OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

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...

The trouble all started when Jule Styne composed a score for Funny Girl that Fanny Brice could not possibly have sung. ...

When Isaiah Sheffer first walked into the dilapidated movie house on Broadway and 95th Street in the late '70s he saw some kind of makeshift boxing ring on the creaky stage.  But what he envisioned was a great center for the arts on the Upper West Side that filled the wide cultural gap between Linc...

The Screwtape Letters are not for everyone. It is good to say that right off the bat, just to be clear. Adapted from the C.S. Lewis novel about spiritual warfare, and told from a demon's point of view, this play reads a whole lot like a series of warped philosophical lectures on the human condition....

During my first theater job in New York, I was asked to go to a reading of a play called The Mistakes Madeleine Made, by Elizabeth Meriwether. The play - about a young woman facing family tragedy and a fear of cleanliness -- ended up being produced by Naked Angels, and I've remembered it fondly for ...

Theater Breaking Through Barriers produces Kate Moira Ryan's nearly-funny comedy 'Bass For Picasso', featuring the company's traditional blend of differently-abled actors....

Erotic Broadway has returned to New York City with a new edition entitled 'Vintage Variety.' The revue, which enjoyed a sold out run in the summer and fall of last year, is now scheduled to play once a month at The Triad....

As the saying goes 'size matters.' Here in America we like things big: big cars, big paychecks, big plates of food, and even big hairdos. Given our proclivity for all things huge it is no surprise that the struggle to measure up goes further than just material possessions. Sure, big muscles can be g...

The onetime movie star, now in a play off-B'way, talks about giving up Hollywood, acting on stage and running an herb farm in N.M....

Shakespeare is commissioned to write about current events in Bill Cain's fascinating new drama, currently running at Manhattan Theater Club....

The Red Fern Theatre Company presents seven new plays imagining the New York of 30 years from now with angst and wit....

The issue of abortion gets a decidedly one-sided study in Jonathan Reynolds' newest play, currently running at the Flea....

This country-fried musical revue celebrates Southern women, but never quite comes together. ...