Theatre
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Kaija Saariaho Premiere at White Light Festival
Lincoln Center Produces Only the Sound Remains
By: - Nov 18th, 2018Kaija Saaariaho weaves live music, enhanced voices and electronically generated extensions of the orchestra through the Rose Theater in Only the Sound Remains. Her opera based on two Noh stories is having its US premiere at the White Light Festival of Lincoln Center. This is an intimate work which succeeds mysteriously in filling a large space.
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Everything is Illuminated Adapted by Simon Block
Produced by Aurora Theatre
By: - Nov 18th, 2018Everything is Illuminated merits its place on the stage. Not everyone will like it, but it should be respected for its poignant content, interesting structure, well-defined characters, and ability to embrace humor and grief without loss of credibility.
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India Pale Ale at Manhattan Theatre Club
By Punjabi-American Playwright Jaclyn Backhaus
By: - Nov 18th, 2018In a New York Times interview, the playwright, Jaclyn Backhaus, admits that the work is essentially an expanded autobiography. As it opens, an almost-30-year-old, single Punjabi-American woman is talking to herself while she’s digging into fistfuls of dirt in the backyard.
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ATCA Focuses on Diversity
Panel Discussions for NY Critic’s Conference
By: - Nov 16th, 2018In order to survive and remain vital American Theatre Critics Association must become younger and more diverse. Intersectionality and inclusion is an ever greater driving force for producers, theatre companies and their critics. The dynamics of that synergy were explored through panels and programming of what has evolved as an annual New York conference.
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The Gershwin's Crazy for You
At the Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco
By: - Nov 15th, 2018In addition to great music and dance, Crazy for You is full of some of the corniest imaginable humor and inside jokes that are compatible with the tone of the work. And they are delivered well.
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Church and State
A Timely Dark Comedy
By: - Nov 15th, 2018“Church & State”, now on stage at the Pearl McManus theatre, in downtown Palm Springs, explores the hot button topics and issues concerning the role of guns, the Second Amendment, the NRA, and the role that God and religion play in our politics, but not necessarily in that order.
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King Kong as Spectacle
But Is the Musical Spectacular Enough for Broadway
By: - Nov 15th, 2018Yes size is definitely on the theatrical table for purposes of this “review/essay” of King Kong along with other observations. Perhaps, I should label this review with a sub-headline called “In Defense of Spectacle”.
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Queens of the Gold Mask by Carole Lockwood
World Premiere at Ivoryton Playhouse
By: - Nov 14th, 2018Playwright Carole Lockwood’s play while set in the past resonates much too much in today’s world.
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Love, Linda
Cole and Linda Porter Bio-Musical Off-Broadway
By: - Nov 14th, 2018Love, Linda is a lavish show illustrating the love Linda Porter had for her husband, the late, great composer lyricist, Cole Porter. A stylish production Off-Broadway recently ended its run. Stevie Holland, a widely-acclaimed performer, shined in the role of Mrs. Porter in the one-woman show.
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New Federal Theatre Presents Fall Reading Series
The Best of Two Character Plays Honors Ntozake Shange
By: - Nov 13th, 2018Woodie King's New Federal Theatre has dedicated its November Readings Series to the memory of the late playwright Ntozake Shange, who died October 27. New Federal Theatre's close association with Ntozake Shange goes back to its 1976-76 season, when it presented the first production of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough."
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3rd Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards
27 Critics Voted for Prized Berkies
By: - Nov 13th, 2018For the third annual Berkshire Theatre Awards, at the Zion Luteran Church in Pittsfield, it took two hours to present trophies in 21 categories. Some 27 critics voted on awards to companies in the Berkshires extending into New York, Connecticut and Vermont. The top honors went to Barrington Stage Company with nine awards and Williamstown Theatre Festival which took home five.
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The Book of Merman at the St. Luke's Theatre
A Parody of a Parody is Brash and Fun
By: - Nov 12th, 2018The Book of Merman is an engaging musical playing at the St. Luke's Theatre in New York. A parody of a parody, it is fresh from the first moment the two Mormon Elders, who are very young indeed, start knocking on doors in the theater district.
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Mefistofele at the Metropolitan Opera
Christian Hale is the Devil
By: - Nov 12th, 2018The Devil always gets a bad rap. That's the premise behind Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito's lone completed opera. An ambitious setting of Goethe's Faust that retells the story from the Devil's point of view, Mefistofele used to prance its sulfur strut across the world's opera stages. But Thursday night's revival at the Metropolitan Opera was the first time that the opera had been seen, fully staged, in New York in eighteen years.
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Two Broadway Dramas
The Ferryman and The Waverly Gallery
By: - Nov 11th, 2018In town for the ATCA NY Theatre Conference our Chicago correspondent covered two compelling dramas. Both plays are in long runs. The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth continues through February 17 and Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery runs until January 27
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The Doctor in Spite of Himself at Odyssey Opera
Gounod's 200th Birthday Celebrated in Style
By: - Nov 10th, 2018Odyssey Opera mounted a terrific production of Charles' Gounod's A Doctor in Spite of Himself at the Huntington Theater in Boston. Gil Rose, the inspired founder of this company, points out that critics often blame institutions for riding the coattails of a big birthday of an musical original. If this is so, why is Gounod's 200th not being celebrated. It turns out that it is, in Boston.
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Thousand Pines, at Westport Country Playhouse
World Premiere by Matthew Greene
By: - Nov 10th, 2018I found this moving and fascinating. As the playwright said, “to be honest, I’d love for this play to stop being ‘relevant.’” Yes, it is a difficult subject but it is handled with such care by all involved that it is well worth seeing.
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Broadway Goes Ape For King Kong
Remake of Classic 1933 Rumble in the Jungle
By: - Nov 08th, 2018During the exposition of this retelling of the classic 1933 film there is an enervating response to a generic musical. It conveys the familiar tale of a pretty farm girl falling on hard luck trying to make it big in show business. Lured into a film shoot on remote and unihabited Skull Island things change big time. From the first thrilling appearance of Kong there is little doubt that he is the new King of Broadway.
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ATCA at Sardi’s
Critics Lunch with Broadway Stars
By: - Nov 07th, 2018The stars came out in droves for the annual luncheon with critics at Sardi's the show bis watering hole. Sixteen individuals representing thirteen current plays broke bread with the scribes.
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Robert Schenkkan's All the Way
Exploring LBJ's Presidency
By: - Nov 07th, 2018Playwright Robert Schenkkan explores the year from LBJ’s tragic ascension to the presidency through his election in the powerful and fast-paced, Tony Award winning All the Way. Michael Monagle tackles the many facets of President Lyndon Johnson with gusto.
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Waiting for Godot by the Druid Theatre
Lincoln Center's White Light Festival
By: - Nov 07th, 2018Waiting for Godot with the Druid Theater Company graces the White Light Festival at Lincoln Center. It is an evening full of laughs in a bunker. Beckett as a member of the French Resistance had escaped Paris when the Gestapo targeted him. This experience led him to create a new theatrical form after the War.
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Bringing King Kong to Broadway
Developing the 20' and 2000 Pound Gorilla in the Room
By: - Nov 06th, 2018During a session of the NY Conference of American Theatre Critics Association we met with creators of the soon to be smash hit musical King Kong. The star of the show stands 20' high, weighs 2000 pounds, and roars with a rage that is absolutely terrifying. He is one very pissed off great ape.
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Hungarian State Opera Arrives in New York
Superb Company Offers Seldom Heard Masterpieces
By: - Nov 06th, 2018The Hungarian State Opera is a company full of talented artists whose work has not been presented to American audiences, unless they are fortunate enough to have visited Buda and Pest, and cities throughout the country that presents opera all the time, everywhere. The troop is in New York for two weeks, presenting opera, their orchestra and also dance, for which the Hungarians are famous.
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Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Kurt Vonnegut Off Broadway
By: - Nov 06th, 2018If you’re a Kurt Vonnegut reader, Happy Birthday, Wanda June will sound familiar. If you’re in New York, or can get there by November 29, you have the chance to see this wacky dark satire of American culture and America’s propensity for war and death, filtered through Vonnegut’s mad genius lens
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Satyagarha by Philip Glass at BAM
Folkoperan / Cirkus Cirkör Add to the Meditation
By: - Nov 01st, 2018The Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is presenting Philip Glass' Satyagraha at the Harvey Theater in Brooklyn. Not every opera can be mounted by a circus troop, but the forms are complimentary. When they meld, as they do here, it is a thrilling evening of theater. Folkoperan / Cirkus Cirkör from Sweden brings a matching visual rhythm and pace to the classical forms of Glass and extend our sense of this meditation on pacifism
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Kurt Vonnegut at 59E59 Theaters
Brian Katz Adapts Mother Night for the Stage
By: - Oct 30th, 2018Brian Katz' adaptation and direction of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night puts the infernal specters of WWII on the stage at 59E59 Theaters. It is produced by The Custom Made Theatre Company with Executive Producers William & Ruth Isenberg and Leah Abrams, and Producer Jay Yamada. We find ourselves witnesses to the conscience of an American born-German playwright Howard W. Campbell, (Gabriel Grilli), who has spent his youth in Germany writing propaganda for the the Third Reich.
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