OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

If Diane Paulus' new version of Porgy and Bess does make it to Broadway, I know one theatre that ain't gonna house it....

If Mike Nichols and Elaine May ever had a routine about two theatre geeks discussing their favorite unsuccessful musicals, it probably would have resembled the kind of banter that goes on between Jennifer Tepper and Kevin Michael Murphy as creators/producers/hosts of the concert series, If It Only E...

Lenny Bruce used to say that if you used a hurtful word often enough it would lose its meaning and its power to harm.  I think Broadway has reached that point with the F-word.  You know the F-word I'm talking about.  Flop....

When Barry Connors' frothy family comedy, The Patsy, enjoyed its seven-month at the Booth during Broadway's 1925-26 season, it was a three-act play utilizing one living room set and seven actors.  Transport Group's new production, directed by Jack Cummings III, reduces the piece to an intermissionl...

As I wrote five years ago, regarding the first edition of Town Hall's Annual Broadway's Rising Stars concert, the traditional middle evening of their Summer Broadway Festival, this is an event where I have absolutely no intention of writing anything the least bit negative about any of the young perf...

If I were delusional enough to think my scribblings could turn an unknown into a star overnight, then I'd be writing these words fully confident that by tomorrow morning every Broadway producer in town would want to sign a young musical comedy actress named Oakley Boycott.  Yes, Oakley Boycott is h...

Neal Bell's Spatter Pattern: or How I Got Away with It is running now through July 31st at the Atlantic Stage 2 (330 16th Street). Directed by Potomac Theatre Project's Co-Artistic Director Jim Petosa, Spatter Pattern is a part of the PTP/NYC's 25th Anniversary season in rep with Territories and Vi...

They look a little like Blue Man Group, they sound a little like Toxic Audio and they talk a lot like Andy Kaufman and Carol Kane playing Latka and Simka on Taxi, but while Voca People might give the appearance of being a bit too tourist trappy for we jaded New York theatre types, it's the kind of f...

Former 90s club kids nostalgic for theme nights at Limelight should get a kick out of director David Esbjornson's frequently flashy and enjoyable mounting of Shakespeare's Measure For Measure; a production where, under a simple, but austere cathedral-like setting, the antics straddle the line betwee...

See enough Cirque du Soleil productions and the formula becomes clear very quickly.  It's a given that you'll be treated to a collection of world-class jugglers, balancers, acrobats and daredevils displaying skills that would make all but the most jaded widen their eyes and let out the occasional g...

While Shakespeare's canon includes many couples whose relationships are of questionable health - Kate and Petruchio, Beatrice and Benedick, Mr. and Mrs. Scottish - few are as discomfortingly mismatched as the lead pair of All's Well That Ends Well....

On a weekend when New Yorkers who favor marriage rights for gay couples are celebrating an important victory, Classic Stage Company's Unnatural Acts is a sobering dramatization of a shameful episode involving a Joseph McCarthy-type gay witch hunt from nearly a century ago that was only recently unco...

There's much to be admired in director/adaptor Moises Kaufman's staging of Tennessee Williams' unproduced screenplay based on his 1942 short story, One Arm.  If not exactly completely satisfying theatre, it is certainly a nobly-intended and well-executed curiosity....

Although there have been previous productions of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World since the musical premiered in Los Angeles eight years ago, thanks to a 13-year-old girl's fondness for Friday, the show has never been more relevant....

Though playwright Rachel Crothers was regarded as the toast of the town for many a Broadway season - she had 29 plays debut there in the years between 1906 and 1940 - she's scarcely know by 21st Century playgoers.  Fortunately, the Mint Theater Company has been doing its part to return her name to ...

Under Artistic Director Cara Reichel, the Prospect Theater Company has earned a reputation for presenting unconventional musicals that explore interesting topics and their newest entry, I Married Wyatt Earp, co-produced with New York Theatre Barn as part of 59E59 Theater's 'Americas Off Broadway' se...

Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You! continues its run at the Stage Left Studio. Written and performed by Jay Alvarez and directed by Theresa Gambacorta, Be Careful! recounts Alvarez' family and their harrowing escape from early 1960s Cuba. Alvarez takes the audience on a trip from revolution to th...

Though the current tenants at the Eugene O'Neil claim to be presenting 'God's Favorite Musical,' the new gang moving into Circle In The Square this October may have something to say about that as the first Broadway revival of Godspell gears up for a November 7th opening....

With an uneventful 6pm coming and going on the evening of May 21st, I rested comfortably that night secure in the knowledge that any predictions of the arrival of Judgment Day were, at the very least, miscalculations.  But the next evening, as I sat watching David Burnham, Sally Mayes, Howard McGil...

Those who miss the patter of little urbanites that made Thursday night sitcoms so popular in the 1990s should welcome the arrival of Jonathan Marc Sherman's angsty new comedy, Knickerbocker; a play generously populated by an assortment of smart, funny and hip New Yorkers whose charm lies in their ab...

While older plays can often be interpreted to suit modern tastes and standards, films serve as permanent records of the public attitudes of their times; particularly when considering the ways ethnic minorities were portrayed.  Many a fine film from long ago can contain moments that strike the moder...

Gotham Burlesque however breaks through the malaise of this neo-burlesque to give the audience a thoroughly fun ninety minutes. These talented performers did a great job not only performing the art of the striptease but also finding the humor in the art. Gypsy Rose Lee would be proud. ...

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'This is kind of a weird play. I'll show you what I mean,' offers Bernard (Brian Hutchison), the character who opens David Greenspan's Go Back To Where You Are with a nostalgic monologue about childhood summers at a family Long Island beach house that sets a tone somewhat akin to that of a Tennessee...

'One man's facts are another man's fabrications,' notes Ghassan (Ted Sod) as he and several other characters in Mona Mansour's Urge For Going try to explain to the audience the circumstances that brought this family of Palestinian Arabs to live in a South Lebanese refugee camp that has been serving...