2&2 is every girl with a gay brother’s worst nightmare. What happens when he makes a love connection with your bisexual boyfriend? A comic book artist and his sister, Tommy and Rachel, both manage their respective hangups as her significant other is introduced to the family. Tommy is gay and deals[…]
It’s a dog-eat-dog world when it comes to publishing. In Playing God, two plateaued writers team up with a one-hit-wonder in the hopes of reviving their dusty careers. They battle with their egos and with each other as they try to cope with losing their authorial dignity, admitting their incomes are[…]
Before television, radio shows were the most popular form of evening entertainment. In Gotham Radio Theater’s The Awful Truth at the FringeNYC, the theater’s audience is the studio audience at one such radio show. The stage looks like a classic sound stage, with old fashioned microphones and noisemaking devices. The show[…]
Photos: Lloyd Mulvey There are a few ways to make Shakespeare’s Hamlet more accessible. For example, you could set it in modern-day New York or make it funnier or turn it into a drinking game. The HAMLET Project does all three. Taking over the second floor of midtown’s Harley’s Smokehouse,[…]
The Storytellers adapts for a minimalist stage suspense and mystery tales from Saki, W.W. Jacobs, Robert W. Service, and Edgar Allen Poe, some of the greatest storytellers that ever lived. The most well-known of the stories is Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. The performances are accompanied by original music from Louis Aquiler, which contributes to the[…]
Set in a smartphone factory where suicides and unions are forbidden, the dystopian play Ex Machina follows Mason, a despondent veteran worker, and his new roommate, the idealist newcomer, Loomis. The two men must learn to get along, while Mason’s anarchist ex-girlfriend encourages them to finally rebel against the system. Ex Machina[…]
The premise behind The Spider is a bold one: Martin and Martha are conjoined twins and it’s the night before their scheduled separation surgery. Martha is dreaming of her independence, while Martin is consumed by fear of the expected change and the possible risks. This Bulgarian production from Theatre B+ (performed[…]
Like Poetry tells the story of Stagger, a young man struggling with his homosexuality. His eccentric therapist gives him a prescription: read a Walt Whitman poem every night before bed. Soon, childhood memories, delusions about bugs, and the spirit of Walt Whitman flood Stagger as he is trying to come to terms[…]
An adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s influential novel Slaughterhouse-Five, about a timid World War 2 veteran who is abducted by aliens and travels through time. This satirical and philosophical story is retold with the help of several multimedia devices: video projections, visual art, and audio recordings. The quick transitions between the micro-scenes[…]
A Maxamoo recommendation Set in shack near Soweto, South Africa, this searing production examines two lives cut down in their prime by disease and poverty. It also questions the well-intentioned but failing attempts by government to address modern social concerns. While these are lofty issues, the performances are personal, intimate,[…]
Adam & Steve and the Empty Sea revisits the struggle between the gay community and religious conservatives, in this case Mormons. Far from offering a political or theological lesson, this play looks at what happens when two friends with opposing views actually sit down and talk. The outcome is a lot of[…]
History and music meet in TRUTH, An American Opera about Sojourner Truth, a riveting and touching opera rendition of the life and work of Sojourner Truth, an escaped slave who became a prominent abolitionist and feminist. Opera lovers, history lovers, or lovers of both would be pleased. The progression of[…]
Ghetto Babylon is a classic coming-of-age story: Charlie, a smart Latino kid in the South Bronx in 1982 puts his relationship with his two best friends in jeopardy by hiding a secret. The play alternates between a Baseball field, where the trio hopes to win the Bronx-wide championship, and Charlie’s rooftop, where he stacks his[…]
FringeNYC 2013 starts today, August 9th. This year the Festival boasts more than 200 companies, 20 venues, and 1200 performances. If you’re having a hard deciding what to see, we gathered all of the preview articles in one spot. BackstageTop 10 shows to see at the NY Fringe Festival Martin[…]
The bizarre love triangle between Tom Cruise, Katy Holmes and the Church of Scientology may have come to an end, but that’s no reason to stop making fun of it. The TomKat Project is composed of seven actors playing 54 celebrities in total, in a comedy based on real interviews as well[…]
Earlier this year there was a raft of comic book-y plays in New York City. Several were excellent. When done well we very much enjoy this genre. Manic Pixie Dream Girl at this year’s Fringe is similarly styled and we have high hopes for it. The play is a dark[…]
Jody and Michael (both the actual people and their characters in the play The Skype Show, or See You in August) are a musical duo called Greencard Wedding. Their music is “indie-folk-beatbox-rock” but, really, whose isn’t these days? In December 2012, Michael’s visa expired and he was forced to return[…]
We’re nearing the point that when Nat Cassidy is in something or writes something or produces something, we just show up without needing any further information. His show at the NYC Fringe sounds especially intriguing: a heartbreaking, time-jumping drama about four lives, bound by obsession, rocked by madness, saved by[…]
From Debbie Andrews and Mike Blaxill of the indie-rock-pop-folk quartet Gladshot, comes Barcode, a rock musical about a dystopian future, in which a single giant corporation dominates the earth. The Huffington Post called an earlier workshop of the show “bubbly” and “fun” and compared it to Green Day’s American Idiot, a vote of confidence by[…]
The one-person show is a staple of any Fringe Festival. Of the 40 solo shows at this year’s NYC Fringe, we found the description of Naked in Alaska to be the most compelling. Performed by Valerie Hager, it is the autobiographical story of her 10-year career as an exotic dancer, which followed[…]