Caswell’s dialogue for and wry observation of a family this dysfunctional is quite compelling. Scenes where two of the siblings verbally gang up on the third are fraught with humor as much…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:35PMWhile the painstaking entry upon entry yearn to be something of import, we can’t help but feel it takes a certain steadfastness and desperate commitment to make the banal seem so extraordi…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:15AMAnd the production is loaded with action. Except for the tender love scenes, the play moves at almost breakneck speed. Where most modern productions of Shakespeare tend toward languor, this …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:18PMFrom the moment he walks out with a stuffed “Disneyfied” dragon to tell us a fairy tale his mother told him when he was little, we are enraptured by Pinky, an 11-year-old Chinese boy gro…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:15PMHeartbeat Opera seems to have found the way to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of alternative opera companies here in New York. Their way is to inject the standard repertory of…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:31PMJust when you think you’ve seen an opera so many times you can’t imagine it being told anew along comes Heartbeat Opera with a riveting take on Puccini’s "Tosca." Director Shadi G. …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:15PMBossert directs his own work here, thereby unfortunately removing any crucial distance from the material. Where the story of the play and the relationships we see are engaging, the play-wi…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:48PMFor the audience, there is an ease of losing sight of the fact that what we are watching is a piece of theatre. Campbell is direct and warm and instructing and sensitive in this piece that h…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:39PMComposer/librettists O-Lan Jones and Emmett Tinley have created what they refer to as “a re-Creation Myth” in this fascinating interdisciplinary opera theater work entitled "Iceland." …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:16PMSome critics would say Eric Bogosian’s "Drinking in America" is dated, but that’s very much up for argument. The script given to critics for the new production at the Minetta Lane Theatr…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:12PMDirector David Herskovits must have looked at this as a true labor of love, but not all of the touches support the hard work of the actors. In some of the early ensemble scenes, the actors p…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:20PMWhile it may have appeared a huge gamble to mount this 'Cat" again, the results are so well worth it. While other productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" have been mounted as star vehicles fo…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:45PMWhen a tall, lanky Max Ritvo entered Sarah Ruhl’s playwrighting class at Yale, she knew this was no ordinary 20-year-old student. Self-described as a poet with a sense of humor, he managed…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:55PMDenise Manning as Amani is totally believable as a 9-year-old who has had to grow up quickly without parents and her naiveté about love as she maneuvers through growing pains is touching. H…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:24PMIn the most elementary explanation of a play’s dramatic structure, the protagonist is the character who drives the action and is the emotional heart of the narrative. Everyone knows how th…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:22AMSam Morrison’s poignant "Sugar Daddy" has been “on the boards” for just under a year, but first coming to prominence at last year’s East to Edinburgh presentations at 59 East 59th St…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:07PMThe York Theatre Company’s masthead reads “Where Musicals Come to Life…” and that couldn’t be more evident in their new production, "Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust Road." Originally…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:06PMDirector Kotryna Gesait’s direction does not have the necessary distance from the material to realize that actors speaking simultaneously will blur content and intentions for the audience.…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:21PMDirector Lorraine Serabian is faithful to the spirit of when these plays were written. She delves into the spirited dreamers and chance takers that Tennessee Williams so faithfully showed us…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:38PMEnsemble Studio Theatre’s "38th Marathon of One-Act Plays," their first since 2019, is split up into two programs of five plays each, with an eleventh play, Vera Starbard’s “Yan Tután…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:57PMDirector Machel Ross does little to guide this play to any semblance of cohesion. Scenes 1 and 13, between Hound Dog and Ayse, her childhood best friend, begin with the exact same lines an…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:04AMBelgian actor Ronald Guttman gives a subtle, yet wrenching performance in "The Fall," expounding the philosophies of Albert Camus trapped in the sad and now resigned character of the exiled …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:57PMEtheridge may be 61, but she sounds just as she did when she first came on the American rock scene in 1988: full-throated emotion and raspy vocals that bring honesty and pathos to intensel…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:26PMHarms’ play never lets up in its homage to corporate intrigue laced with humor. The audience’s caring for how Regan and Guy end up is a given, so that we can forgive his “poetic licens…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:05PMOn paper, Diane Davis’ play "Complicity" offers a stark, yet refreshing take on the now familiar Harvey Weinstein-tainted Hollywood story of women being victimized by a male-run, male-driv…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:51AMAs conceived, directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner, who was also part of the creative team that brought the stage version of the 1954 classic Irving Berlin’s "White Christmas" to Br…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:56AMMaurice Ravel’s delightful 'L’heure espagnole," usually paired with his other opera, "L’enfant et les sortilèges," is here paired with "Faust et Hélène," an obscure cantata by Lili …
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:51PMRevived by Retro Productions, we are treated to Eric Overmyer’s alternative Victorian fantasy, "On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning," that takes three vibrant, independent women of 1…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:58PMCommissioned by the Ma-Yi Theater Company, Daniel K. Isaac’s brilliant "ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME" was born out of the actor-playwright’s realization that he knew way more about Shakespe…
SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:05AM