have a dark side, and the best storytellers aren't afraid to address it. Adapting Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes" -- about a girl who literally can't stop danc…
There's nothing quite like "Elling" on Broadway. Based on the Norwegian book and film of the same name, this Oslo-set play is about a pair of socially impaired men who learn to live on their…
Though it boasts a golden pedigree " a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Jule Styne " "Bells Are Ringing," from 1956, is often considered a diverting but dated trifl…
