605 stories by "Joel Benjamin"
"Love, Sex & Real Estate" moves swiftly, thanks to John D. McNally's direction. Â He skillfully manages the quick shifts between romantic liaisons, real estate discussions, Ugo's youth…
From the clever double entendre title to its fantastical involvement of three famous long dead physicists, Carole Buggé's "Strings Attached" tries very hard to rise out of the morass what i…
If Samuel Beckett had been a Jew, his "Waiting for Godot"'s Estragon and Vladimir could have emerged as the equally quirky "Two Jews, Talking," in the appealing new two-hander by Ed. Weinber…
Part of Ramón's game plan to increase attendance is to create a Randy's Dandy Coaster Castle mascot. In a move that changes his life, Arlo is drafted to don a hilarious, smelly rat co…
The second Ashton ballet was "Varii Capricci," his clever take on Bronislava Nijinska's "Les Biches" from 1924. Her ballet was a tongue-in-cheek comment on the sexually liberated, chic y…
The dancers were attired in puffy white tutus and black tights, the men bare-chested"chic costumes by the choreographer. They pranced, undulated their torsos, tossed each other around an…
A tiny dynamo, Bell Wolff, early in her career, found the perfect role as Ermengarde in several productions of "Hello, Dolly!". She yearned to perform the bigger part of Minnie Faye and near…
Ng has a far-reaching imagination and spins the many stories and characters of her "Happy Life" with admiral skill and abandon. But it is just too heavy-handedly, head-scratchingly abstr…
The chips fall into place by the end of A Black and White Cookie, perhaps a bit too smoothly, but the path to the ending is well constructed and fascinating. Morgenstein has caught the nuanc…
It may be a bit unfair, but there's no escaping comparing "Notre Dame De Paris," currently exploding on the stage of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, with its immensely popular F…
Pendleton, in a program note, assures us that "Alice" is not a retelling of Carroll's book. Rather, he used some of the events and characters from the book, dividing the evening-length w…
If you ever lived through the angst of an unrequited love, a romance impossible for one reason or another, then Billy Hipkins' "Prince Charming, You're Late" will hit the spot. Directed …
"The Rise and Fall, then Brief and Modest Rise Followed by a Relative Fall of…Jean Claude Van Damme as Gleaned by a Single Reading of His Wikipedia Page Months Earlier" is the brobdinagian…
For the company's director, Peter Boal, this short season was a homecoming of sorts. He was a principal dancer in the New York City Ballet which calls the David H. Koch its artistic home…
Romy Nordlinger has written and is performing the monodrama, "Garden of Alla: The Alla Nazimova Story," at the TheaterLab. Directed by Lorca Peress, "Garden of Alla" gives us this eccent…
The new work on the program, a world premiere, was "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers" by Michelle Manzanales, choreographed to John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, Harry Woods and se…
Kaliski attempts a clever conceit marrying "The Oresteia" characters to the modern tragic story of the homeless hordes. Does "The Oresteia" provide an effective jumping off point to explore …
Diriwachter is particularly skilled in writing working class vernacular. The Father and Tim speak the same language and he catches all the subtleties of decades of ups and downs. He …
Origin Theatre Company's stark production of Kees Roorda's A Kid Like Rishi is a totally involving Rashomon-like take on a real-life tragedy:Â In November of 2012, 17-year-old Rishi Chand…
Takiff is a skilled performer who never loses the audience no matter how angry or sardonic he gets. He is helped by the mood setting lighting of Elizabeth M. Stewart and the sound and vi…
Alison Leiby's "Oh God, A Show About Abortion" is probably the most level-headed work about that much debated subject, perhaps too level-headed. While the United States is going through …
Deliriously and explicitly profane, Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize winning musical, "A Strange Loop" has"unbelievably"made it to Broadway, produced by Playwrights Horizons, Page 73 and …
This Broadway production, a godchild of a recent 2019 production at The Public Theater (directed by Leah C. Gardiner), is directed and choreographed by modern dance luminary Camille A. Brown…
The final work was the world premiere of "Only One Will Rise," a work by a new choreographer Olivier Tarpaga to a colorful score he co-wrote with Tim Motzer who was one of the three on stage…
The ubiquitous Billy Porter was given command of the most recent New York City Center Encores! presentation, the 1997 musical "The Life."Â His direction and re-interpretation of this tawd…
