1,115 stories by "FRANK SCHECK"
There have been plays about ambitious interns scheming their way to the top ever since there've been interns. But John Morogiello's comedy "Blame It on Beckett" puts a knowing theatrical spi…
Relatively Speaking, the new evening of comic one-acts by Woody Allen, Elaine May and Ethan Coen, has just opened on Broadway, and all I can say is…oy! That this level of writing talen…
The recent death of Steve Jobs provides a fascinating conundrum for Mike Daisey, the writer/performer of the solo piece The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. On the one hand, it provides an a…
It's hard to get anything done when the Internet beckons -- with yet another friend request, Twitter updates and the latest YouTube video of a dancing cat. It's even harder when your compute…
For the next month at Ars Nova, every night is opening night.
That's because the Upper West Side theater is outdoing itself with its showcase for emerging artists. ANT Fest 2011 -- it stand…
One of history’s greatest ironies is that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his soaring “I’ve have been to the mountaintop” speech on the very night before his death.…
'Any Given Monday" is a dark comedy so offensive, so amoral and so generally unpleasant that you'll hate yourself for laughing at it.
The problem is, you'll hate yourself a lot.
The play by …
The popular singer's new show at the Cafe Carlyle proves to be a fitting and extremely entertaining tribute to the late, great performer.
Contemporary playwrights seem forever bent on proving Tolstoy’s line that “all families are unhappy in their own way.” The latest example is Nicky Silvers, who has mined su…
For a mime, Bill Bowers has a lot to say.
And that's all to the good. In his new one-man show "Bill Bowers Beyond Words" -- a mix of mime and spoken vignettes -- he presents a portrait of s…
Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy was written in the 1960s and is set in the 1930s, but it would unfortunately resonate in any decade. This portrait of a desperate business tycoon was ins…
As touching as it is idiosyncratic, "Southern Comfort" effectively redefines the term "family musical." Based on a 2001 Sundance award-winning documentary about transgender people in rural G…
Even the most ardent musical-theater lovers would be hard-pressed to catch all 25 shows at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, running though Oct. 16. Here are a few of the more intriguin…
Playwright Jeff Talbott clearly knows the territory that he explores in The Submission. Having had his previous efforts presented at numerous theater festivals, he’s well in a position…
New York's streets teem with such chaotic vitality that stepping into a theater can seem anticlimactic. So it's exciting to enter 3LD and encounter floor-to-ceiling windows exposing lower Gr…
With some exceptions, absurdism doesn’t age particularly well. The impact of what was shocking and avant-garde decades ago is reduced by the endless mediocre imitations that have follo…
Last season, the Play Company’s production of Invasion! at Soho Rep left made quite an impact, garnering an OBIE award for playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri, in his debut as a playwright…
It's a hard-knock life for the newsboys in "Newsies," the stage adaptation of the flop 1992 Disney musical film that's become a cult favorite. When this ragtag group of orphans and runaways …
When it comes to pressure, panic and pain, no one said it better than Larry Gelbart: "If Hitler's alive, I hope he's out of town with a musical." The pressure's even worse for those who dare…
Female playwrights are woe fully underrepresented on our stages -- women of color particularly. Helping to correct that sorry state of affairs is the Ensemble Studio Theatre's "The River Cro…
Imagine being able to see Eugene O'Neill's obscure one-acts, minus all those long monologues. Now you can.
Enter "The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill, Volume 1: Ea…
Try as I might, I find it impossible to appreciate the Elevator Repair Service’s aesthetic. This enterprising downtown troupe has made a significant name for themselves in recent years…
They say that in Hollywood, everybody wants to direct. Apparently, in the theater, what everybody wants to do is write.
Exhibit A: Jesse Eisenberg, whose play, "Asuncion," previews Oct. 12 a…
It’s been a mere ten years since the last Broadway incarnation of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies, but that ill-conceived version was lamentable enough to warrant an…
Theater rarely gets more intimate -- or more immediate -- than Richard Nelson's follow-up to last year's "That Hopey Changey Thing," set on the eve of the last presidential election.
Once…
