1,115 stories by "FRANK SCHECK"
Flip around the radio dial lately? You probably won't find anything as entertaining as the programming put on by Soviet Free Radio Order. Especially its "At Home Field Guide," a homespun com…
Bridesburg is a run-down neighborhood in south Philadelphia. If Victor Kaufold's drama set there is any indication, you won't want to go there . . . or to "Bridesburg," for that matter.To it…
The Chinese language is all that one seems to be hearing lately. Not only did presidential candidate Jon Huntsman resort to Mandarin while rebuking Mitt Romney during a recent debate, but Da…
Imagine a cross between "Inherit the Wind" and David Mamet's charged student-versus-teacher drama "Oleanna," and you have some idea of "How the World Began."
Catherine Trieschmann's new piec…
Let's say you've flipped through a newspaper, reading this or that; sponged the breakfast crumbs off the table, loaded the dishwasher and wrestled your child into a car seat for a trip to yo…
The Under the Radar festival is a much-needed showcase for adventurous theater companies whose work isn't exactly commercial " for better or worse. Two recent cases: the New York troupe the …
The tourists may have left, but the city's about to be invaded by a new force of thousands. And Mark Russell is ready. The arts festival he produces may be called Under the Radar, but there'…
By any measure, this year was a real roller-coaster ride for Jeremy Jordan. Like the Frank Sinatra song, the 27-year-old actor's been up and down and over and out, having made a splash with …
David Hyde Pierce somehow always manages to project a vaguely uncomfortable, awkward quality in his characters. It feels totally appropriate for Close Up Space, the uncomfortable, awkward ne…
In what surely must be purely coincidental timing, Farm Boy has arrived for a holiday engagement at 59E59 Theaters. Michael Morpungo’s “sequel” to his War Horse has opened …
The cavernous St. Ann’s Warehouse provides the perfect theatrical environment for Misterman, Irish playwright Enda Walsh’s one-person play starring Cillian Murphy in his U.S. sta…
You'll probably head straight for a deli after "Shlemiel the First," the delightful morsel of a 1994 klezmer musical based on Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Chelm" stories. In this world, food is …
Good luck scoring an invitation to the most exclusive social reception in town. It’s being held at the palatial and luxurious Fifth Avenue townhouse belonging to the very wealthy Mrs. …
The near demise of commercial off-Broadway has resulted in a plethora of unsuitable Broadway productions of tiny shows that look awfully wan in big theaters. The latest example is Lysistrata…
Had enough Sugarplum Fairies to last you a lifetime? Tired of seeing the Rockettes kicking up their heels again? Bah, humbug, indeed.
Hey, this is New York City, so no problem. There's plen…
In the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, we learn that the central character experienced a past life and suffered an untimely end, only to be reborn in a new incarnation. Such is t…
If there was ever a show that should begin with the disclaimer, "Kids, don't try this at home," it's the Cirque Shanghai's "Bai Xi." This Chinese acrobatic spectacle " the title, not exactly…
It’s a long weekend’s journey into night at Stick Fly, Lydia R. Diamond’s overstuffed play about an African-American family’s tumultuous reunion at their summer home …
Could there be an actor more perfectly suited for Samuel Beckett's works than John Hurt? Not only does his gaunt face and wiry hair recall the playwright, but he has the ravaged look of a ma…
When the indie film musical Once was released five years ago, it became a critical and box-office sensation. This touching tale of the relationship between a Dublin Irish street musician and…
The stifling languorousness that so often afflicts contemporary productions of Chekhov is thankfully nowhere in sight in this Classic Stage Company’s revival of The Cherry Orchard. Dir…
In the classic 1939 comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner," an outrageously obnoxious character wears out his welcome. The same can be said for the Peccadillo Theater Company revival that opene…
One might think that true-life, murderous outlaws wouldn’t exactly be a likely choice for musical treatment, but then again composer Frank Wildhorn has already put songs in the mouths …
The pair's second show at Feinstein's at Loews Regency displays both their brilliant musical chops and their hilarious comic chemistry.
Two men sit in a sparsely appointed waiting room. The silence is periodically broken by the sound of a banging door, so loud it feels like a gunshot.
"Drives you 'round the bloody bend, doe…
