Sunday, February 21, 2016
“A Bronx Tale” must have been a tremendous source of satisfaction for Chazz Palminteri over the years. Crafted by him from the true story of his 1960s youth, the piece originated as …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:37PMWednesday, February 17, 2016
I was fortunate to attend a recent performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway with someone who had never before seen the play or movie. Experiencing it with her, re-discovering afr…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:39PMMonday, February 8, 2016
There’s more to “Nureyev’s Eyes” than meets the eye. David Rush’s prize-winning play, at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ, is based on the real-life bond that developed…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:59PMMonday, February 1, 2016
In previous columns I have characterized “Nothing On” as one of the worst plays ever written. A few reviews also recommended attendance. Such is the case with the current Broadway produc…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:33PMThursday, January 28, 2016
It’s about ten minutes into “The Substance of Bliss” before we learn what Paul (Christopher Daftsios) and Donna (Susan Maris) are doing out on their patio at 2AM, other than bickering …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:12PMMonday, January 18, 2016
Suspension of disbelief refers to one’s acceptance of actions or statements in a fiction which defy reality. Stuff that would be highly unlikely to occur as portrayed or would, at least, b…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 04:29PMFriday, January 15, 2016
April 23 of this year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, a milestone being marked by a surge in the already generous number of productions worldwide. Queen Eliz…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 02:18PMThursday, December 31, 2015
Queen of the Night, the lavish interactive Off-Broadway theatrical feast from Sleep No More producer Randy Weiner, ends its run at the Diamond Horseshoe supper club beneath the Paramount…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 29, 2015
The subtitle of “The Pirates of Penzance or, The Slave of Duty,” applies to the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP), whose 40-year devotion to the Savoy Opera of its namesakes…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:56PMQueen of the Night, the lavish interactive Off-Broadway theatrical feast from Sleep No More producer Randy Weiner, at the Diamond Horseshoe supper club beneath the Paramount Hotel, will …
SOURCE: Playbill at 09:28AMQueen of the Night, the lavish interactive Off-Broadway theatrical feast from Sleep No More producer Randy Weiner, at the Diamond Horseshoe supper club beneath the Paramount Hotel, will …
SOURCE: Playbill at 08:50AMThursday, December 24, 2015
“Marathon ’33” opened on Broadway on December 22, 1963. Produced by Actors Studio and written and directed by June Havoc (with input from Lee Strasberg), the play was about Ms.…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:26AMMonday, December 14, 2015
About twenty percent of “The Count (Basie) Meets the Duke (Ellington)” consists of 1930s and later tidbits and anecdotes about the musical giants’ relationships with their music, their…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:44PMTuesday, December 8, 2015
Tradition holds that Queen Elizabeth, enamored of Falstaff from the Henry IV plays, asked Shakespeare for a play depicting the character in love. The playwright is said to have knocked out �…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:22PMMonday, November 23, 2015
No one was more skeptical than I when Two River Theater announced an all-male “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum,” a musical comedy shot through with gags, innuendo and bodi…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:03AMThursday, November 19, 2015
Soon after “The Producers” opened to ecstatic reviews in 2001, a New Yorker magazine cover depicted an audience in fits of laughter with one angry-faced theatergoer among them: Adolph Hi…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:18PMMonday, November 16, 2015
Phoenix Productions’ “Peter Pan” is the first Count Basie Theatre show following the announcement of the venue’s ambitious expansion plans. Uplifted (literally and figuratively) by J…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 02:58PMMonday, November 9, 2015
The revival of “Sylvia,” its first on Broadway, is like a three-quarter carat diamond nested in Elizabeth Taylor’s engagement ring’s setting. It’s pretty enough, but really, what�…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:54PMTuesday, October 20, 2015
Don’t you love a play that sprinkles mysterious hints throughout about plot and characters before resolving its loose ends in the final scene? With an ending you wouldn’t reveal to someo…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:21AMMonday, October 5, 2015
The Broadway musical “Spring Awakening” broke new ground in 2006. Back on Broadway a scant six years from the original’s closing, the revival digs even deeper. The Deaf West production…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 05:52PMTuesday, September 22, 2015
Theater is a collaborative art form. While the contributions of playwright, director and actors are not necessarily equal thirds, a misstep by any one of them can mar the whole enterprise. Y…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 11:01AMMonday, September 14, 2015
The last community or student production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” I saw was at Brookdale Community College in 1995. Since then, a Regional and two Broadway revivals (2005 an…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 06:17PMTuesday, August 25, 2015
The theme lurking inside “Nobody’s Girl,” the play making its U.S. debut at New Jersey Repertory Company, is hardly original, but it is a valid one: the medium is indeed the message. I…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 10:36AMMonday, August 10, 2015
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a man of many words. His abundance of letters, critiques and essays on political and artistic issues of his day, as well as more than 60 plays, earned him…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 08:53PMFriday, August 7, 2015
A question for those who live in the Central New Jersey Shore area (as do I): Do you remember some years back the disappearance of the 14-year old boy in the Shark River-Neptune area? His ha…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:23PMTuesday, July 28, 2015
Holmdel Theatre Company’s 2000 “Twelfth Night” was as good a local Shakespeare as I’d seen. Holmdel’s current production of the same play doesn’t reach that level, but it is not …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:33PMWednesday, July 22, 2015
THEATREWORKS USA is a treasure. Their imaginative shows for young audiences, presented annually at the Lortel Theatre in NYC, are accessible to all, regardless of socio-economic status. In o…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:28PMTuesday, July 14, 2015
Who was that man walking along Monmouth Street in Red Bank at 11PM last Friday singing Supercalifragilistic… and eliciting smirks from the smokers outside Buona Sera? Well, if you must kno…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 03:08PMSaturday, July 11, 2015
Unlike Shakespeare’s plays, which are frequently set wherever and whenever it pleases modern-day interpreters, George Bernard Shaw’s are rarely moved from their original settings. Until …
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 01:03AMMonday, July 6, 2015
“Closure” is a potboiler revolving around several red herrings and a MacGuffin. Translation: The world-premiere play at New Jersey Repertory Company is a fairly standard noir mystery/thr…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 12:24PMWednesday, June 17, 2015
The new-ness of new plays must be factored into their evaluations. Often over-long and repetitious and occasionally derivative of other, established works, new plays profit from “tryout”…
SOURCE: sceneonstage.com at 02:25PM 
