Past reviews, recommendations, profiles, and posts about arts and culture in New York City.
Daniel Kitson is a British comedian and monologuist, and bonafide St. Ann’s Warehouse royalty but his most recent show there, Analog.Ue, has been controversial. Kitson is well-known for telling non-linear, humorous, intricate, sometimes romantic stories that often end with a twist. In Analog.Ue the twist comes at the beginning: Kitson[…]
Leah Nanako Winkler’s Death for Sydney Black, directed by Kip Fagan, is part of terraNOVA Collective’s terraNOVA Rx series. Death for Sydney Black is a raunchy, dark parody of the classic teen movie troupe in which an awkward girl (who, with a simple makeover, is actually extremely attractive) battles the popular, perfect[…]
Animals Commit Suicide is part of the terraNOVA Rx series, presented by terraNOVA Collective, running in repertory with Death For Sydney Black. Opening on World AIDS Day, Animals Commit Suicide tells the story of Chance, a 29-year-old who has everything going for him but is nonetheless weary and restless. He embarks on a[…]
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical had a well-received run in San Francisco earlier in 2013 and is premiering in New York City now. This biographical musical tells the story of chart-topping music legend Carole King and her rise to stardom from a teenage songwriter in Brooklyn. It features hits by King and her various collaborators, including[…]
Twelfth Night and Richard III, from Shakespeare’s Globe in London, are now running in repertory at the Belasco Theatre. These versions of Twelfth Night and Richard III offer a production loyal to the Bard’s time, including an all-male cast, period costumes, and audience seats surrounding the stage on three-sides. Both productions are directed by Tim Carroll[…]
Sonnet Repertory Theatre presents its take on Jean Genet’s 1947 French noir play, The Maids. The story revolves around Solange and Claire, two sisters employed as servants to a wealthy woman simply known as “Madame.” Feeling powerless in their stagnant, lowly existence, the two housemaids perform sadistic play-acts in their master’s[…]
The script of Terrence McNally’s And Away We Go might as well be a love poem to theater, written on the back of your playbill. It begins with members of the Pearl Theatre Company taking the stage to introduce themselves and talk about their favorite roles. Then, using only our[…]
59E59 Theaters presents the U.S. premiere of Towards The Moon, a folk-rock musical written by Scotsman Andrew McGregor. Bobby, a guy from a small town in Scotland, becomes a big-time writer in New York after an out-of-body experience. But his success proves to be short-lived, as inspiration runs out and he struggles[…]
Family Furniture, one of the 13 shows on Maxamoo’s November hot list, is running at The Flea Theater through December 22, 2013. Written by veteran playwright A.R. Gurney, Family Furniture is having its world premier at the Flea. The play is about the turmoil of an upper class family in the early 1950s Buffalo. Nick suspects[…]
From the late August Wilson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpieces Fences and The Piano Lesson (among others), comes a rarely performed solo show written just before Wilson’s death. In How I Learned What I Learned, now playing that Signature Theatre, Wilson recounts his early years in Pittsburgh, sketching the people[…]
A pair of theater legends are starring in a pair legendary plays this fall at the Cort Theatre. Sir Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: the Next Generation) together appear in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land on[…]
Shakespeare. Shaw. Four actors. Two plays, each over three hours long, in repertory. Alternating performances of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Shaw’s Saint Joan is the daunting task Bedlam Theatre, the tiny yet mighty ensemble, has undertaken. This production originally appeared at Access Theater in 2012. It was celebrated there and Bedlam is re-staging it at[…]
Tony Award-winning director Jack O’Brien has filled Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre with the colors of fear – deep blacks, harsh whites and blood reds – to stage Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Like many Shakespeare productions this season, this Macbeth is high on concept. Whirring sets, blinding spotlights, and a ubiquitous pounding score[…]
The iconic 1976 film Rocky, about an underdog boxer, is coming to New York as a BIG stage musical. The first incarnation of this boxing musical opened in Germany last year and it was a hit. The New York edition has quite the team behind it: director Alex Timbers (Peter and[…]
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Charles Fuller’s new play, One Night… — a co-production of Cherry Lane Theatre and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre — courageously takes on the plight of combat zone veterans, with a special focus on the experience of female soldiers. Alicia (the excellent Rutina Wesley, TV: True Blood) is a military[…]
Madeleine George’s The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence intertwines the lives of four Watsons: Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick; Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant engineer; the monotone super computer that beat Ken Jennings in a game of Jeopardy; and a modern day, friendly tech-geek–all played by John Ellison Conlee. Conlee is joined by Amanda Quaid[…]
If you’re lucky enough to be celebrating Thanksgiving in New York City this year, say thanks that you’re in the greatest city in the world for going to the theater and do not let the long weekend pass without catching a show. We offer our recommendations for you and your[…]
Mallery Avidon’s Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love at The Flea Theater tells the story of Grace, a 27-year-old woman who, despite the appearance of a happy life, is stuck in an unfulfilling job and a loveless marriage to Tyler, an unemployed pothead who spends his days playing video games. Cue the famous and[…]
Taking Care of Baby, an American premiere play at City Center presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, is based on real events. It’s the story of Donna MacAuliffe, a young woman convicted of murdering her two infant children and later acquitted after she is diagnosed with a rare mental disorder. Playwright[…]
In J.Stephen Brantley’s Pirira, two stories set on opposite sides of the world unfold. The first, set in the stock room of a wholesale florist in New York City, follows Chad, a native New Yorker and a proud gay man, who engages in a fervent (and slightly awkward) conversation with his new[…]