8,501 stories from Backstage
Imagine if Oscar Wilde wrote an episode of Queer as Folk. Now subtract any semblance of witty dialogue, social insight, or raucous sex and you've got William & James, Canadian playwright Rob…
This is not your grandmother's Kabuki. Though performed by Heisei Nakamura-za, one of Japan's most respected Kabuki troupes, this production has been seriously infiltrated by Western comedic…
Director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge has created a terrifically watchable, even intermittently inspired physical production, but one major quibble remains: There's precious little sen…
Four actors discuss why they chose to enlist.
Gentleman-of-a-certain-age Clark Warren may not eventually come across as the future of cabaret, but he is going to give his audience not only what they want but also what they might not hav…
The People vs. Mona has several infectious tunes with ingratiating lyrics, but the book stretches a thin idea beyond the breaking point. It's is a pleasant enough treat, but its flavor doesn…
David Epstein's play is a creaky, cliche-ridden family drama. Only Lois Smith creates a believable person.
Director Heidi Lauren Duke makes a heroic, often successful attempt to capture epic history within an intimate venue. She's helped by strong performances and some imaginative production valu…
Though his take on the play is disappointingly generic, director Christopher Carter Sanderson has a way with actors. Jeff Barry makes for a youthful and charismatic Henry, and the cast's lin…
Dario Fo's political comedy is presented in broad brushstrokes, but his grotesque comic vision remains clear.
The Rising Sun Performance Company looks back at the 20th century and concludes that it was, all things considered, pretty damn lousy.
Arthur Laurents' inspired revival of the 1959 musical, which kicks off the new Encores! Summer Series, demands that you surrender to LuPone's thunderous, volcanic stage mother, Mama Rose.
It may not be as adventurous as the neighborhood it pays tribute to, but it offers a tuneful history lesson with a certain offhanded charm.
The sucess of Xanadu, the lovably lightheaded gods-on-rollerskates musical, is an Olympian accomplishment.
A play like this could give soap operas a bad name.
A revival of Charles Ludlam's 1984 quick-change two-hander is the most fun you'll have Off-Off-Broadway all month.
Waterwell's ambitious retelling of MLK's last year both amuses and provokes.
Howard Baker's wordy and provocative drama of a political cartoonist receives an uneven production.
The single-set comedy-drama, chronicling the shifting fortunes of a Russian-Jewish family from 1910 to 1931, plays like I Remember Mama laced with Manischewitz.
In Simon Heath's story of physics and metaphysics, technology and art are perfectly blended.
The hidebound conventions of the plot prevent this combination soap opera and light comedy from becoming totally enjoyable -- even as a campy joke -- but it does provide a vehicle for two fi…
Playwright James Rasheed has somehow turned the world's most eye-glazingly dull profession-accounting-into an entertaining, stiletto-sharp satire of office politics and macho head games. As …
Macbeth contains some of the deepest and darkest poetry in all of Shakespeare, and the sheer perversity of deleting every last syllable of it no doubt held special appeal for the cheeky arti…
Strong in the lower register and sometimes less sure in her higher register, the still striking and beautifully gowned Wilson has character to spare. She brings understanding, intelligence, …
