6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
FOUL AND FAIR Shakespeare's Macbeth, or The Tragedy of Macbeth, is typically dated to the years immediately following the coronation of James I as King of England in 1603. James, who w…
A ROLLER COASTER RIDE TO THE HEART OF DARKNESS I will always love good theater but, even so, every so often there comes along a play that actually restores one's faith in the possibilities o…
LOOT CONDUCT At a time when drawing room comedies ruled West End theatre, and even the shock of the raw emotions depicted in Osborne's Look Back in Anger had faded, a complacent London audie…
ACTOR DOUGLAS NOLAN: TOTALLY HUMAN AND TOTALLY ABSURD If you've ever seen a production of Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano that had you in stitches from practically the very first moment ri…
I ALWAYS LIKE TO BE KISSED WHEN I'M BEING… Inspired lunacy? Or strained silliness? Irreverent? Or just plain vulgar? A broad range of Latin musical genres? Or music that's just plain deriv…
A PUNCH IN THE GUT Raw as realism requires, good plays about boxing are more than just Rocky slugfests. Like Clifford Odets' seminal Golden Boy, they transform an atavistic popular dis…
THE ULTIMATE DRAG RACE It's both louder than life and strident with substance. The perfect play for Pride Month and a deafening blast from the past, Ms. Blakk for President, an uproarious…
WHAT AN ABSURD WORLD The first scene in the A.C.T. revival of Eugene Ionesco's absurdist masterpiece Rhinoceros, directed by Frank Galati with razor-sharp clarity and breakneck swiftness as …
POINTLESS PERPLEXITY Sometimes what you see is much less than what you get. Case in point: Pride Films and Plays is closing its season with a daunting new work written by Ryan Oliveira and d…
YOU'RE GETTING TO BE A RABBIT WITH ME Whatever happened to all the imaginary friends we had as kids? Did they all end up in some limbo where they started making friends with each other, or, …
HAS TOLSTOY EVER BEEN SO HOT? In his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Anna in the Tropics, Nilo Cruz created the role of striking, velvet-voiced, Cuban Lothario Juan Julian, a lector who is h…
THERE'S HUMOR TO BE PROUD OF HERE, SO DON'T BE PREJUDICED For those who have read or seen Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, there are many nouns that come to mind such as "classic," "drama,…
A PERFECT FIT Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five-year relationship for the woman, Cathy, but a…
BILLY BOY OH BOY Meet Billy, an ex-con sharpshooter who is living his American Dream in 1979. This optimistic showman, romantic, and visionary has encouraged a fraternity of castaways " a Na…
GRAFFITI THAT ASKS PERMISSION Carly Uhlenbeek (Jasmine St. Clair), an African American suburban seventh grade girl, seeks answers in playwright David Jacobi's Ready Steady Yeti Go, a Rogue M…
WHAT MORE CAN THEY SING? By its riveting end Falsettos, a fusion of March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), has jolted us with its heartbreak and won us with its wit.…
PLENTY TO DESIRE When I was thirteen I discovered Tennessee Williams when I picked up his play A Streetcar Named Desire at the New York Public Library. I don't know if I fully understood it …
SHOOTING STAR AIMS, SHOOTS … AND BORES Shooting Star, billed as "A Revealing New Musical" " and getting its World Premiere at the Hudson Theatres in Los Angeles under the direction of Mich…
SIX CHICKS REMIX TO NIX PRICKS Singing well is the best revenge, especially if you married the spouse from hell. So runs the cunning concept behind Six. This raucous pop concert joyously …
HAPPY DAYS IS HERE AGAIN I had never read nor seen Samuel Beckett's absurdist classic Happy Days, now at the Mark Taper, but was excited at the prospect of seeing the great Dianne Weist in t…
SINGING UP STORMY STUFF With this theater everything good is new again " and never old. The latest homage from Black Ensemble Theater, Style and Grace: In Tribute to Lena Horne and Nancy Wil…
THE MONSTER WITHIN It was a dark and stormy night. Escaping a tempest by seeking shelter in the Villa Diodati on a summer night in 1814, good friends Mary Shelley (as she would later be call…
DÉJÀ VU VS. NEVERMORE A very prolific playwright, Steven Dietz can deliver dense dramatic homage. In his 2013 Mad Beat Hip & Gone, now playing at The Edge Theater Off Broadway…
YOGA, GIRL! Which of the following defines yoga to you? A series of gentle exercises meant to relax and invigorate the body; A Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline using breath control and…
RETHINKING REPRODUCTION A very pointed question arrives near the end of Rebecca Gilman's useful 2007 drama The Crowd You're in With, first produced in Chicago ten years ago by Goodman …
