1,091 stories from Show Showdown
Really? Clybourne Park? This is the play that won the Pulitzer? That has a good chance at the Tony? That is receiving raves? Really?Let's take the depiction of the deaf character Betsy as a …
Bob Dylan's songs are so closely meshed with Bob Dylan's voice that the idea of a cabaret chanteuse taking them on is like tomato ice cream, both odd and intriguing. Award-winning British si…
In a departure from 2009's This Beautiful City and 2010's In The Footprint, this latest Civilians show, You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents' Divorce makes a drastic reduction in scope…
Stars are generally not low-key people. From Bette Davis to Patti LuPone they are often mannered, fascinating, and almost painfully distinct. They are never generic. Love 'em or hate 'em, yo…
The delightful Peter and the Starcatcher, the Story Theatre-esque prequel to Peter Pan, is now on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (my review of the Off-Broadway production at t…
There's a star being caught in Peter and the Starcatcher, and it ain't the unnamed Boy (Adam Chanler-Berat) who will, by play's end, become Peter Pan. Which is not to say that Chanler-B…
The Big Meal shifts across eighty years of dinners, starting with a random pickup between Sam and his waitress, Nicole, and ending with an epically casual goodbye that confronts death a…
It's almost silly for Barbara Cook to sing "Let's Fall in Love" to the audience at Feinstein's; we all fell in love with her years ago--and, as she proves yet again, with good reason.How do …
Anyone want to join Show Showdown? None of us get paid, but we do often get free tickets, and it's great fun having a forum where you can write as long or short as you like and review the wh…
Victoria Clark, Kelli O'HaraPhoto: Jennifer BroskiThere are (rare) times in life when we get to experience perfection. One of mine was last night--listening to Kelli O'Hara's simple, elegant…
Tim Moyer, Kristin Wiegand, Lauren Rooney, Ellen Ratner,Paul Dake, Joel MalazitaOn the first day of rehearsal of the Broadway production of his heart-warming two-character play, Tuning Piano…
More polished than your average tech-demo/theater-hybrid, Planet Egg takes up the baton from where the delightful Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer left it, and crafts a t…
Amy Lee Pearsall, Becky Byers, Alisha Spielmann, Nancy Sirianni, and Felicia Hudson Photo: Deborah AlexanderMany years ago, a friend of mine was extolling the virtues of ants versus humans, …
If you missed Advance Man, part one of Mac Rogers' "Honeycomb Trilogy," I'm sorry you did! But it's no reason to miss Blast Radius, part two, currently playing at the Secret Theatre (and rev…
The Taming of the Shrew can be a very funny play -- and probably should be, lest one linger too long on the sexist implications that one either believes are being mocked by Shakespeare or ta…
I know that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, nor a show by its poster, but as soon as I saw the one for Porgy and Bess, I had serious misgivings about this production. For one thing,…
Nellie McKay: Silent Spring--It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature: Nellie McKay fits into no category. You can't describe her by saying she's like so-and-so crossed with so-and-so. If you tri…
I think we're well past spoilers on the plot of Porgy and Bess, but at the climactic point of the play, at which Porgy (Norm Lewis) has pulled a knife from his leg-brace and stabbed his cras…
Photo/Deborah AlexanderThis engaging work from Gideon Productions taps into the themes of humanity that made Mac Rogers's previous foray into science-fiction (Universal Robots) so compe…
Court-Martial at Fort Devens, by Jeffrey Sweet, tells the true story of a group of African-American women who joined the women's army corps during World War II to be trained as medical assis…
Ana Reeder, Jeanine SerrallesPhoto: Carol RoseggIn Jean Genet's intense one-act, The Maids, Claire and Solange are in service to a frivolous woman who treats them with a false bonhomie; she …
There's much to appreciate about the message at the muscular heart of The Lady from Dubuque, particularly David Esbjornson's fluid staging, the ease of which only serves to cast the two visi…
(Caveat: at the performance I saw, not one, but two, women crumpled plastic bags on and off for the whole 100 minutes. They were really annoying, and they made it impossible to concentrate f…
I think I've figured out why some people are afraid of clowns: it's because they're kids who have never grown up. It can be a little frightening to see adults so recklessly free, so literall…
Seth Rudetsky is arguably one of the most talented people in New York and definitely one of the funniest. His latest production is Disaster!, co-written with Jack Plotnick, and it is over tw…
