All stories by Joseph Pisano on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Walking with Ghosts by Joseph Pisano

"Walking with Ghosts" is a decidedly intimate experience, one that seems tailor-made for an off-Broadway theater like the Irish Rep. Price and his production team try to expand the show to B…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:03PM
Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Death of a Salesman by Joseph Pisano

To be clear, the casting isn't colorblind; it's just casting, with director Miranda Cromwell delicately drawing out a different set of lived experiences from Miller's almost untouched words.…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:46PM
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Cost of Living by Joseph Pisano

Perhaps because of its prestigious accolade, or just undeniable merit, "Cost of Living" is the first of Majok's heartfelt efforts to make the journey from off-Broadway to on-Broadway in the …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:47AM
Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Jasper by Joseph Pisano

Most poignantly, when Drew starts to wonder if maybe their son's survival has been the opposite of a blessing, Andrea expresses horror for a thought that, thanks to Pimentel's touchingly sub…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:18PM
Thursday, September 1, 2022

Kinky Boots by Joseph Pisano

Several years after vacating its Broadway home, "Kinky Boots" has settled in to a cozier off-Broadway venue, Stage 42, at a presumed discount for theatergoers, albeit with a much smaller orc…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:50PM
Sunday, June 26, 2022

Lessons in Survival: 1971 by Joseph Pisano

Originally broadcast on "Soul!," an early PBS program dedicated to showcasing Black arts and politics, Baldwin and Giovanni's one-on-one echoes contemporary concerns while also remaining dec…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:35PM
Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Islander: A New Musical by Joseph Pisano

An import from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, "Islander" embraces that renowned international jamboree's artistry and experimentalism, most notably by forgoing musicians for sound looping ma…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:41PM
Sunday, May 8, 2022

American Buffalo by Joseph Pisano

The 1975 play "American Buffalo," now onstage at the Circle in the Square Theatre in a crackling revival, remains the quintessential Mamet experience, the one that should be seen to fully ap…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:01PM
Saturday, April 30, 2022

Suffs by Joseph Pisano

Unfortunately, while Wells (Nikki M. James) and Mary Church Terrell (Cassondra James), another renowned Black suffragist, occasionally pop up to offer intersectional insights, they mostly c…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:09PM
Monday, April 18, 2022

The Little Prince by Joseph Pisano

Essentially, Mouron boils the story down to a couple lines about love and beauty, while eliding any sense of the loss, isolation, and dread that the novella also poetically conveys. Her litt…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:27PM
Saturday, March 26, 2022

Alex Edelman: Just for Us by Joseph Pisano

Despite the familiar visual trappings--mic stand, performer-blinding stage lights, and a dull curtain backdrop--Edelman's deceptively free-flowing talents hew more towards the monologist Spa…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:51PM
Tuesday, March 8, 2022

A Touch of the Poet by Joseph Pisano

Director Ciarán O'Reilly confidently lets the clever cast explore their characters' profound complexities, which means forcing the audience to simply accept a few psychological contradictio…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:13PM
Sunday, February 27, 2022

Space Dogs by Joseph Pisano

Heyman and the rest of the production team quickly turn "Space Dogs" into an exercise of quantity over quality. More lights. More noise. More projections. More props. It's theater as sensory…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:48PM
Thursday, February 17, 2022

Made by God by Joseph Pisano

It's just that, as the fictional Eva supplants the non-fictional Ann onstage, the play reverses course and sacrifices its human scale back to the rhetorical, with pro-life Eva and pro-choice…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:29PM
Monday, February 7, 2022

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Joseph Pisano

But, again, O'Hara does these actors no favors, forcing them to contend with incongruous historical information while also depriving them of the greatest acting benefit O'Neill's four-act pl…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:27PM
Tuesday, December 14, 2021

The Streets of New York by Joseph Pisano

Cue the Irish Rep and its remounting of artistic director Charlotte Moore's musical "The Streets of New York," which the theatre first premiered twenty years ago in the aftermath of Septembe…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:52PM
Monday, November 22, 2021

A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Joseph Pisano

Performed as one long 80-minute monologue, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing also offers actor Jenn Murray little, if any, respite, laying on her shoulders complete responsibility for telling ev…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:57PM
Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Autumn Royal by Joseph Pisano

Previously only known for his novels and short stories, first-time playwright Kevin Barry brings the same full-hearted doom and gloom to the stage in "Autumn Royal" that was evidenced in his…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:36PM
Sunday, October 10, 2021

Six: The Musical by Joseph Pisano

More concert than musical, the 80-minute show's libretto adds little to its cast album, with the lyrics of each queen's autobiographical song also pruning their individual histories to a poi…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 09:07PM
Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical by Joseph Pisano

Since it's difficult to make fun of something that was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place, Hogue and director Nick Flatto are often left to spin their wheels by simply reha…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:51PM
Thursday, March 5, 2020

Tumacho by Joseph Pisano

To review dramatist/lyricist/composer Ethan Lipton's "Tumacho" almost feels like missing the point of this endearingly oddball "play with songs," a comic pastiche of Western and horror trope…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:46PM
Thursday, February 20, 2020

Lady G: Plays and Whisperings of Lady Gregory by Joseph Pisano

It might be about 90 years too late, but writer/director Ciarán O'Reilly is throwing a good old-fashioned Irish wake, with poems, songs, and a slice of barmbrack (Irish sweet bread) or each…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:29AM
Monday, February 10, 2020

Grand Horizons by Joseph Pisano

Bess Wohl's "Grand Horizons" opens with a pas de deux of marital inertia as Nancy (Jane Alexander) and Bill (James Cromwell), two near-octogenarians wasting their twilight days in a so-calle…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:40PM
Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Maz and Bricks by Joseph Pisano

Created and first performed during the run-up to the 2018 national referendum that eventually led to the amendment's repeal, Maz and Bricks, a part of the Origin Theater Company’s 1st Iris…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:16PM
Sunday, December 15, 2019

Jagged Little Pill by Joseph Pisano

Given the personal nature of Morissette's artistic output, it might be surprising to learn that the Broadway version of Jagged Little Pill doesn't take the easy biographical route for its bo…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 04:05PM
Tuesday, November 26, 2019

A Christmas Carol by Joseph Pisano

Campbell Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge and Dashiell Eaves as Bob Cratchit in a scene from Jack Thorne’s new adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre (Photo credit: …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:50AM
Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Pumpgirl by Joseph Pisano

Told as a series of alternating, interlocking monologues, there is a "Rashomon"-esque quality to "Pumpgirl" that grows more obvious as the play's story comes into focus. Not only do the rela…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:10PM
Thursday, October 31, 2019

Bella Bella by Joseph Pisano

Like a great many history plays, Harvey Fierstein's "Bella Bella" is as much about the present as the past, paralleling everything that's gone wrong now with what went wrong then. Unsurprisi…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:08AM
Monday, October 28, 2019

The Rose Tattoo by Joseph Pisano

To be sure, Serafina and Alvaro's romance is less than credible, but director Trip Cullman wisely commits to it completely, recognizing that Williams really hasn't given him any other choice…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:27PM
Thursday, September 26, 2019

Mothers by Joseph Pisano

The first act of Anna Moench's "Mothers" concludes with a genuine shock as the playwright startlingly upends all of our expectations. Visually punctuated by Wilson Chin's suddenly not-so-sta…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:19PM
Monday, September 16, 2019

Only Yesterday by Joseph Pisano

As John, Christopher Sears is an enjoyable pill, perfectly offset by Tommy Crawford's Paul whose amiable placidity is almost Buddha-like. More importantly, both actors have impressive musica…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:07PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards