Children at Play - Reviewed by NICOLE VILLENEUVE

This play delivers too much too fast in its creepy and campy portrayal of adolescence.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

The Understudy - Reviewed by DAVID SHEWARD

Despite some structural problems and a few gaps in credibility, Theresa Rebeck's new play on the backstabbing backstage world of the contemporary theatre is a fast, funny 90 minutes.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Little Tragedies - Reviewed by ROBERT WINDELER

Instead of the translator-director-composer-actor serving the four short plays of Alexander Pushkin, it seems that Pushkin is serving the work of the translator-director-composer-actor in th…

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Quartett - Reviewed by DAVID A. ROSENBERG

Though short on trenchant humor, Robert Wilson's take on Heiner Müller is nevertheless a stimulating and bruising dance of sex and death, highlighted by Isabelle Huppert's electric performa…

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Love Child - Reviewed by ADAM R. PERLMAN

You can't quite explain why a good match on paper may inspire little passion in real life; even if you locate the crucial elements, the calculus of combining them is impossibly reductive.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Silk Stockings (in Concert) - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

This musical version of "Ninotchka" was a disappointing Broadway swansong for Cole Porter, and Musicals Tonight!'s inelegant concert presentation fails to mitigate history's verdict.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Idiot Savant - Reviewed by DAVID SHEWARD

Richard Foreman is at it again. His latest work is just as obscure and bizarre as his 50-odd others, and despite a vital performance from Willem Dafoe, it fails to do more than confuse.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

The Misunderstanding - Reviewed by KARL LEVETT

This earnest production of an interesting early work by Albert Camus is more debate than drama, with complex intellectual arguments triumphing over emotional involvement.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Subways Are for Sleeping - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

Sometimes it's better to let sleeping flops lie.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

I Got Sick Then I Got Better - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

By the time this beguiling one-woman show about battling cancer is over, you feel as if writer-performer Jenny Allen is one of your best friends, and you want to call her up and make plans f…

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Nightingale - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

Thanks to the tremendous specificity and detail of Lynn Redgrave's writing and acting, "Nightingale" is a haunting elegy and a moving act of love.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

The Lily's Revenge - Reviewed by MITCH MONTGOMERY

This mega-meta-mashup of styles capably pits progressive flowers against the nostalgic status quo.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

The New Electric Ballroom - Reviewed by ADAM R. PERLMAN

Enda Walsh's new play arrives on these shores riding a wave of critical notices that suggests he is the second coming of Samuel Beckett. I feel obliged to point out, though, that the emperor…

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Made in Heaven - Reviewed by MARK PEIKERT

The attention-grabbing premise promises more than the show can deliver, despite the cast's commitment and one actor's magnificent physique.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Her Name Is Vincent: An Evening With Edna St. Vincent Millay - Reviewed by ROBERT WINDELER

Edna St. Vincent Millay fans will find this production sketchy (pun intended) and lacking any insight into her later life. Those who don't know her will still say, "Who?"

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Love, Linda: The Life of Mrs. Cole Porter - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

Billed as a one-woman musical, this is really a 50-minute cabaret act with a central gimmick allowing songstress Stevie Holland to raid the Cole Porter songbook. As theater, it fails on all …

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Finian's Rainbow - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

Lightning has struck twice at the St. James Theatre.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Americana Kamikaze - Reviewed by JASON FITZGERALD

Temporary Distortion brings live theatre closer to the horror movie, leaving a trail of quivering vertebrae, if you're into that sort of thing.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Reviewed by Erik Haggensen

Before the first song of Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days has ended, you're aware you're in the hands of a talented composer-lyricist with an unusually fine command of craft.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Reviewed by Erik Haagensen

Director David Cromer gives us a sparkling account of Neil Simon's autobiographical tale of growing up Jewish in Brooklyn in the 1930s.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

AFTER MISS JULIE - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

After Roundabout's recent "Bye Bye Birdie" debacle, it's heartening to be able to report that the company has bounced back with a gripping production of Patrick Marber's "After Miss Julie," …

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Paint Your Wagon (in Concert) - Reviewed by ERIK HAAGENSEN

Musicals Tonight! is pulling off a small coup with its sensitive concert staging of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's gold-rush musical.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Avenue Q - Review by DAVID SHEWARD

In an Off-Broadway transfer, this satiric musical is still one of the hippest theatrical destinations in New York.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

The Emperor Jones - Reviewed by DAVID SHEWARD

The Irish Repertory Theatre stages Eugene O'Neill's rarely seen one-act with chilling intensity, featuring a titanic performance by John Douglas Thompson.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑

Ghost Light - Reviewed by MARK PEIKERT

This ghost story is neither scary nor campy as it travels its overplotted course.

SOURCE: Backstage at 5:58pm on May 25, 2015☆⚑