OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

Michael Frayn's 1975 comedy, Alphabetical Order, is the type of play that, either as a compliment or as a dismissal, American audiences are likely to label as 'very British.'  Its humor is subtle, its themes are sub-textual and the characters all talk in these funny accents.  But even those who ap...

While Sarah Ruhl and director Rebecca Taichman haven't exactly made children's theatre out of Virginia Woolf's transgendering 1928 novel, Orlando (unless you approve of full adult nudity in your kiddie matinees), there are generous doses of playful whimsy in this well-mounted CSC production; though ...

Perhaps it's a sign of economic hardship continuing to plague Off-Broadway that not one drop of V-8 Vegetable Juice Cocktail is poured over the leading lady's head, nor is even one slice of watermelon smacked onto an actor's skull in Ivo van Hove's deliciously stark and chilly interpretation of Lill...

I suppose it's about time someone came up with a name for that genre of plays where a handful of actors each impersonate a varied assortment of characters to tell a sprawling story, i.e., The 39 Steps, The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged).  When that jolly day arrives certainly Chris Weikel'...

There's a strong essence of familiarity to be whiffed at Edward Albee's latest, Me, Myself & I, especially if you have fond memories of his far superior absurdist effort, The Play About The Baby.  Once again there's a bickering couple bearing a strong resemblance to an older version of ...Virginia ...

After reading far too many obituaries claiming, while not exactly mourning, the death of the Broadway musical, insisting that the art form can only be revived by injections of the kind of music that appeals to today's young audiences, I decided to take a night off from cabarets and piano bars a coup...

It's not shaping up to be a very promising season for alumni of The Carol Burnett Show.  Just like the recently closed Viagra Falls, Kenny Solms' It Must Be Him offers a terrific company of comical pros working hard to inject any mirth possible into ninety minutes of tepid material....

Though Teresa Deevy was arguably the world's most famous female playwright in 1942, the year she completed her class-conscious romance Wife To James Whelan, the new management of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, which had already produced six of her plays, turned it down.  The once-prolific career of the dr...

'I should have taken the jail time,' moans the solo character in Randy Cohen's The Punishing Blow, not quite under his breath....

Lovers of the hair bands of 70s, 80s and 90s who find Rock of Ages just too intellectually complex shall rejoice at the arrival of Power Balladz, the show that puts the 'z' in 'rock anthem.'  I'm just not certain where exactly it puts it....

I was forty-five years old when a theatre professional I greatly admired first took me out to lunch to discuss his lifetime of experience and my fledgling career as a critic.  If my mother were alive to see it, I'm sure she would find nothing creepy about the scene.  But in his frequently clever c...

Congratulations to David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris who are expecting twins this fall by way of a surrogate.  Now there's two kids who are going to have the entire score of Les Misérables memorized by the time they're five....

I just spent the last two days trying to figure out why the bookwriter/lyricist of Spring Awakening was working as a flight attendant....

Family fun is rarely as tantalizingly edgy as when that troupe from of the old days of new vaudeville, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, is in town.  Their return engagement of 4Play, an exploration of the rhythms shared by music, juggling and humor, is performed with the ensemble's trademark inspire...

Back in the day, the great ladies of the theatre were known to provide their own dresses and gowns as they toured the provinces in contemporary dramas and comedies.  And while today's Off-Broadway productions generally have costume designers to handle such matters, at least one Obie-winner, Donna L...

All that was missing was an ice cold can of beer in my hand as I sat back in my folding beach chair and took in the sights as I imagined the ocean waves of Coney Island crashing in the distance.  No wait... maybe that was really the sound of the crashing waters of Niagara Falls.  Or was I at The ...

'So what are you seeing next?' is a question I'm frequently asked and every year around this time when I answer, 'Broadway's Rising Stars.  It's a concert at Town Hall with recent college and theatre school graduates singing showtunes,' I often get that look of pity that presumes that sitting throu...

There's something very endearing about watching a couple of old pros like Bernie Kopell and Lou Cutell exercise their finely tuned comedic chops as a pair of elderly widowers looking for a night of excitement; especially when that excitement comes in the form of Teresa Ganzel, who displays ample com...

In Ten Reasons I Won't Go Home With You, now playing as part of the Midtown InterNational Theatre Festival, actress/stand-up comic Kelly Nichols plays Katie, a smart, funny and single New Yorker looking to find her one true love.  But as bookwriter of the show, which is inspired by her own dating h...

I'll be blunt.  I'm not going to go into much detail about the problems with composer/bookwriter Rob Broadhurst and lyricist/bookwriter Brent Black's teenage Faustian musical, I'll Be Damned, since it's a fledgling effort and the Jaradoa Theater Company offers seats for a comparatively low price. ...

So the big theatre buzz on Sunday morning was generated from a New York Times op-ed piece by violinist Paul Woodiel, currently employed by the Broadway production of West Side Story.  As the long-time friend of that show's composer, Leonard Bernstein, put it, '(A)fter 500 performances, our producer...

When it was hip to be hep I was hep but since it's no longer hip to be hep I sometimes get confused by today's pop stars. Every time I see Lady Gaga I keep thinking Leigh Bowery has lost a lot of weight and for the longest time I thought Beyoncé was the name of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's l...

What a difference sixteen years can make.  A toddler can become a voter, an innovation can become a cliché and, in the case of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, a tense drama can turn into fluff romantic comedy....

I've yet to hear anyone complain that the trouble with musical theatre today is that too many shows are based on greeting cards, but given the success of the empire known as Nunsense, I'm surprised that more composers, lyricists and bookwriters haven't turned to the catalogues of Hallmark for inspir...

I will leave it to you, dear readers, if you decide to take in a performance of Jerry Mayer's Dietrich and Chevalier, to determine for yourselves if it's better off being a play peppered with just a few musical moments or a full-out concert with just a smattering of narrative.  As it stands now, th...