Sorrow at Hart Island
By Marcina Zaccaria Touring the New York City waterways can make one feel elated. Viewing the stunning footage of large expanses of waterways and maps, it's impossible not to be impressed by…
By Marcina Zaccaria Touring the New York City waterways can make one feel elated. Viewing the stunning footage of large expanses of waterways and maps, it's impossible not to be impressed by…
By Marcina Zaccaria Andy Warhol believed that anyone could be famous for 15 minutes or more. It's that jarring truth that introduces a point of inquiry in The Trial of Andy Warhol. Is Warhol…
By Brian Scott Lipton It seems impossible that each and every person watching the poignant musical revue Notes from Now, currently being presented by the Prospect Theater Company at 59E59 Th…
By JK Clarke Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) has taken a bold step in its new production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. But not for the expected reason (casting a black …
By JK Clarke . . . The small-town America of The Music Man is the one people refer to when talking about "the good old days," when everyone knew everyone, life was cheery and people left …
By JK Clarke One of the more intriguing components of Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night is its deliberate length"crafted to make the audience viscerally experien…
By Cooper Lawrence . . . At first glance, it's perplexing why Lynn Nottage (Book) and Christopher Wheeldon (Director/Choreographer) would want to celebrate a deeply flawed icon like Michael …
Theater Pizzazz had the privilege of attending the new opening night of American Utopia, the David Byrne musical on Friday night, September 17. JK Clarke was on hand at the St. James Theatre…
by JK Clarke . . . . Edward Medina, a beloved member of the New York theater critics community and a cherished colleague here at Theater Pizzazz, died Wednesday evening following complicatio…
For today's installment of "Leiter Looks Back," we'll skip the ten best and take a look at five of the six Mantle liked but overlooked. The post Leiter Looks Back: Five Plays of 1923-1924 ap…
   By Samuel L. Leiter  To date, the seasons covered by this series have not been especially thrilling with regard to revivals, especially Shakespearean ones. Much of the Sha…
  By Brian Scott Lipton  What is, what was and what might have been. These everyday yet profound questions envelop the minds of both the main characters and the audience of Unkno…
     By Samuel L. Leiter  It's too soon to suggest a trend but All the Natalie Portmans, the MCC's production of C.A. Johnson's bumpily engaging, African-American, co…
      By Brian Scott Lipton  "There are only two sure things in life, death and taxes," Benjamin Franklin famously told the public, and playwright Young Jean Lee …
    By JK Clarke  For many of us, the most preferable way to understand an historical event or era is through historical fiction with dramatized narratives. Obviously, wo…
      By Brian Scott Lipton  The tiny mini-dresses, the tight-tight pants and the paisley shirts. The velour sofas. The talk of key parties and "The Institute" an…
     By Samuel L. Leiter  A Soldier's Play, Charles Fuller's vigorous, Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of racial tension among African-American soldiers in a U.S. …
     By JK Clarke  It takes an extraordinarily special talent to take Shakespeare's more problematic"or "less compelling""plays and make them not only interesting, bu…
     By JK Clarke  Upon introducing their evening of songs Tuesday night at Pangea, Barbara Bleier and Austin Pendleton explained they called the performance"which pl…
   By Samuel L. Leiter  Emojis! Those ubiquitous computer images we attach to our emails offering shortcut messages showing feelings, foods, celebrations, machines, weather, …
   by Samuel L. Leiter  You know those CNN documentaries that cover an entire decade in an hour? "The Sixties"? "The Seventies"? "The Eighties," etc.? Film and video clip…
     By JK Clarke  As a society, here in the US of A, it's fair to say we hardly spend much time thinking about Idaho. Sure, there's the odd joke or two about potatoe…
    By JK Clarke  Edmond de Rostand's 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac is a story that lends itself to reinterpretation and modernization. With a simple, straightforward the…
    By Samuel L. Leiter  I admit it. I'm guilty. I sat through Linda Vista, by actor-playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County), at Second Stage's Helen Hayes Theatre,…
     By JK Clarke  Fans of both Andrus Nichols and Kate Hamill were recently thrilled by the news that the two had formed a new theater company, The Coop. Nichols' co…