1,115 stories by "Frank Scheck"
It can't be easy being David Boyle. As the sole performer in "Being Sellers," part of the Brits Off Broadway series, he not only has to embody Peter Sellers, but Inspector Clouseau, Chance …
The expert farcical instincts of playwright Michael Frayn ("Noises Off") are sadly lacking in "Alphabetical Order," a 1975 comedy making its New York City premiere days after the opening of…
Julia Stiles returns to her theatrical roots with this experimental take on the classic Greek myth.
'Black Nativity," the all- black retelling of the Na tivity story, has been a holiday staple since 1961. This year's edition -- an updated, retitled "Black Nativity Now" -- commits the Scro…
As Leo Tolstoy famously observed, "Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." For the three siblings in Melissa Ross' "Thinner Than Water," unhappiness takes the form of constant argu…
This revival of Tony Kushner's two-part masterwork immediately establishes itself as the theatrical event of the season.
Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight breathe life into David Mamet's wheezy 1977 backstage comedy.
You may find yourself nervously whistling in the dark at "Play Dead," the fiendishly frightening but playful spookfest devised by Todd Robbins and Teller, the silent half of Penn & Teller. …
The problem with being a cutting-edge theater festival is that it gets harder and harder to keep things sharp. That's the challenge faced by Under the Radar, presented each year by the Publ…
The best way to ap preciate "Molly Sweeney" may simply be to shut your eyes. As he did in "Faith Healer" a few seasons back, Brian Friel uses three intersecting monologues, this time tellin…
*“Angels in America” The Signature Theatre presents the first New York revival of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning, two-part epic fantasia which stars Tony-winner Frank …
If the news makes you want to cry, there's an antidote in town: "NEWSical the Musi cal." This new edition of the topical musical revue does for current events what the late, lamented "Forbi…
The story behind "Personal Enemy" is more interesting than the play itself. Co-written in 1953 by British play wrights John Osborne ("Look Back in Anger") and Anthony Creighton, it was bare…
Let's hope the Café Carlyle stocks up on smell ing salts: The sheer amount of swooning at Paulo Szot's opening-night set made it clear that a new romantic idol has arrived.Fresh off his To…
I've heard of getting pumped up for a show, but this was a first: Before watching Thaddeus Phillips' solo piece "Capsule 33," theatergoers are encouraged to prime a foot pump near the theat…
Marital difficulties? Try watching Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano in ac tion. These husband-and-wife performers have so much personal and musical chemistry, they're practically providing …
Here's the difference be tween seeing a stand-up comic in a theater and seeing one in a club: The material is usually framed by a "concept" in a theater, ticket prices are higher -- and drin…
Stripped to an 80-minute one-act and minus many characters and songs, Platinum is no forgotten gem.
David Chesky, the composer/ lyricist behind The Pig, the Farmer and the Artist, may not be a pig, but he's no artist, either.
A full-throated belter one minute, a sensitive chanteuse the next: Either way, Baby Jane Dexter is the real deal. In her nearly four decades on the cabaret scene, she's lived her life in pu…
The first sign that "Baby Uni verse: A Puppet Odyssey" isn't your ordinary puppet show comes in the lobby, when a small, wheelchair-bound robot with a striking resemblance to Stephen Hawkin…
Sure, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, but that's nothing compared to the indignities he suffers in "An Error of the Moon." Luigi Creatore's play suggests this American tragedy had less t…
Heavy on sports atmosphere but light on content, “Lombardi” doesn't make it to the goal line.
Death-row dramas have been a theatrical staple since the '30s, and "When I Come To Die," Nathan Louis Jackson's new take, adds little that's fresh. Damon Robinson (Chris Chalk), in prison f…
They say truth is stranger than fiction -- but fiction's often far more entertaining. So it is with British comedian Daniel Kitson's "The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church," a one-man …
