OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

Wishing for a mid-winter break, but short on time and money? Look no further: the theatrical spectacle Brazil! Brazil! at the New Victory Theater provides a very affordable whirlwind sightseeing adventure and cultural experience for you and your family, without even leaving the heart of midtown....

When The Public Theater premiered Adam Guettel's Myths and Hymns in 1998 - under the title Saturn Returns - it was presented as a simple song cycle using chamber arrangements of pop, gospel and classical styles in a loose theme of exploring the human relationship to faith, utilizing traditional hymn...

It would be absolutely ridiculous if you missed this run. Performances are Thursdays - Sundays at 7:30pm, along with Saturdays matinees at 2:30pm and an additional performance on Monday, February 20 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students/seniors and can be purchased online at ht...

'If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research,' explains a pharmaceutical professional in Rx, Kate Fodor's comic romance set around the big business of health care....

A stellar cast, smart script, and hilarious material make a successful therapy session in Frank Strausser's PSYCHO THERAPY at the Cherry Lane Theatre. A clever and witty take on couples therapy reveals unexpected twists and turns which leaves the audience refreshed and ready to tackle their own rel...

'It's not fair,' the 14-year-old girl complains to her mom....

Is it possible to recreate someone else's authenticity seven times a week doing the same Off-Broadway show?  If last Saturday night's performance of Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good) is any indication, the answer is a resounding... I'm not sure.  But in any case, the lighthearted m...

Few plays can take a true account of sexual abuse, family betrayal, suicide attempts, HIV-scares, abortions, and failed relationships and turn it into a smart (and often funny) story of hope and survival with clever staging and amazing talent. MISS KIM does just that....

It's all about perspective. LEO, played by one-man actor-acrobat, Tobias Wegner, comes to us straight from the Berlin-based production company, Circle of Eleven. A simple, yet interesting concept of skewed reality where, because of innovative staging under the direction of Daniel Briere, Leo's wor...

I've heard it said that there was this Australian fellow playing the Broadhurst recently who regularly had his audiences whipped up into quite a frenzy.  I've also heard of a Liverpool quartet that could pack screaming fans into a sold out Shea Stadium.  Now, I couldn't tell you if the decibel lev...

By my count, Outside People is the third theatre piece about a white American in contemporary China to hit town this season.  On the tails of Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, Zayd Dohrn's dark comedy deals with Yankee naiveté regarding cultur...

A confident Max Darwin rolls into the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center Theater on his "magic dune buggy" and begins his show by encouraging everyone to come see it. "Tell your family, your friends...the guy sitting next to you on the subway...." He then goes on to say, "I'm the Amazing Max and I kn...

The audience greets their star's entrance with a long round of enthusiastic cheers as she takes her place center stage and she, in turn, glares back at them with a look of unrestrained contempt.  That's the charm of Jackie Hoffman's relationship with her fans.  She always seems utterly annoyed at ...

EndTimes Productions presents its 5th annual Yuletide bacchanalia at the Times Square Arts Center, a hilarious, free-spirited debauchery of anything goes (and it pretty much does). This musical not only rises to the occasion, but also proves that this year, it's "not about the holidays... it's abou...

While you probably wouldn't expect period recordings of 'Let's Do It' and 'St. Louis Woman' to be part of the pre-show soundtrack for a family friendly production of Snow White, director/choreographer Austin McCormick's Company XIV has never been a group to provide the expected....

Overall, Kissing Sid James was a good production. Farquhar delivered an ending that was counterintuitive to what I was expecting and therefore thoroughly satisfying. The audience was so invested in the story that when the first reference to Sid James was mentioned in Act I, everyone in the audience...

'We began this production with the simplest and most time-honored of theatrical practices,' writes New York Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis.  'We were looking for the next great role for Jay O. Sanders.'...

59E59 Theatres welcomed the return of the New Perspective Theatre Company to their "Brits Off Broadway" festival with the American premiere of Michael Morpurgo's Farm Boy. Adapted as well as Directed by Daniel Buckroyd, Farm Boy opened December 13, and runs for limited time. A sequel to Morpurgo's...

For many Americans - okay, white suburban middle classers into traditional gender roles - the 1950s was an idyllic time when the country could rest easily with our post-war status as the world's super-power before the internal unrest of the 60s began exposing the ugly imperfections.  For stressed o...

Whether it's historic Off-Broadway theatres being replaced by chain stores and condos after their rents are tripled or beloved long-time Coney Island businesses facing eviction if they don't conform to the bland, antiseptic vision of new planners, New Yorkers are very familiar with the culture vs. c...

The Off-Broadway Shelter Theatre presents FAIRY TALE, of five original short plays inspired by the stories of The Brothers Grimm, Washington Irving, and Charles Perrault. Each story is a unique take on classic fairy tales, but unfortunately, there is hardly any semblance of the originals as these s...

Jacques Brel is dead and buried and entombed in French Polynesia and the Zipper Theatre, home of the very satisfying revival of Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris several seasons back is now a beloved memory, but the producers of that mounting have been keeping the 'ol carousel madly turning ...

White Christmas is just too good a musical to be limited to holiday-time productions.  Especially when you have Larry Blank's ultra-snazzy swing orchestrations vibrantly delivering a gold-plated assortment of Irving Berlin classics and Randy Skinner's dancers heating up the floor with some sensatio...

Dael Orlandersmith has crafted an affecting, packed tale of addiction in the scope of a well-to-do white family that comes full circle in many shocking ways....

Let's face it; Silence Of The Lambs is one heck of a disturbing film. There's kidnapping, human skinning (and donning), human killing (and eating), unwelcomed public masturbation (and… sharing), mind games, criminals, memories of animal slaughter, local police, and bad pantsuits. With such horror ...