The newest offering at Second Stage’s Kiser Theatre is a production of a new play penned by Alexis Scheer titled “Breaking the Story” which centers around a war correspondent who is actively reporting from the front line. The production directed by Jo Bonney was a bit confusing for this audience member, finding the elements of magical realism not clearly defined….
The most recent offering at MCC Theater is a new musical entitled “The Lonely Few” with music and lyrics by Zoe Sarnak and a book penned by Rachel Bonds. Basically, it can be considered a rom com musical with a simple plot that takes a bit too long to develop especially since the predictability level is very high. The length…
Dave Malloy’s “Three Houses currently running at Signature Theatre’s Linney Theater is a retelling/interpretation of the classic fairy tales “The Three Little Pigs” and “Red Riding Hood” (among other cautionary folklore narratives) in which The Big Bad Wolf appears. Stand-ins for Little Red Riding Hood and those Three Little Pigs are Susan (a manic and hedonistic Margo Seibert), Sadie (a…
There are very few words not sung but spoken in the rock musical “Tommy,” but three that might be relevant are “Brilliant, wasn’t it?” spoken by a local lad that happens to be part of a larger audience, amazed, while watching Tommy play his first game of pinball in a pool hall. Unfortunately, they are not the three words that…
When does “life” begin? Depending upon one’s religious beliefs, or scientific beliefs, or social media threads, the answer to the question is different. Does “life” begin at conception; in utero; at birth; in childhood; in adolescence; in old age; in death; or after death? Seen through the eyes of his older self in “Water for Elephants” (currently on at the…
Adapted by Eddie Izzard’s sibling Mark Izzard, this “Hamlet” is among the best “Hamlets” on stage, screen, or stream. From the first scene of the iconic tragedy on the battlements of the royal castle at Elsinore when Marcellus relieves Francisco from his watch and where he, Horatio, and Bernardo encounter the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, to the closing scene where…
Only in America, where greed, fame, crime and capitalism reign and members of a civilized society aspire to become part of the materialistic regime, can you discover the story of Elmer J. McCurdy, a futile outlaw who was gunned down in 1911. The new musical, which opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre with a book penned by Itamar Moses with…
As patrons enter the performance of Jordan Seavey’s “The Seven Year Disappear” at The Pershing Square Signature Center, they see Miriam (Cynthia Nixon) sitting across from her thirty-something son Naphtali (Taylor Trensch). The two are motionless and intently staring at one another in the style of Yugoslav performance artist Marina Abramović facing off with a MoMA patron in the famed…
“Doubt” can produce several similar congenial feelings such as uncertainty, suspicion, uneasiness, apprehension, distrust and confusion. Usually there is a situation or event that occurs that may be the cause, or possibly misinformation that may initiate speculation and accusation. The striking Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s riveting drama, rightfully titled “Doubt,” now playing at the newly named Todd Haimes…
Asaf and the members of the audience are the unwitting protagonists of Itamar Moses’s “The Ally” which is currently running at the Public’s Anspacher Theater. Asaf Sternheim (a well-meaning but uncommitted Josh Radnor) is Jewish, a writer, and an adjunct professor of writing at a prestigious American University in a struggling American city where his Korean American wife Gwen Kim…