Thursday, March 6, 2025
That the American justice system is worse than broken--dangerous, dishonest, racist--is not news. Some innocent people have been coerced into confessing, others have accepted plea bargains r…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:32AMTuesday, March 4, 2025
I am not a fan of Arthur Miller's. But I like to revisit works to see if I've missed something. Having recently reread Death of a Salesman and seen the The Village Theater Group productio…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:12PMWednesday, February 26, 2025
In Garside's Career, written by Harold Brighouse before the first World War, Peter Garside is a skilled mechanic and avid Union member in 1914 Midlanton, England. He has just completed a uni…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:18PMTuesday, February 18, 2025
Photo by Josh Goleman. Design: Armistead Booker
When playing chess never move your pawn to F4 since it makes your king vulnerable and, as Kevin James Doyle advises, "If you're playing anyo…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:32PMThursday, February 13, 2025
The delightful NAATCO-Play on Shakespeare all-femme, all-Asian-American production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline only runs through Feb. 15. If you are a fan of first-class theatre that is bea…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:42AMSaturday, February 8, 2025
Mrs. Loman, Barbara Cassady's sequel to Death of a Salesman, starts right after Willy's funeral. Linda Loman, her sons Biff and Happy, and next door neighbor Charley and his son Bernard gath…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:32PMWednesday, January 29, 2025
When the curtain came down on Act 1 of Gypsy, my friend Susan said, "She's so wrong and she's so good." Excellent summation!
I was one of those who greeted Audra's casting with, she's miscas…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:36PMTuesday, January 21, 2025
Based on both the reviews and word of mouth, I went into Target Margin's "re-envisioning" of Show Boat (here called Show/Boat: A River) with low expectations. Sadly, it lived down to them. …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:54PMMonday, January 13, 2025
A built-in weakness in some comedies of ideas is that one side of an argument may simply be right. As someone who believes strongly in vaccines, I thought Eureka Day might have to wrestle w…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:18PM I reviewed Women Writing Musicals on Talkin' Broadway.
One of the stranger parts of aging is watching time go from "now" to "then" to "retro" to "no one on Jeopardy knows the answer." Thi…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:06PMWednesday, December 4, 2024
Last month I had the pleasure of attending the TRU (Theater Resources Unlimited) benefit. The TRU mission:
TRU was formed to promote a spirit of cooperation and support within the general t…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:12AMSunday, November 3, 2024
Last week, the wonderful MasterVoices presented the Gershwins' Strike Up the Band. In 1927, its book, about a war over cheese tariffs, was written by George F. Kaufman with a pretty satiri…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:42PMFriday, October 11, 2024
Lynn Riggs (1899-1954) wrote 30 plays, a few of which were produced on Broadway, along with screenplays and poetry. Nowadays he is known--when he is known at all--for having written Green Gr…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:32AMFriday, October 4, 2024
What is honor? That's a particularly relevant question as we head into the election. Is honor reputation? Or is it something between a person and herself? What value does honor have? Do most…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:12PMSaturday, September 21, 2024
The American Classical Orchestra (ACO), described by its founder/conductor as "our labor of love," utilizes period instruments to better produce classical pieces as the composers composed th…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:12AMSaturday, September 14, 2024
Annette is winning at life. She has just negotiated a major promotion; her boyfriend Charles is attractive, considerate, and wealthy; their major life challenge is whether to stay in the Upp…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:06PMFriday, September 13, 2024
One is not supposed to focus so much on trees that you miss the forest, right? I get that. But what if they're really big, ugly, focus-grabbing trees?
I suspect that Client-Attorney, Alex…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:32AMThursday, September 12, 2024
There's a little gem playing at the Wild Project through September 28th. One set, 80 minutes, with terrific and compassionate writing (Matthew Freeman), directing (Jessi D. Hill), and acting…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:32PMThursday, August 22, 2024
On one hand, there could never be too many books about Stephen Sondheim. On the other hand, each book should be able to justify its existence through untold stories (are there any?), a new p…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:36PMMonday, August 12, 2024
First, how cool is it that Suffs exists, and that it's so good, and that it's been recognized and rewarded? And how sad is it that the show is still timely? But things are changing. The nig…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:20PMWednesday, August 7, 2024
A lovely, if somewhat overlong, dance revue about humans telling stories and being oh-so-human, Illinoise is based on the beautiful songs of Sufjan Stevens and an original story by choreogr…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:15PMMonday, June 24, 2024
The Transport Group's Follies in Concert had all the makings of a magical evening, but for many of us, the magic was intermittent at best. For a fascinating, multifaceted discussion of the …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:24PMSunday, June 23, 2024
Second Stage's Breaking the Story (closing today) has a lot of goals for its 85 minutes: depict the PTSD of a war journalist, discuss the meaning and ethics of journalism, show a woman try…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:18PMTuesday, June 18, 2024
Well, this is an opinion piece, so I should perhaps make the subtitle "A Very Satisfying Event for Me." A quick glance around the web reveals that I was not in the majority.
I do, of cours…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:02PMMonday, June 17, 2024
Seers, we ain’t.
(Categories are in the order the awards were given.)
Here’s how we did:
Sandra
Liz
Wendy
TOTALS (out of 26)
…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:36PMThursday, June 13, 2024
It's Tony time again. Was this an exciting year on Broadway? Yes! Was it a disappointing year on Broadway? Yes! Same as it ever was.
And here we go:
(A complete list of nominees is provide…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:12AMSunday, May 26, 2024
The fabulous TON (The Orchestra Now), associated with the master's program at Bard, recently gave the final performance of its 2023-2024 season. The orchestra started with Debussy's "Prelude…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 03:06AMTuesday, April 23, 2024
A lovely production of A Little Night Music is running at Theatre 2020 in Brooklyn Heights thru May 12th. I highly recommend it.
The show has some excellent acting and much wonderful singing…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:24PMWednesday, April 17, 2024
The Orchestra Now (TON) regularly presents concerts keyed into exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The most recent, William Grant Still and the Harlem Renaissance, focuses on Stil…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:12PMSaturday, March 30, 2024
The recent collaboration between MasterVoices and Doug Varone and Dancers was nothing short of amazing. Brilliant dance, gorgeous singing, thrilling musicians--it was the proverbial feast fo…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:24PMFriday, March 22, 2024
Having thoroughly enjoyed the 2005 production of Austin Pendleton's Orson's Shadow, I was looking forward with excitement to the current production, directed by Pendleton, at the Theater for…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:02PM 
