685 stories by "Wendy Caster"
One of the many joys of theatre is getting to experience how another person's brain and imagination work. Last night at La Mama, the brain and imagination belonged to Theodora Skipitares,…
I was going to do a "best-of" for 2019 plus a "looking forward" for 2020, when I realized that their focus would be much the same: the treasure that is non-Broadway theatre.I'm not denying t…
The narration for the MasterVoices production of the Gershwins' Let 'Em Eat Cake mentions that (1) it was the very first musical sequel (to Of Thee I Sing), and (2) it set the preceden…
In the excellent Voyage Theater Company production of The Hope Hypothesis, running through November 15 at the Sheen Center, playwright-director Cat Miller deftly shows how easily innocence c…
What is a play? There are many definitions, of which this one (from the Merriam-Webster website) is a representative example:
A composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or char…
Panama Hattie, the third show in the York Theatre Company's Cole Porter-a-thon, is a mixed bag that is ultimately great fun.
Simon Jones, Kylie Kuioka, Stephen Bogardus, Klea Blackhurst, An…
Tired of the news? Depressed by the weird meanness of humans? Maybe you need a mini-vacation. Maybe you need to bask in the weird wonder of humans.
Jayson Dominguez and the Wheel of Deat…
The production of Macbeth at the Classic Stage Company (CSC), directed and designed by John Doyle, is a streamlined affair. It runs 1:40 without an intermission; it has a cast of only nin…
Once upon a time, Broadway was full of larger-than-life stars (often women) easily identified by their distinctive voices and mannerisms. Gwen Verdon. Carol Channing. Ethel Merman. Elaine St…
When a set of twins (Eve and Evan) press the wrong doorbell on Halloween, they are forced to fight for their lives against a manipulative, mean, and hungry witch. Can they save themselves? C…
I bought my first Ben Bagley record, Irving Berlin Revisited, for 69 cents at a flea market in New Jersey a million years ago. Albums those days cost around four dollars, so it was quite …
Laughing Liberally: Make America Laugh Again, an evening of left-leaning stand-up comedy, provides a bubble of shared beliefs, politically correct (and occasionally incorrect) commenta…
When Keith Hamilton Cobb first took an acting class, he wanted to play Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream. His acting teacher said no. Cobb continued to make creative suggestions; his…
My latest essay is up at Art Times:The holy grail of New York theater is a rave review in the New York Times. It doesn't guarantee success (and a pan doesn't guarantee failure), but a …
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I watched certain political plays with a sense of distance, deeply sympathetic to the characters and deeply grateful that those awful things weren't …
In Series A, the first part of Summer Shorts at 59E59, all three plays circle around death. This is a lot for a 90-minute evening.The first show, Interior, is the most fully realize…
Ya gotta love Annie Golden. She has a sweetness to her, with a wild voice and a slightly goofy vibe. For a creative team to decide to shape a musical around her--even going so far as to name…
Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth plays with language and slapstick, presents fascinating mini-versions of two of Shakespeare's masterpieces, vividly depicts the importance o…
Ladyship, the new show by twins Laura Good and Linda Good, exemplifies how difficult it is to write a good musical. There is so much here to like: some beautiful songs, an original story, an…
It's hard to know what to write about Illuminati Lizards From Outer Space since I was unable to hear ~70% of the lyrics (100% if more than one person was singing). I don't know if it was …
This isn't exactly a review because I wasn't able to see the whole show. But here are some thoughts based on what I saw.
The rhythms of African-American casual conversation fit beautifully …
Well, two of us did okay: Liz and Sandra each had 17 correct predictions. I had decided to be iconoclastic, which was a bad idea: 11 correct predictions.
THE WINNERS
Liz
Sandra…
I have seen enough mediocre-to-bad high-concept productions of Shakespeare's plays to shudder at the very idea of "high-concept." Then along comes Mac Beth, the amazing Red Bull Productio…
I suspect that there is a good play inside Jesse Eisenberg's Happy Talk, currently at The New Group at the Signature Center. The ideas and the situation are intriguing, and there is humo…
Best MusicalAin't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations
Beetlejuice
Hadestown
The PromTootsie
Liz Wollman: Hadestown. Seriously, can we please celebrate a creative…
