OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

59E59 Theaters is currently presenting a real summertime treat for theatergoers, Summer Shorts 2017, Festival of New American Short Plays. We attended Series A, a superb variety of wonderfully performed pieces with moments that will make you laugh and touch your heart....

Places is an outstanding production written and performed by Romy Nordlinger, directed and developed by Kate McHugh. The solo show, complemented by multi-media, was just performed at 59E59 Theaters as part of East to Edinburgh, the theatre's annual preview for the Edinburgh Festival....

Connoisseurs of American musical theatre wishing to make a point about the genre's ability to dramatize even the most unlikely of subjects often cite examples like SWEENEY TODD's vengeful barber on a killing spree or THE PAJAMA GAME's labor/management dispute, but bookwriter/lyricist/composer Kirste...

As part of the New York Musical Festival, Generation Me is absolute perfection in its ability to prove how kindness and cruelty are of the same unfortunate hand. How people, so certain in their anger or jealousy, are sometimes so blind to what really matters: what can you do to help me?...

Written by Tom Stoppard, directed by Cheryl Faraone and presented by the Potomac Theatre Project as a start to its wondrous 31st season, Arcadia truly tests the limits of what constitutes a good show by not only compelling the audience to listen and understand, but also to feel and experience: a mix...

Even if you've never heard a note sung by Ella Fitzgerald (and if that's the case, you should stop reading this review immediately and look up some of her recordings on YouTube) Andrea Frierson's duo-bio solo show, ME & ELLA, can be related to by anyone whose life was influenced by a popular artist ...

Though your ticket says you're seated at The Public's Anspacher Theater, don't be surprised if once director Sam Gold's jaunty mounting of Shakespeare's Hamlet shifts into gear, you find yourself wondering if you may have stumbled into some indie production playing in the back room of a hipster bar ...

A folk-singing black man with an optimistic view of America looks back at our nation's history of angry white people finding no better way to cope with their grievances than by firing a gun at the president....

In December of 2015, shortly before her excellent drama SKELETON CREW opened Off-Broadway, playwright Dominique Morisseau essayed an article for American Theatre titled 'Why I Almost Slapped a Fellow Theatre Patron, and What That Says About Our Theatres.'...

103 seasons and going strong - and not just because of nostalgia. The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene has reimagined 'Amerike - The Golden Land', the 1984 musical by Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld, appropriately running near Ellis Island. Weaving incredible stories with fantastic songs, mult...

While it's not unexpected to have the title character of a musical based on Henry Fielding's infamously bawdy 1749 novel "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" be introduced to the audience while enjoying the afterglow of a lusty time with an agreeable lass, what's a bit surprising at first about B...

As America's great playwrights go, Horton Foote, who passed on in 2009, just shy of his 93rd birthday, was perhaps the most understated of them all.  In a prolific career that involved golden age television dramas, Academy Award winning screenplays and dozens of stage works, his favorite source of ...

The newest offering at Lincoln Center's Claire Tow Theater features a beautiful dreamscape depicting a woman in a small boat being guided through swelling ocean waves by a friendly face painted on the moon. As designed by Brett J. Banakis (set), Montana Levi Blanco (costumes) and Eric Southern (ligh...

"It's not unusual to be loved by anyone…" Admittedly, this is the wrong Tom Jones and yes, I may have stolen this little pun from the show's opening narrative, but that Mr. Jones was on the perfect track to describing what chaos ensues in the life of a man whom everyone adores: the literary Tom Jo...

The recent Signature Theatre revival of Suzan Lori-Parks' VENUS, based on the true story of Saartjie Baartman, depicted a 19th Century African woman who was subjected to exploitation because of white people's fascination with her prominent posterior.  But the mood is considerably lighter over at Pl...

My Eyes Went Dark, written and directed by Matthew Wilkinson, is now onstage at 59E59 Theaters. This emotional, thought-provoking drama is inspired by real-life events.The play is part of the annual Brits Off-Broadway festival that will be held at the 59E59 Theaters through July 2nd....

Ask any New York Mets fan and they'll tell you that one of the unique quirks about watching a game at the teams' Flushing home - be it the now-demolished Shea Stadium or the current Citi Field - is the frequent rumbling of planes coming in and out of LaGuardia airport....

When playwright/actor Jim Brochu was announced as the 2010 Drama Desk Outstanding Solo Performance Award winner for his loving tribute to the great Zero Mostel, ZERO HOUR, circumstances of the evening set up an opportunity for him to open his acceptance speech with an incredibly funny, totally filth...

The new Off-Broadway production of SWEENEY TODD just got a whole lot meatier.  No, the chef hasn't been adding more filling to the tasty meat pies audience members can enjoy before the performance.  The new reason for checking into the Barrow Street Theater is a chance to see two top shelf singer/...

Though the lonely, out-of-work truck driver Eddie continued to text love notes to his estranged wife's cell phone number long after her death, he never expect to get an answer....

See the US premiere of 'Invincible' now at 59E59 Theaters through July 2. Written by Torben Betts and directed by Stephen Darcy, this entertaining yet emotive show features a stellar cast....

For the past 400+ years, the title character in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has been traditionally regarded as one of the good guys. Oh sure, there was that time back in '37 when Orson Welles staged a production that had the Roman ruler interpreted as a stand-in for Mussolini, but The Bard's...

The confusion one might feel trying to follow Atlantic Theater Company's production of British playwright Clare Lizzimore's psychological study, Animal, is no doubt an intentional reflection of the emotional state of its central character....

In the opening scene of MCC's American premiere production of THE END OF LONGING, playwright/star Matthew Perry, playing the drunk, caustic and cocky Rolling Stone photographer Jack, looks deeply into the eyes of Stephanie, his latest attempt at a cocktail lounge pickup....

Though Anton Chekhov popularized the notion that there's nothing sadder than a Russian comedy, playgoers seeking a few more yuks than can be found in a night at THE CHERRY ORCHARD can look to one of The Good Doctor's countrymen, Nikolai Gogol, whose rip-roaring classic The Government Inspector is gr...