MUCH ADO TO KNOW ITSELF Sean Branney has been as lauded as a Los Angeles theater director can be, and Theatre Banshee has done some great work recently, so it’s disappointing to report…
MILES OF TALENT AT LINCOLN CENTER As a reviewer, I don't like to pander in hyperbole, but since this year has been such a second-rate season in New York, I think it's safe to say that 4000 M…
WHAT DEFINES PRIDE? How much of our identity is defined by the era in which we live? How does the constraint or freedom of a particular time mold who we are? Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride,…
THE PLAY’S ACTING’S THE THING Plenty of negatives can be directed toward Lee Blessing's Chesapeake, which suffers from personality disorder: Is it a satire? A comedy? A fantasy? …
KILLER HUNK, KILLER SET, AND KILLER STORY MAKE UP FOR BLOODLESS PERFORMANCES As evidenced by his astoundingly beautiful production of Ira Levin's 1978 comedy-thriller Deathtrap, Jon Imperato…
HAUNTINGLY IMTIMATE Ghost stories are difficult to bring off on stage. The physical reality of flesh and blood actors works against the sense of the supernatural and the suspense and horror …
IT'S JUST IT'S JUST SEX Cole Porter wrote sex comedies; Richard Brinsley Sheridan and William Shakespeare wrote them. Michael Frayn wrote them. Georges Feydeau and Arthur Schnitzler …
FEEDBACK: THE BIG TEASE Everything that works and doesn't work about Jane Miller's new play Feedback turns on one thing: Nudity. In terms of talking the talk, the whole exercise is about get…
MCC GETS CARRIE-D AWAY The myth that youth market musicals are a low-risk venture has gained strength over the last few years in New York City. Short-sighted producers will overlook disa…
BORN-AGAIN PORN STAR? Nudity can have a sacred character to it, depending on one’s motives. There are Christian nudist colonies, for example, whose goal is to return humankind to its p…
WHICH AMERICAN IDIOT ARE YOU? If you know and love Green Day’s studio concept album on which it is based, American Idiot is the show for you. If, like me, you are a stranger to the …
THE DISNEYFICATION OF LINCOLN’S DEATH In many ways, Hershey Felder is a theater machine. In his four previous self-crafted one-man shows, the earnest and multi-talented actor/pianist/c…
IF FOOD BE THE MUSIC OF LOVE, EAT ON The Lookingglass production of Cascabel is the toughest ticket in Chicago this side of The Book of Mormon. The hook of the show is the menu prepared by c…
ONE EXCLAMATION POINT IN THE TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH Audience enjoyment of Fela! at the Oriental Theatre will be in direct proportion to the viewer's capacity to absorb more than two hours of no…
GOOD NEWSIES, BAD NEWSIES A few months ago, the New York theatre community was all abuzz with the announcement that the Paper Mill Playhouse production of Newsies was transferring to Broadwa…
MEMORIES OF SEAGULLS PAST If you have never seen The Seagull " though I can’t imagine a seasoned theatergoer who hasn’t, can you? " you just might possibly get an inkl…
ONE VERY, VERY SMALL STEP FOR DAMON CHUA Tony Gatto gets an A for effort, having mounted a colorful if unnecessarily literal production of a Damon Chua script that defies dramaturgy and good…
MAMMA MIA: TEN YEARS OF DIZZY, FIZZY DELIGHT The most essential elements of the Mama Mia! National tour, now in its tenth year, and visiting Los Angeles once again at the Pantages for the ne…
"IF I AM DEAD TO LIFE, WHAT AM I ALIVE TO?" In The Woman in the Wall, Overtone Industries reinvents a tradition of medieval mystery plays in a stunning new chamber opera about a 14th century…
GHOST WRITTEN Henrik Ibsen wrote at a watershed moment in theater history, at the decline of melodrama and the rise of naturalism; some of his best plays reflect a tension between these pole…
A FREUDIAN TRIP Freud's Last Session at the Mercury Theater is a "what if" play. What if the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the English professor and author C. S. Lewis met in Freu…
COMICAL, HISTORICAL, WHIMSICAL, “POP”ICAL If you like Shakespeare: go. If you hate Shakespeare: go. If you love or loathe Peter Cetera: go. If you dislike ecstatic, a…
A CHARMING MUSICAL WITHOUT A VIEW Theatre lore maintains that creating a successful new musical for the stage is more difficult and trying than creating peace in the Middle East. Noticing th…
THE QUESTION IS: CAN YOU SEE TOMMY? Everything is murky about the DOMA Theatre Company's new production of The Who's Tommy at the Met Theatre"the performances, the sound design, the staging,…
THE TORTILLA CURTAIN RISES TO BIG APPLAUSE A frequently-used device in plot is to create two or more distinctively different characters and see how they function once they are thrown togethe…