605 stories by "Joel Benjamin"
Dominique Morisseau's "Confederates," her second play of her Signature Theatre Residency 5, is a clever, but overly talky dissertation on race, power and family. She offers the audience …
Who knew that Marshall McLuhan was such a nut? "The Medium," a dance-theater work conceived and directed by Anne Bogart puts McLuhan through her particular way of combining dance and wor…
Songwriter Steve Earle, a three-time Grammy Award winner, returns providing homey, twangy music and acting as an understanding host/narrator. With charm that belies the depth of Coal Cou…
Whether or not Tracy Weller's "Hart Island" directly harkens back to Masters, it certainly has similarities, most particularly in its poetically rendered revelations of the underbelly of lif…
By far, the audience favorite was the world premiere "Time Spell," an entertaining attempt at a hybrid of tap dancing (choreographed by Michelle Dorrance and Jillian Meyers) and ballet (chor…
A plea for understanding the pain of being Muslin-American, Sevan's First Down at the 59E59 Theaters focuses on the plight of an adored football player who decides to kneel and pray during t…
In her selection of the movements and structure of "Four Quartets," Tamowitz chose to ignore the depth and imagery of the poems, producing a cool Merce Cunningham-like ballet that glided alo…
Wheeldon and Pulitzer Award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage make every effort to hide the fact that MJ is a jukebox musical, despite the fact that the first notes of every song elicited loud…
Who knew that SPAM has figured so importantly in Korean and Korean-American cuisines? Jaime Sunwoo's "Specially Processed American Me" tells that story and much more. "Specially Processe…
Let's start with the best:Â The great Joshua Henry's 11 o'clock number, "William's Song," a gut-wrenching revelatory song sung by the title character's emotionally distant father. Â Hen…
The New Yiddish Rep's (David Mandelbaum, artistic director) production of the Yiddish language "Di Froyen (The Women)" is a bittersweet, anger-inducing portrait of modern day Chasid women ca…
Turning the plight of New York City's homeless into a game is an iffy proposition to say the least. At best, the audience for the theatrical effort, "Addressless: A Walk in Our Shoes," l…
He used the gimmick of preparing to perform the very show he was performing for his audience in the Cabaret Theater of the Theater for the New City; but by the end of his fascinating and gru…
Parsons' first work on the program was the tour de force solo "Balance of Power" performed by the phenomenal Zoey Anderson. Clad in Barbara Erin Delo's brilliantly colored tight costume"…
If you are a Princess Diana completist, "Diana: The Musical" will satisfy your needs along with the deeper Spencer and The Queen and all the innumerable documentaries about this ill-fated fa…
When Sonny Marie Lee stepped onto the stage of the Actors Temple Theatre as the eponymous "The Bronx Babe" I thought she was putting the audience on, acting the stereotypical, Noo Yawk accen…
Unfolding from a stand-up comedy routine""A prisoner walks into a bar…!""and set in a comedy venue designed with ingenuity and style by Walt Spangler, Turtle veers from hokey to horrible h…
"Caroline, or Change" is an important musical, more now than in 2004. It should be seen. The Roundabout production, though somewhat flawed, still communicates the complicated relatio…
Now there's "Swan Lake Rock Opera" created by Mirit Shem-Ur (book and lyrics), Tsedi Sarfati (director and dramaturge) and Sharona Pick (music production and additional music). The show …
Before the dancers appeared live, "Dance" commenced with a burst of Glass' iconic, pulsating music"here pre-recorded, originally performed live"and a still from LeWitt's original video proje…
The final work on Program 1 was its finest. A.I.M. By Kyle Abraham presented its director's "Our Indigo: If We Were a Love Song," a deeply moving paean to the darker meanings of love.Â�…
DiMurro writes with an acute sense of the rhythm of New York speech and its old-school jargon, helped by director William Roudebush's complementary sense of timing, not to mention four exper…
The dances on this program are perfect examples of the Denishawn aesthetic which combined what was then exoticism with impeccable theatricality. The Denishawn troupe was very much of its…
Benjamin Viertel directs "Between the Bars" brilliantly finding the balance between theatricality and reality. Each character emerges as distinct and multidimensional, even the guards wh…
It is to the credit of the entire cast"dressed in Anthony Paul-Cavaretta's period tunics and flowing robes"that Lackey's sometimes over-the-top dialogue lands credibly. Two other elements el…
