Quite a few audience members may be familiar with the 2016 film “Sing Street” which the new musical being presented at New York Theatre Workshop is based on and hails by the same name. Playwright Edna Walsh is responsible for transporting the work of John Carney to the stage after being so successful in their first collaboration with the production…
The strength of Abbie Spallen’s “Pumpgirl,” currently running at Irish Rep’s W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre, lies in the playwright’s authentic characters and their believable conflicts that connect to the timeless vicissitudes of the human condition. The pumpgirl (a lachrymose yet enlightened Labhaoise Magee) at the petrol station in present day County Armagh, Northern Ireland fantasizes night and day about…
It is always a pleasure to attend a performance of a play that stars two Broadway veterans and even better when it is a two hander because you are assured ample stage presence for both talented actors. Such is the case in “Harry Townsend’s Last Stand” written by George Eastman which features Len Cariou and Craig Bierko as a stubborn…
The epic new work penned by Stephen Adly Guirgis entitled “Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven” refers to the vast array of residents in a transitional shelter for women on the upper Westside of Manhattan. It is a motley group of misfits of every age, race, size, color and sexual status that seem to have a firm grip on the…
“But women only need themselves to plant seeds in hearts and minds that stab and twist when they begin to root, ensnaring us all with just a thought.” – Pablo F***ing Escobar in “My Dear Dead Drug Lord” Alexis Sheer’s “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” in its final days at the McGinn/Cazale Theater, is deeply disturbing and profoundly important. Co-produced…
Tony Kushner’s dystopian vision has a firm grounding in the history of the rise of fascism in Germany in the early 1930s and in the methodical and somewhat meteoric rise of Adolf Hitler to Chancellor of the German Reich. This vision is embodied in “A Bright Room Called Day” currently running at The Public’s Anspacher Theater. Mr. Kushner places himself…
There are plenty of holiday shows that enter the New York theatre scene to provide some special seasonal entertainment for tourists, locals and avid theater goers alike fulfilling a wide spectrum that will satisfy almost every fancy. The list includes traditional Christmas stories, mentalists, magic and illusion, high kicking Rockettes, the “Nutcracker” ballet and many concerts celebrating the season. Then,…
Edmond Rostrand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” written in verse in 1897 is one of, if not the most tragic love story of all time. It introduced the word ‘panache’ into the English language and Cyrano himself remarks about his own “panache” in the play. This of course refers to his skillful swordplay, exquisite poetry, adroit musicianship and finally the hallmark…
The title of Donja R. Love’s play “one in two,” currently running in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center, is reflective of the alarming 2016 study released by the CDC, which projected that “one in two Black gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.” Trapped in a stark white…
Bedlam is back, creating all the bedlam needed to lift “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller to a new level, making it one of the most exciting and poignant productions of this classic play to hit New York stages. The chaos begins when you enter the theater. You are seated in the waiting area on various wooden chairs that surround an…