605 stories by "Joel Benjamin"
This post is by Joel Benjamin
It was inevitable that legalized gay marriage would lead to plays about gay parenthood. "Dada Woof Papa Hot," Peter Parnell's sweet-natured, but frustratingly …
This post is by Joel Benjamin
On a portal shaped screen, films of Ms. Guillem (by the very clever Elias Benxon) are soon substituted by Ms. Guillem in the flesh. She disappeared behind this…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
The sobriquet "tricks" is probably not a fair or adequate description of the acrobatic feats these fourteen gymnasts displayed. Their tours de force included: …
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Directed with comfortable assurance and a leisurely sense of timing, this "Sylvia" benefits from a (mostly) strong cast, including three Tony Award winners: Ma…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Holland Taylor and Marylouise Burke in a scene from "Ripcord" (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) The usually hilarious, wickedly witty, Pulitzer Prize-winning David Li…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Two veterans of the most recent revival of On the Town were splendid interpreters of Finn's songs. First, Stephen DeRosa conjured a second-rate out-of-town pro…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
The Limón Dance Company celebrated its 70th Anniversary by presenting the José Limón International Dance Festival at the Joyce Theater. The Limón da…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
"South of Gold Mountain," the latest dance work from the iconic Chinatown-based H.T. Chen & Dancers, is a warmhearted, historically-based piece that illumi…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Mr. Taylor, who was the "stylist" on all works, shared this credit with Mr. Patterson and Andy Corsten. Often the choreography looked like slow-motion Vogue-in…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Now the frail-seeming, but elegant Cicely Tyson and imposing, stout-voiced James Earl Jones have taken on "The Gin Game" and make it totally their own, finding …
This post is by Joel Benjamin
The choreography, mostly by Emily Smyth Vartanian, tends toward the musically unsophisticated, combining ballet (piqué turns, little jumps, attitude and arabes…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
The revelation of the play is Mr. Lerner's detailed knowledge of both the orthodox sect and its place in modern Israeli society. He manages to make the age-old…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Two starry new cast members add luster to the show: English musical and opera star Alfie Boe as the tragic Jean Valjean and Tony Award nominee Montego Glover a…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Ann Marie DeAngelo, the longtime producer and director of the Career Transition for Dancers: 30th Anniversary Pearl Jubilee, has outdone herself this year with …
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Lopez knows these characters and how they speak. He is helped immensely by his director Mike Donahue who allows just enough comic exaggeration without ever let…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Dance historian Doug Fullington of the Pacific Northwest Ballet was the expert who, using slides and excerpts from both the Balanchine and Petipa versions, show…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
"Fulfillment" by the always surprising Thomas Bradshaw is about anything but the contentment and success implied by its ironic title. The Flea Theater's produc…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Opening this year's Next Wave series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music was the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan's "Rice," a ritualistic ballet conceived and ch…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Dendy uses his fertile imagination to tell Manning's story beginning with his repressed childhood, on through enlisting in the Army where he was trained in comp…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Anna Ziegler's "A Delicate Ship" is an intelligent, intensely absorbing play that treats its three thirty-something characters like chess pieces moving warily a…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
"Love & Money" is light, literate entertainment, impeccably acted by its small cast led by the charismatic Ms. Anderman. Mr. Paulik amusingly projects his…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Baker fills "John" with telling details, from the food (ever hear of Sailor's Duff?) to hidden rooms to specifics of Gettysburg, that keep the play from floatin…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Then, there's the new cast member, Misty Copeland, the newly minted American Ballet Theater principal ballerina, who has taken over the role of Ivy Smith, the c…
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, two brilliant Russian ballet stars, have assemble an ad hoc mini-ballet troupe of like-minded dance artists who are unafraid …
This post is by Joel Benjamin
Famously, it was an 18th century slave trader who redeemed himself, after many gruesome twists and turns in his life, by writing this song. Told with something…
