OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

The subject of sensitive, well-intentioned white people growing up unaware of their own privilege has been receiving more and more attention in American, but back in 1982, South African playwright Athol Fugard approached the issue as experienced in his apartheid-infested homeland....

The doorway to the neighborhood bar designed with great detail by John Lee Beatty for director Kate Whoriskey's tense and finely-acted mounting of Lynn Nottage's hard-hitting new drama, Sweat, is decorated with a neon light advertising Yuengling Beer, the Pennsylvania brew that dates back to 1829....

In BLACKTOP HIGHWAY, Performance Artist John Fleck Muses on Simulacra, Animals (Live and Dead), and Trump. Taking on ten characters and mimicking as many animal sounds, the NEA 4 artist weaves a multi-media tale of horror that manages, incredibly, to make us laugh....

See 'The Collector' now onstage at 59E59 Theaters through November 13th. This riveting dark drama is written by playwright, Mark Healy based on the 1963 novel by the same name by John Fowles. It is directed by Lisa Milinazzo and stars Matt De Rogatis and Jillian Guerts....

Placed throughout Anna Deavere Smith's revealing new theatre piece, NOTES FROM THE FIELD, are violent video clips that have become all too familiar to any American with access to YouTube....

Playwright Qui Nguyen is a tricky fellow. First he has an actor appear on stage, claiming to be him, welcoming the audience with the usual pre-show ritual about turning off cell phones and warning against any form of recording....

In Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1985 Pulitzer Prize winning musical SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, the 'art of making art' can be less about applying paint to a canvas as it is about applying a signature to a check....

The tensest, most dramatic moments in director Anne Kauffman's premiere production of Adam Bock's A Life occur whenever designer Laura Jellinek's large unit set slowly rotates horizontally, like a rotisserie, to change locations. The loud extended creaking that accompanies every change sounds like s...

Those who have lived through it may agree that war is hell, but for the central character of David Hare's 1978 drama, Plenty, the excitement of confusing, distracting and demoralizing the Germans in occupied France was a slice of heaven compared with living as a woman in post-war England....

While Jonathan Larson's RENT, his 1996 East Village adaptation of Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa's LA BOHEME, presents a romanticized look at bohemians living in poverty for the sake of their art, his TICK, TICK… BOOM!, now getting a superb Off-Broadway revival via Keen Company...

Despite a string of bad fortune that has kept them moving from venue to venue to venue, the genius director/choreographer Austin McCormick's Company XIV, with its distinct style mixing classical dance, burlesque, acrobatics and pop music presented in an erotic baroque fashion inspired by the courtly...

See 'ORWELL IN AMERICA' at 59E59 Theaters now through October 30th. Written by Joe Sutton and directed by Peter Hackett, the play is a fascinating depiction of what may have occurred if Orwell had visited the U.S on a book tour....

Though solo performer Sarah Jones is rightfully celebrated for her exacting skills that quickly morph herself into a seemingly limitless collection of female and male characters of diverse ages, ethnicities, nationalities and personalities, she doesn't seem to get proper credit as a playwright....

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary to rethink a centuries-entrenched conception, it must be done with ideas audacious and revolutionary enough to forever upset the status quo. That was true in a small, stuffy Philadelphia room in 1776, and it is true now at Orlando's Mad Cow Th...

The NYC premiere of The Birds is onstage at 59E59 Theaters now through October 1st. It is written by the celebrated playwright, Conor McPherson and directed by Stefan Dzeparoski as part of 1st Irish Festival. The play is a fascinating, outstanding adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's spine tingling no...

Hilarity abounds at Bears in Space, the zany, captivating show currently at 59E59 Theaters through October 2nd. Directed by Dan Colley and featuring a talented cast, this theatrical event combines puppetry and storytelling techniques in perfect measure....

'Touch' is an affecting play wonderfully staged with superb acting. It is now onstage at 59E59 Theaters through September 4th....

If the plot and characters of Leslye Headland new drama THE LAYOVER appear to be contemporary versions of some old film noir feature you used to watch so often on VHS that the images on the tape deteriorated into grey and white streaks, it may be merely be a suggestion planted into your head by vide...

Shakespeare's seldom-performed wartime drama is set in contemporary times....

The New York City premiere of ALICE IN BLACK AND WHITE is now on limited engagement at 59E59 Theaters through Sunday, August 14th.Beautifully written by Robin Rice, splendidly directed by Kathi E.B. Ellis and featuring an excellent cast, this is one to see....

An all-woman cast plays out the story of John Wesley Powell's expedition to the Grand Canyon....

See 'Summer Shorts Festival of New American Short Plays,' now on stage at 59E59 through September 3rd. There are two individual programs and each of them features three very original plays....

The 1979 Off-Broadway musical was the first collaboration from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman....

Cynthia von Buhler's Speakeasy Dollhouse: The Bloody Beginning grew out of the artist's lifelong fascination with the mysterious death of her Italian immigrant grandfather, Frank Spano, in 1935. Originally conceived as a one-night event, Speakeasy Dollhouse took on a life of its own and since 2011 h...

The compelling and entertaining Civil War comedic-drama 'Butler' is now onstage at 59E59 Theatre through August 28th. This superb play is written by Richard Stand, directed by Joseph Discher and presented by New Jersey Repertory Company....