6,591 stories from Stage and Cinema
STAGNANT YET SATIATING Giuseppe Verdi wrote Simon Boccanegra in 1857, but it is the revised 1881 version which the Lyric Opera is presenting in a stiff yet satisfying production. Afte…
SMILE, THOUGH YOUR HEART IS BREAKING Andrea Marcovicci, who reinvented the torch song for a new generation, has looked our depression/recession straight in the face and decided that what she…
A POWERFUL WASTELAND AT TIMELINE Wasteland is a two-character play but the audience only sees one in this drama about two American soldiers held as prisoners during the Vietnam War, now rece…
WELL INTENTIONED, ILL-CONCEIVED Whispers of "pretentious" could be heard in the audience of Paul David Young's new play In the Summer Pavilion, which doesn't seem like a fair assessment. Cal…
A POETIC BREAKUP The plot of writer/director Pascal Rambert's play Love's End is astoundingly simple. A long-term romantic relationship finally reaches a breaking point. The man confronts th…
THEY’RE DROPPING LIKE FLIES AT ACTORS CO-OP Since it was first published in1939, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (originally titled Ten Little Niggers and quickly …
THE JOURNEY HOMEWARD The title character in Simon Stephens's freshly observed new play, Harper Regan, is at a crossroads in her life, in the midst of what we used to call a midlife crisis.Â…
WOE AND BEHOLD When John Kelly descends into the regions of darkness, he does so with a soaring intensity that is intoxicating and never depressing. In his new cabaret act at Joe's Pub, Kell…
JUSTIN IS JUST IN THE MIDDLE The best thing about Justin Love, Celebration Theatre's 30th season opening production, is the fun of watching the stylish performance of Grant Jordan, who gives…
TRYOUT SHOULD GET THE BOOT UNTIL IT WORKS OUT THE KINKS Prepare yourself for some disparate reviews of Kinky Boots, which had its pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago's Bank of America Theater las…
AFTERGLOW It's with good reason that Chad Beckim's After has been extended at Profiles Theatre. Yes, Beckim's script undoubtedly tries to cover too much territory as he tells the tale of Mon…
INTO THE TOILET The 1996 film Trainspotting was notorious for its spare-no-sensitivity, take-no-prisoners look at Edinburgh heroin addicts. Based on Irvine Welsh's bottom-feeding novel, it t…
ADAPTATION NEEDS TO MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT Jules Verne channeled 19th century technological progress into wondrous stories that fueled the world's imagination. He took us to the center of …
THE JOADS AT HOME Playwright Randy Sharp's one act drama takes place during the Dust Bowl catastrophe of the 1930s, when a monstrous drought descended on the central plain states turning fer…
OXYGEN? YES. FUEL? YES. HEAT? NO. There are arsonists who want to burn down a town, and they want the citizens to help. In Max Frisch's absurdist play, a city has whipped itself …
SHOOTING HISTORY IN THE NECK With the exception of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and its fierce gender-bending genius, and Rocky Horror Picture Show (sublime sexy silliness that nudged a million…
DRINKS WITH A RAKE Find the nearest bottle of vodka and drink up. Ars Nova's world premiere of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 " an electro-pop musicalization of a self-contain…
EXTRAORDINARILY BEAUTIFULÂ PIGPEN PROJECT PigPen Theatre Co.'s The Old Man and the Old Moon is guaranteed to gently pluck at your heartstrings. An enchanting fable told through shadow pupp…
A PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENT Michael Michetti’s staging of Kathryn Walat’s Creation will, I hope, long hold the record in my experience for Most Literal Production. This decidedly n…
"Satire," as George S. Kaufman once famously said, "is what closes Saturday night."Â Though written in jest, it has served as an admonition for playwrights in pursuit of satire. In this a…
PINCHES GRINGOS! The aliens have arrived. Mexicans, that is. Fucking Mexicans. And fucking Nigerians. Small town Southern girl Tamara-Lee can't seem to decide which she hates more. I Hate Fu…
SASSY SENIORS PROVE THE BEAT GOES ON FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART At 80 years young Jackie Goldberg, a.k.a. The Pink Lady, is on a mission. After becoming a widow at 70 she created a series of sem…
SMOKIN' When Smokey Joe's Café opened on Broadway in 1995, the critics were only mildly impressed and suggested that this revue of rock "n" roll songs composed by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stol…
EVIL WILL TRAVEL In his great works, like Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, and even in his lesser efforts, such as Broken Glass, Arthur Miller forces us to confess a greater loyalty …
PUT IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION Anticipating having to review Owen Dunne's new play Positions, the feeling I had while watching it " knowing the production to have travelled 600 miles to…
