BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

Hosted by famously deadpan Julie Halston (You Can't Take It With You), the melange of actors presented in Monday night's comedy show at Feinstein's/54 Below drove home the fact that humor is simply not universal. Additionally, lack of continuity made it seem as if artists chose material no one revie...

Bychkov leads the NY Philharmonic a magnificent and majestic Mahler 6th....

It's a shame that Bellini wasn't Donizetti--because the story of LA SONNAMBULA seems to be begging for the full comic treatment and could have been a great companion to L'ELISIR D'AMORE. (I'm not sure how Maria Callas would have felt about changes in one of her great roles.) As it stands, performing...

When vocalist Todd Murray discovered several of the musicians for his excellent show Croon were unavailable for their scheduled Valentine's Day appearance last Sunday afternoon at the Metropolitan Room, he asked Sean Harkness (the guitarist in the show) to join him for a two-hander. The fortuitous a...

Justin Peck's 'Most Incredible Thing' headlines this program of new works....

Visit Surya on Bleecker Street in the West Village. The Sharma family will welcome you with gracious service and delicious Indian food. Open for lunch, dinner, a daily happy hour and weekend brunch, guests will have many good reasons to return again and again....

Opera for the 21st century is more than setting RUSALKA in a whorehouse, populating RIGOLETTO with a cast of apes or sending MARIA STUARDA to a maximum security prison. It must start with a different vocabulary for the words and music--one that still appeals to traditional audiences while also being...

The indomitable Liliane Montevecchi revived her 25-year-old cabaret show Thursday night at Feinstein's/54 Below with verve, style, and the expansive flirting of a lifelong femme fatale. This time it's aptly titled Be My Valentine. Few can ad lib with so much beguiling heat. As the Cliff Notes of he...

Performing at the Cafe Carlyle for his fourth time, John Lloyd Young sashayed to the stage on his Tuesday opening night wearing leather and aviator glasses, and with the swagger one would expect from the performer who originated the role of Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys in 2005 (Young became the only...

There's a great Scottish word that came to mind while I was watching Emmanuel Chabrier's one-act French operetta, UNE EDUCATION MANQUEE (AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION), this past weekend by Washington, DC's Opera Lafayette at the French Institute-Alliance Francaise in New York. It's “twee,” which roug...

Travis Wall's Shaping Sound performed an eclectic dance program at New York's Beacon Theatre on February 8, 2016....

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College, in conjunction with its third Annual Lunar New Year Celebration, partnered once again with the prestigious Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company in an all new celebration of Chinese arts and culture. Under the direction of renowned traditional dancer ...

With MARIA STUARDA at the Met, we're back for the second installment of Donizetti's so-called Tudor Trilogy, with ANNA BOLENA (Anne Boleyn) already off to the gallows and ROBERTO DEVEREUX (with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, it was “Elizabeth and Essex”) still to come. It's the first time the Met ...

Closing January 2016 with a bang, Broadway veteran and singer-songwriter Brian Gallagher shook Birdland Jazz Club with BRIAN GALLAGHER AND FRIENDS. He has been crafting new songs, writing a musical about a serial killer haunted by her victims, and even crafting a song cycle about rats. Utilizing his...

The Annual FLICfest, founded and curated by Jeramy Zimmerman and now in its sixth year, gave six choreographers an opportunity to present feature-length independent works at the Irondale Center, located in the heart of Brooklyn's Downtown Arts District. The work featured the world premiere of the pi...

The house was full on the opening night of Dada Masilo's Swan Lake at the Joyce and I quickly realized why. The ballet boasts incredible energy, attitude, innovation and diversity rarely seen in a typical ballet, all without sacrificing an engaging story and superb technique....

As part of New York City Ballet's Winter Season 2016 at Lincoln Center's Koch Theater, the program appropriately entitled 'Masters at Work' was a perfect pairing of two disparate yet in one way similar creations by the troupe's founding choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Mr. B's L...

Villa Cemita presents wonderful traditional Mexican fare and Puebla specialties. Located on the Lower East Side, it will quickly become one of your favorite restaurants in New York City....

'I AND YOU' is now being performed at 59E59 Theaters through February 28th. Written by Lauren Gunderson and directed by Sean Daniels, the show is excellent and poignant....

Attending a Ben Vereen show these days is like worshipping at the altar of Happy. As he displayed once again on Monday's opening night of his latest run at Feinstein's/ 54 Below, the veteran entertainer exudes palpable pleasure at being on stage while repeatedly expressing gratitude to his audience....

Magic happened this past Thursday night at the gorgeous David H. Koch theatre as New York City Ballet lit the stage in the premiere week of their much-anticipated winter season. Getting back to their roots and showcasing what they do so well, the company's three-piece All Balanchine I program celebr...

Sometimes, the Metropolitan Opera seems like an endless Puccini festival. It's particularly apparent this season, when top dogs LA BOHEME, TOSCA and MADAMA BUTTERFLY are joined by TURANDOT and MANON LESCAUT, which are not second drawer, though certainly less popular than the first three. (Let's see ...

With her new CD release Photographs, veteran New York jazz and cabaret singer Mary Foster Conklin puts her own stamp on the material, which is part interpretation and part the limited range of her often smoky alto. Accompanying musicians—led by John diMartino on piano--are top notch with especiall...

The LABUTE NEW THEATER FESTIVAL is now onstage at 59E59 Theaters through February 7th. Six fascinating one-act plays are receiving their New York Premiere....

It seems ironic--to me at least--that New York's venerable City Opera would be returning to life at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, just as the “Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now” festival was finishing up its run at alternative venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Prototype “unleashed a powerf...