Valerie A. Peterson

Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Babe” at The Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theater (Through Sunday, December 22, 2024)

Abby (Marisa Tomei) has co-produced records with Gus (Arliss Howard) for thirty-two years. She had been his right hand, but her name never appears on the album as co-producer. She finds talent. Gus takes the credit. Recognition is not the only problem. Gus is a misogynist and a prime example of toxic masculinity in the workplace and elsewhere. Abby colludes…

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Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Black No More” at The Pershing Square Signature Center (Closed Sunday, February 27, 2022)

A clue in in the “New York Times” crossword puzzle on Tuesday, February 15th was “Prefix with futurism.” The correct answer: ‘Afrofuturism,’ defined as “a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African-American experience and aims to connect those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry.” In 1931, George S. Schuyler explores the Afrofuturism literary…

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Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center

The question that remains in my mind is why anyone would attempt to create a musical based on the dated 1969 motion picture “BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE?” Granted the meant to be comedy written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker for the big screen ventured into uncharted territory with infidelity, the sexual revolution and wife swapping making…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Peace for Mary Frances” at the New Group at Pershing Square Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

There are many victims in the new family drama penned by Lily Thorne, but perhaps the audience is the most unfortunate casualty, having to suffer through this slow, protracted, insipid production for over two-and-a-half hours and wishing that “Peace for Mary Frances” would have come much sooner. The structure of the play is problematic: the series of short scenes ranging…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Downtown Race Riot” at the New Group at Pershing Square Signature Center’s Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre

The 1970s was a decade of unrest across the United States. Racial divides were exacerbated by socio-economic disparities and rising tensions between members of minority communities and the systemic racism inherent in the majority white population. This unrest was particularly evident in urban areas like New York City and, more specifically, in the West Village of Manhattan. One such riot…

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Off-Broadway Review: “The Whirligig” at the Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

“And the wheel goes round and round./And the flame in our souls will never burn out./And the wheel, and the wheel goes round.” – Rosanne Cash, “Wheel” Under the brooding branches that overarch Derek McLane’s visually stunning set that “goes round,” Julie’s (played with sumptuous death-dodging life by Grace Van Patten) life coalesces into a gripping surreal reality in Hamish…

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