The latest revival to open on Broadway is the classic “Once Upon a Mattress” with music by Mary Rogers, her first Broadway show, and an adapted book by Amy Sherman-Palladino, from the original by Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer and Dean Fuller. As soon as the on-stage orchestra begins the overture, the audience is reminded of, or in many cases introduced…
Had the playwright, director, and creative team of “Chicken & Biscuits” taken a cue from their “Oklahoma” colleagues who occupied the same Circle in the Square Theatre space in 2019-2020, they might have inserted a break into their play’s overlong 120-minutes and served a small portion of chicken and biscuits to the members of the audience. This would have enhanced…
Plays parsing the viability of monogamy are nothing new. The “sacred” tie that binds “one man and one woman” have been under scrutiny since the mythic Adam and Eve stumbled out of the garden shortly after their creation and subsequent fall from grace. The current hype about the sanctity of heteronormative coupling makes the issue even more relevant despite the…
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…
Loneliness, the quest for authentic and meaningful love, the fear of rejection, the need for respect, and the excruciating separation from situations of abuse are not unique to members of the LGBTQ+ community of any decade or location, and perhaps that is why audiences have responded positively to Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy” since its Broadway production in 1982 at…
The production currently playing at SoHo Playhouse entitled “Bright Colors and Bold Patterns” is a self- absorbed, ostentatious, and highly opinionated rant penned by Drew Droege who also holds court on stage for the eighty-minute overwrought outburst. The premise for the tirade is receiving an invitation to his friend’s gay wedding that states guests should eschew from wearing bright colors…
Loneliness, the quest for authentic and meaningful love, the fear of rejection, the need for respect, and the excruciating separation from situations of abuse are not unique to members of the LGBTQ community of any decade or location and perhaps that is why audiences have responded positively to Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy” since its Broadway production in 1982 at…