1,091 stories from Show Showdown
Kenneth Lonergan's Medieval Play, had to have been produced under threat of thumbscrews. Sir Ralph (Josh Hamilton) and Sir Alfred (Tate Donovan) are pillagers of the lowest order -- though t…
If My Children! My Africa! occasionally falls prey to schooling us, it is at least at the hands of the very gifted James A. Williams, and it is at least motivated by the relateable frus…
Will Eno's Title and Deed seems to operate in a vacuum. Christine Jones's set hangs geometric shapes in mid-air, looking like shrapnel frozen in time, and Ben Stanton's lighting is…
Sometimes, when partisan politics piss me off, I try--with increasing difficulty as I age--to see the issue from the other side. "They infuriate us as much as we infuriate them," I reason, "…
Photo: Joan MarcusMost of Venus in Furs' critical reception has centered around the force of nature that is Nina Arianda, and on this front I have nothing but more praise to add. She is, qui…
Perhaps the greatest compliment I can send Company XIV's way is that this exciting, dance-fusion troupe (under the expert leadership of Austin McCormick) continues to evolve with each new sh…
The Drafts, the acting company of the Horse Trade Theater Group, recently presented When Half the Sphere Is Visible, an unusual collaboration among four playwrights, five directors, and nine…
There is a moment in Evita when, with a single note, you know something magical is about to happen. Unfortunately, it happens halfway through Act I. Even more unfortunate, the actress, playi…
Lorinda Lisitza is amazing. And she was born to sing the songs of Joe Iconis and Robert Maddock, who are pretty darn amazing themselves.
The Show Showdown review for Company XIV's version of Snow White posted on December 16, 2011 written by Sandra Mardenfeld is a finalist in the Press Club of Long Island Media Award competiti…
Jason Kempin/Getty Images North AmericaLike Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita was one of those shows I grew up with, but never actually saw staged. And perhaps not coincidentally, these two are …
Tom Dudzick's lovely and touching comedy, Miracle on South Division Street, focuses on the working-class Nowaks of Buffalo--Clara and her three adult children--a close-knit family who nevert…
John Jasperse's one-hour dance piece, Fort Blossom Revisited, begins when an attractive, curly-haired, and completely nude white man walks calmly onstage and lies face down, hands at side. H…
It's the strength of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire that is reflected in the relative success of this all-black revival, not Emily Mann's directorial decisions. Well, and…
There is a great distance between any two people, not just across generations -- Leo (Gabriel Ebert) shows up at his grandmother Vera's (Mary Louise Wilson's) door after going AWOL on a bike…
In northern Michigan in 1911, a nun was found murdered. In the early 1970s, playwright Milan Stitt wrote a murder mystery/courtroom drama based on this story and used it to examine love, rel…
While watching the not-particularly-enthralling New Group production of David Rabe's new play, An Early History of Fire, I had to wonder if we really need yet another coming-of-age story in …
Today's Tony Award nominations underline that, in its own way, the Fabulous Invalid isn't dead yet, despite its attempts to commit suicide via obscenely high ticket prices. It has recreated …
Rachael Hip-Flores, Isaiah Tanenbaum Photo: Justin HochIn August Schulenburg's wonderful new play, DEINDE, a Flux Theatre Ensemble production, it's 2051, and a virus is decimating the human …
A Midsummer Night's Dream may be William Shakespeare's most indestructible play. The plot is so solidly silly, the characters' desires and dreams so clearly etched, that the show is always f…
In contrast to, for example, Liv Ullman's version of A Streetcar Named Desire (or David Cromer's or Edward Hall's), Emily Mann's version respects and serves the play. It is clear and straigh…
Lonely, I'm Not; bored, I am. Paul Weitz's new play at Second Stage isn't awful, it's just awfully empty in its exclamatory presentation of Porter (Topher Grace), a once-vicious, work-obsess…
From the sound of it, Nice Work If You Can Get It is setting itself up from failure: classic Gershwin songs harshly bolted onto a Prohibition-era farce that's adapted by Joe DiPiet…
It's unprofessional of me, I know, but at a certain point in Clybourne Park, I stopped taking notes. I was just so enjoying Bruce Norris's overlapping dialogue -- lines that would be content…
It's not hard to see what attracted David Auburn (Proof) to a historical subject like Joseph Alsop. The twenty odd years covered by The Columnist (1957-1978) were tumultuous ones for Am…
