1,115 stories by "FRANK SCHECK"
There are plenty of one-liners in "A Night With George," and they're even more hilarious if you can un derstand them.
Donna O'Connor's one-woman show, part of the1st Irish Festival, featu…
In case you wondered what role balloons played in the US military during World War I, there's an off-Broadway show that's only too happy to tell you all about it.
Enroll in "Captain Fergu…
It seems almost criminal to take one of the English speaking theater’s finest classical actors, have him appear in a play in a tiny basement theater, and then make the run so limited t…
Evenings of one-act plays can cause theatrical whiplash. That's certainly the case with "Summer Shorts 5: Series B."
Now running in rep with the recently opened Series A, featuring work b…
If Charles Busch’s artistic to the late Charles Ludlam was made evident by such parodies as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Red Scare on Sunset, then his latest effort reveals the influe…
Anyone who saw Rent in its original incarnation at the New York Theatre Workshop will no doubt be discomfited to see that it has now become a theatrical brand. Just three years after it clos…
Sitting through "Herman Kline's Midlife Crisis" is likely to bring on a midlife crisis of your own. Its principal plot element is the retrieval of a bag of crack cocaine from the rectum of a…
Parents of teenage girls should probably avoid "Carrie & Francine," the opener of the one- act fest Summer Shorts 5: Series A. Written by 17-year-old playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel, it depicts …
It was a musical that spoke to a new generation " and its dramatic backstage story became theatrical legend.
On Jan. 25, 1996, the night before "Rent" played its first preview off-Broadway, …
Several years back, Steve Solomon scored a surprise off-Broadway hit with his solo comedy show "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm in Therapy!" An account of his dysfunctional fam…
The centenary of Tennessee Williams' birth has prompted a flood of productions of obscure works from his vaults. Perhaps the most intriguing is "The Pretty Trap," an early one-act version of…
They must put some thing in the water in Canada. The country has spawned an endless series of circus troupes, the most famous being Cirque du Soleil. The latest arrival is the Montreal-based…
Granted, "It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues" -- but the blues are more than enough in the New Haarlem Arts Theatre's rollicking revival of the Tony-nominated 1999 revue.
From the fiery gospe…
There's one thing to be said about the Drilling Company's "Hamlet": You can't beat the parking.
That's one of the perks of Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot, a series of free productions p…
Imagine "The Wizard of Oz" spiked with a little salsa and me rengue. Que divertido! You've pretty much summed up "The Yellow Brick Road," a fun new riff on L. Frank Baum's classic.
It's g…
As metaphors go, it's hard to beat a pair of shoes. That's the main lesson im parted by "The Shoemaker," in which the title character attempts to fix a woman's broken soul -- sorry, sole -- …
'The Honeymooners," "I Love Lucy" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Which one of these is out of place? None of them, says Claire Beckman, artistic director of the Brave New World theater co…
It’s not easy to kill Death Takes a Holiday. This old chestnut about the Grim Reaper taking a much needed vacation was a Broadway hit way back in the 1920s, spawned a successful 1934 m…
The opening moments of "Brownsville Bred" suggest we're in for a rough evening. Projected on a sheet hung on a clothesline is a Wikipedia entry about the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, fol…
'Victory: Choices in Reaction" is the theatrical equivalent to eat ing your vegetables. Set during the 17th century, when the monarchy was restored to England, this sprawling epic packs in s…
Love triangles are al ways complicated. But the one in "A Strange and Separate People" is more convoluted than most.
In this new play by Jon Marans ("The Temperamentals," "Old Wicked Song…
Haunted-looking fig ures, their faces painted white, stand motionless onstage as you enter the Flea Theater. It's an arresting image -- one that dissipates as soon as they open their mouths.…
Imagine Blue Man Group ex panding its roster, develop ing the ability to harmonize and turning from blue to white. That, in essence, is "Voca People," about an intergalactic singing group.
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'LADIES and gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!" The introduction alone is enough to give you goose bumps -- especially since it's being heard at what used to be the Village Gate, where the brilliant co…
AN old-fashioned thriller in the Agatha Christie vein, "Tryst" is set in Edwardian times. It could just as easily have been written then as well -- and that's a compliment.
Originally pro…
