“Did Anne Frank every acknowledge her white privilege” was the 2022 tweet read and reacted to round-the-world.  The query was head-spinning: an extreme example of liberal ideology gone horribl…

In Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, Jenny Lyn Bader uses the brief imprisonment of Hannah Arendt as a vehicle for scrutinizing the rise of Fascism through a sharp political mind.&nbsp…

Experiencing the timeless wonder of a play by William Shakespeare does not have to be some hoity-toity affair.  Done well, his iambic pentameter can sound closer to natural conversation than a…

With both the plight of the neighboring island of Cuba and the struggles of refuges worldwide in the headlines, the appearance of the Hit the Lights! production Isla couldn’t be more timely.  …

Our theatre critic sees the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical for the first time, and it's a trip

A revered doctor and celebrated champion of women’s health is on track to be confirmed in a bipartisan vote as Surgeon General only to see her nomination derailed by an understandable personal over…

You can imagine a pitch meeting along these lines: “I’ve written a play that depicts the difference between being religious and acting godly.  Oh, and the lead roles are 13 and 14 year old boy…

On July 24, Cross Walk (a division of Bleeker Street Films) and LD Entertainment will be releasing their much-anticipated live theater capture of the West End production of Hadestown: The Musical.&…

After ambling through San Francisco and New Jersey, the musical version of A Walk on the Moon has landed Off-Broadway.  The story is set in 1969 during a summer of great societal change.  America i…

At first glance, John S. Anastasi’s Pied-À-Terre appears to be just another version of an oft-repeated story.  Jack, a middle-aged, financially successful lawyer, picks up Katie, a teen prosti…

In the new comedic drama Fear & Wonder, two teen boys meet at a Christian summer camp in Orlando, Florida.  Ryan is an African American with dreams of becoming a Youth Minister.  Jabe…

I don’t remember the last time I attended a play at which everyone was laughing so loudly I couldn’t hear the dialogue… and I didn’t mind because I was laughing too.  That was the most unforge…

Part biography, part musical revue, Jimmy Logan’s Lauder is a jubilant celebration of “Scotland’s Kilted King of Broadway.”  Born in 1870 in Edinburgh, Harry Lauder used laughter, imagination,…

YMCA’s Indian Princesses was originally established in the mid-1950s.  The objective was to nurture the bond between white fathers and daughters with Native American heritage.  The good i…

From the beginning, there is something off about the Northeast Office in Adam Bock’s The Receptionist.  There is a squishy sense of period and an even sparser sense of location beyond a workpl…

A Talking Band production is to a typical scripted play what an impressionist painting is to a photograph.  The plot lines are delineated, but the total picture is brought into focus through i…

Balusters are the tiny pillars that support handrails on a deck or staircase.  Not just an architectural flourish, these critical structures provide safety and support.  In David Lindsay-…

Composed as a round-robin of tête-à-têtes between Cora (Carmen M. Herlihy) and sisters Denise (Kate MacCluggage) and Anna (Danielle Ryan), The Approach explores the fragile mechanics that underpin …

Since expanding their initial mission as a theater for the blind, Theater Breaking Through Barriers has become one of America’s few companies for artists with disabilities.  Their current prod…

Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare’s first “stab” at tragedy.  Unlike his soon-to-arrive Romeo and Juliet, it has no characters to fully invest in and bears many of the hallmarks of a brilliant …

In The Count of Monte Cristo, an 1846 book by Alexandre Dumas, revenge is a chef’s tasting menu of dishes best served cold.  In Monte Cristo, a new musical by Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner,…

In Spare Parts, a well-meaning Columbia University Assistant Professor and a dedicated graduate student are studying the aging process; experimenting with possibilities for slowing or reversing it.…

When I went to Russia as a child, my parents and I brought Skippy, Hanes, and Levis to a friend’s niece in Moscow.  All the best restaurants only took American dollars, which were unavailable to lo…

In Chinese Republicans, four women of Chinese heritage and spanning three generations are gathered for an Affinity Luncheon near their New York City office.  As co-workers at a stressful inter…

Retired professor McAlester Daily does not want to be labeled.  Given the nature of a spectrum, he posits, aren’t we all on it?  True, he insists on clarity: of the questions being asked of him and…

The presiding character in The First Line of Dante’s Inferno has no lines, but dominates and literally overhangs the dialogue.  It is the dark outlying woods represented by Lauren Helpern’s evocati…

The lead character of the new musical The Opening is Newton Anderson, a nerdy, sweet 17 year old. When he’s not compulsively playing chess, he’s daydreaming about his classmate Jenny or doing the h…

At the intersection of visual art, movement, music, and the written word lives the collaborative company Happenstance Theater.  Under the Artistic Co-Direction of Mark Jaster and Sabrina Selma…

Too few productions hit that magical sweet spot of addressing a pressing issue while remaining entertaining and even funny.  This is what makes Predictor such a refreshing addition to the wint…

Post pandemic lockdown, I have taken an interest in theater that can be enjoyed from home.  There are many people with mobility, childcare, and transportation issues who deserve to be thorough…

Of all the action leading up to World War I, the chapter most remembered by students of that era is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the vast Austro-Hungary empi…

My friends will confirm:  I am not a Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte or Samantha.  I am a Monica.  If that doesn’t conjure up a distinct image, Friends! The Unauthorized Musical Parody is…

What establishes our identity?  Skin color?  Language?  Scientific evidence?  In a country comprised primarily of immigrants, how do we balance our cultural heritage with our re…

Restrict your liquids and buckle up for the ride.  Robert Icke’s multiple Olivier Award Winning Oedipus has landed on Broadway.  The writer/director phenom transforms the 2500 year old Greek myth t…

In June of 1943, Malcolm Little and John Elroy Sanford crossed paths as dishwashers in the same Harlem fried chicken joint.  At ages 19 and 20 respectively, they were still finding their footing as…

In a secluded stately home in the Connecticut woods, a married team of well-educated psychiatrists uses psychodrama to help their troubled patients work through trauma.  One night, their cook …

Talking Band has been generating their unique brand of performance art for more than 50 years.  Last year, they received a Lifetime Achievement Obie Award for their whimsical thought provoking…

In a world in which AI has seemingly infiltrated every aspect of life, it is not hard to imagine a lab like the one featured in Kipp Koenig’s The Glitch.  “Future Child” allows want-to-be parents t…

There is a mighty fine line between “timely” and “too close to home.”  No one at 59E59 could have predicted that Trump ally and conservative activist Charlie Kirk would be shot and killed a few day…

The New York theater scene is most often associated with Broadway, but there is a diverse audience that actually prefers to head Off-Broadway.  (I count myself among them.)  The descripto…

Recently I took a tour of the history of New York City’s electrical system.  Most of the infrastructure had been placed in marginalized neighborhoods.  That this is not new news made it n…

In art as in life, there is captivating drama to be mined when mismatched strangers are thrown together by circumstance.  So it is in Sophie McIntosh’s Road Kills currently in an Off-Off-Broadway r…

Looking for an escape from the heat? the smoke? the world?  I can recommend a bite-sized treat: the 5th Annual Little Shakespeare Festival.  Each year playwrights take stories and themes …

When you hear the premise of Polishing Shakespeare — Dot-com billionaire, Grant, is bestowing generous grants to a team of eager writers prepared to translate the entire works of The Bard into *Eng…

Tired of not being able to answer the simple query, “how are you?” without sighing? Ken Davenport and AnnMarie Milazzo may have an answer.  Their creation Joy: A New True Musical is a type of …

After a lengthy pause, Crystal Skillman’s award-winning play, OPEN, has been given a three-week Off-Broadway run at WP Theater.   Celebrating its 47th Season, WP Theater is the oldest and largest t…

It all comes down to gray areas according to Jared, the second debater on the undefeated team at the center of Emmanuelle Mattana’s Trophy Boys.  The same could be said of the entire play, now…

When the earth, moon, and sun are in alignment, the moon moves into earth’s shadow blocking light from reaching the moon’s surface.  This lunar eclipse is the featured event of Donald Margulie…

In 1933, the landmark trial of “United States v. One Book Called Ulysses” cleared the way for the publication of many significant works of literature that include sexual content and adult language.…