OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

Early arrivals to the McGinn/Cazale for Second Stage's Theatre Uptown production of Animals Out Of Paper can fill up their spare minutes by folding up a creation or two with the free origami paper made available in the lobby. Or, if you're like me, just admire the pieces already on display....

Although that bountiful cornucopia of high praise, John 'I Loved It!' Simon, chose to heap lavish compliments on those he saw as standouts with his usual critical generosity, I'd rather not review the performances showcased by Scott and Barbara Siegel in their second annual concert of new talent, Br...

Though idiots like the academic assortment of Richard Nelson's Some Americans Abroad, his 1989 satire of Yankee cultural self-loathing, may be high on Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord High Executioner's little list of those whose loss would be a distinct gain to society at large, this verbose crew would ...

This New York Observer feature on 'New Old Gays' confuses me. Do you have to actually be homosexual to be considered a New Old Gay? Because the writer is describing me and about half of my straight male friends....

First things first; there is no hot air ballooning in Mark Brown's stage adaptation of Jules Verne's Around The World In 80 Days, just in case your only familiarity with the plot comes from Michael Todd's not exactly faithful 1956 movie version. (For that matter, there aren't any martial arts fight...

The word 'ridiculous' carries a certain reverence in theatre circles and when Duncan Pflaster calls his new play, Prince Trevor Amongst The Elephants, 'a big epic naked ridiculous Shakespearean fairy tale play for adults,' those in the know catch it as a bow to the late, great Charles Ludlum. For t...

The title character - well, actually the title prop - of Sam Shepard's new entry, Kicking a Dead Horse, doesn't have to lift a hoof to make an impressive star entrance. Lying beneath a sheet that covers the entire curtain-less stage as the audience enters The Public's Martinson Hall, the slow delib...

Perched above the stage in their private bleacher section, just beyond an outfield fence graffitied with the musical's title, conductor Rob Berman and his 25 piece Encores! Summer Stars orchestra might be mistaken for the conservatory cousins of Brooklyn's legendary Dodger Sym-Phony. But instead of...

The last time I reviewed the cabaret antics of singing comedians Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, a/k/a Booth & Pat, the description, 'The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth,' entered the picture. In their new gig, Slow Children Playing, which has one more scheduled performance at The Duplex on ...

I don't take pleasure in anybody's death; not even the death of someone who trampled on the rights of free speech in order to prevent funding for art that he considered to be obscene. I'm sure he felt he was doing the right thing for the country I have no reason to doubt he loved....

While the rest of the country celebrates Independence Day with barbeques and fireworks, musical theatre lovers like me will gather around their television sets for the traditional viewing of what I and many others call the finest film ever made from a Broadway musical, 1776....

Our new poll concerns some of our great Broadway veterans who, amazingly, have yet to win their first Tony Award. Who would you like to see finally win the big prize? The versatile actor, John McMartin? Mega-popular composer/lyricist (and once nominated as a co-bookwriter), Stephen Schwartz? The...

The history of Broadway's attempts to make commercially successful sequels of hit musicals is not a pretty one. But the Opening Doors Theatre Company, now in its second season at The Duplex staging pocket-sized versions of some of Broadway's most beloved flops, can offer a fabulously fun time from ...

After earning high accolades from its appearances in both New York and Toronto's Fringe Festivals and winning a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for 'fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimi...

Musical theatre, at least in the popular denominations practiced here in Gotham, has long been known to preach a message of gay rights to an eagerly accepting congregation, and those who would deny the natural occurrence or the legal acceptance of homosexuality have been generally depicted as hatef...

Set designer Derek McLane exercises no subtlety in immediately establishing the mood for Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's drama Good Boys and True.  On entering Second Stage's theatre the audience is greeted by three walls full of dozens and dozens of sports trophies neatly displayed in wooden shelves that...

Spotted at Cafe Edison:  Hillary Clinton and Cubby Bernstein in serious conversation huddled over bowls of motzah ball soup.  As Leo Frank sang, this is not over yet....

Arriving on Broadway six years after La, La, Lucille, followed-up by Yes, Yes, Yvette and inspiring Betty Comden and Adolph Green to imagine a musical named If, If, Iphigenia, No, No, Nanette is the kind of delectably frothy musical comedy confection you might not naturally associate with being the ...

I mean it with the most sincere amount of respect and admiration for both gentlemen when I write that Peter Gallagher seems to have morphed into Jerry Orbach.  At least in his portrayal of Bernie Dodd, the hard-driving Broadway director convinced that when the star of his new play suddenly leaves f...

Though Julie Wilson was certainly not the first and by all means not the last great singer to have her heart stomped upon by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's 'Surabaya Johnny,' there is no one I can name more deserving to claim it as their signature song.  (Okay, maybe Lotte Lenya, but you know that...

You'll please forgive me if I've run out of superlative adjectives with which to describe the work of Marilyn Maye, who, after a 15-year absence from New York's cabaret scene, just opened her 4th Metropolitan Room show in a baker's dozen months....

Several years before Urinetown's Mark Hollmann began writing satirical songs about the public's right to pee he teamed up with playwright Jennifer Fell Hayes to pen a delightful musical for young audiences about one of New York's lesser known cultural landmarks.  Fare For All at The Mount Vernon Ho...

I suppose the main difference between a violent protest and an act of terrorism is whether you're on the side of the person who set off the bomb or the person who was killed by it.  In Primary Stages' premiere production of Willy Holtzman's drama, Something You Did, the person responsible for the b...

When last we left The Mint Theater, that extraordinary collective of theatre archivists that specialize in mounting first-class Off-Broadway productions of time-obscured plays by still-famous names, they were teaching many New Yorkers that Leo Tolstoy took a crack at playwrighting once with his grim...

With three different directors placing their marks on the material during its pre-Broadway tryouts and two actors who were not quite up to the vocal demands of the dramatic score playing the leads (Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas), Marc Blitzstein (music and lyrics) and Joseph Stein's (book) Juno,...